[Plugin] AreaTextTag

TIG · 8 Feb 2012, 22:35

Is there a way to add multiple faces to get one total area? I see I can handily do multiple individuals to get multiple results...
The areas of 'surfaces' made from faces with smoothed edges are reported as 'one' if the edges; visibility is 'off'.
You can of course report areas of selected/all tagged faces using a CSV file and the appropriate tool in the set...
Please read the notes...

brookefox · 8 Feb 2012, 23:02

Well, thanks. I read your top notes, if that's what you mean (and the rest though less carefully). I see nothing about my question but don't doubt I may be missing it still.

Trying your instruction doesn't work for me. Please see this pic:

TIG · 8 Feb 2012, 23:54

It's not so clear from your image what it is you are trying to tag...

If the boundary edges between two faces are 'smoothed' [and not visible] then the picked/selected area-tag reports the area of the 'surface' - i.e. the two combined faces - otherwise each face gets an individual area-tag.

If you want to show an area split into 'parcels' provided that the dividing lines don't split the face then the area-tag will refer to the underlying face. To stop the face splitting you could either leave a small gap in the line so there is no loop and therefore the face isn't split, or you could use a group to separate the 'dividing' lines from the face so that whilst the face might look like it was divided up it is not, OR draw two sets of faces - one set sub-divided and tagged individually and the other made as a copied group of faces on its own layer with dividing lines removed so there is one face to take the 'combined' tag... Also if you know the total area of a group of plots [found from a temporary outline say] you could add that to each tag's suffix - e.g. "Plot 1 <>\nof 12.3acres", "Plot 2 <>\nof 12.3acres" etc where each <> will contain the actual area, then if you adjust the dividing lines between plots an auto-recalc will adjust each plot's area but display the total consistently ?

You can export a CSV file listing areas-tags and any text you might associate with the area-tags to help identify them. The total is easily got for the area-tags in a column...

brookefox · 9 Feb 2012, 00:36

Thank you. My problem was with the 'visibility off', by which you were not referring to hidden or not as I had assumed, but rather to smoothing aspects.

Work-arounds are easy enough.

To clarify what I'm trying to tag:

TIG · 9 Feb 2012, 09:23

If it's a single face it gets one area-tag - delete the intervening edges if it's all coplanar.
If it's a single surface that's not coplanar you must 'smooth' the common edges between faces [not just 'hide' them] - i.e. with view>hidden-geometry 'on' use Erase+Ctrl. Then with view>hidden-geometry 'off' place an area-tag on one of the surface's faces - now it'll report the 'surface area' - i.e. the combined areas of all of the connected faces...

castaway · 21 Mar 2012, 12:09

Thank you for such a useful plugin, TIG.
I am having some trouble with accents though, take a look at the screenshot, it should read "HABITACIÓ 1 ..." "HABITACIÓ 2..." and "DISTRIBUÏDOR". Should I change any setting to adjust the text language or character set?

TIG · 21 Mar 2012, 12:52

If you use those accented characters in 'plain' Text does it then work OK ?
The tool should simply concatenate the same text/areas into one string...

castaway · 21 Mar 2012, 13:02

Do you mean creating a text label through Tools > Text? If so then yes, accents are displayed just fine.

TIG · 21 Mar 2012, 15:10

Here's v1.4 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=373717#p373717
The correct interpretation of UTF8 accented characters etc in customized area-tags has now been resolved.

TIG · 22 Mar 2012, 10:57

OK...
You have the area-tags inside a locked-group.
It [should***] only reports on tags in the active_context.
So unlocking the group and editing it should then produce the CSV...
***BUT it fails - I am investigating why...
If I explode the group the area-tags export OK, BUT I notice the Unicode accented-character errors recurring - so I'll fix that at the same time...
Watch for an update soon...

castaway · 22 Mar 2012, 11:13

Hi again,
I noticed the behaviour you described and was about to post about it when I saw your comment.
One more thing about the exported cvs file if I may: as you can see I am using the following structure for the labels: label name, a new line and the area. The exported cvs outputs exactly this, in the form of "LABEL NAME\n<>", which does not seem very clean. What I can do is run a "find and replace" operation for "\n<>" in LibreOffice and delete it, but imo it would be cleaner if that information was not in the cvs exported file.

Thanks for looking into this.

castaway · 22 Mar 2012, 11:34

@tig said:

Here's v1.4 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=373717#p373717
The correct interpretation of UTF8 accented characters etc in customized area-tags has now been resolved.

Wow, that was quick and effective. Now it works beautifully, thanks a lot!

I am having some trouble exporting to cvs though, the only contents of the exported file is "LAYER,TEXT,PERIM,AREA,UNITS". Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I think I have followed the instructions properly (save as and then export to cvs). I am attaching you the skp file used in my tests.

areas_v4.skp

TIG · 22 Mar 2012, 12:20

Here's v1.5 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=373717#p373717

The CSV reporting is fixed - it now uses correctly accented UTF8 characters, and now reports Tags in the active context properly [so if they are inside a group edit that group before running the reporter].
It now also strips all '\n' from reported 'names'
It substitutes '/' if there is multi-line text, other than 'name\n<>' which becomes 'name' anyway, whereas 'name\nmore\n<>' becomes 'name / more' in the reported name.
If the name includes text other than '<>' then the '<>' is always omitted - so 'name <>' becomes 'name '.
However, a Tag with just a '<>' [or '<->'] is still reported as named '<>'.

castaway · 22 Mar 2012, 12:45

I just tested it and works perfectly, I wish I had a hat to take of to you. Thank you so much!

ZFRPS · 22 Mar 2012, 13:16

Dear Tig:
good job!The CSV reporting is my want,Very slow when reporting ....

TIG · 22 Mar 2012, 13:26

Its 'slowness' is because it must find all text-tags in the current context by sifting out other things, then it must 'update' them in case a tagged face has changed since the last update, it also must check for tags that are no longer glued to a face and ignore them, and also for duplicate tags placed on the same face and so on [this can be done beforehand using 'Update' manually, which might speed up the CSV a little]... the writing of the CSV file itself is relatively quick once the updating concludes...

I noticed that your CSV toolbar button icon is missing - I have missed it out of the subfolder set.
I'll add it to any future updates, but meanwhile if you substitute/add these two PNG files into the tool's subfolder it will fix the missing icon...

ZFRPS · 22 Mar 2012, 13:38

Dear Tig:
Here amount only:1001006=60000;slow !!Half an hour past it no finish!
if csv change to xml ?
or other way ?

Thanks again !

ZFRPS · 22 Mar 2012, 13:47

OK!
Irrespective !
I only look forward to it change to very very quickly !

Your job is great for all SU-FANS,I love you !

THANKS AGAIN

ArCAD-UK · 22 Mar 2012, 15:14

TIG, Many thanks for developing this.

I have just downloaded the RBZ and have tried a few variations of tagging but keep getting zero perimeters. The areas are working as expected with simple rectangles and no grouping. Bug or have I missed something?

Update: If I change "Report Surface Area" to Yes then perimeter is reported.

TIG · 22 Mar 2012, 16:54

@arcad-uk said:

TIG, Many thanks for developing this.

I have just downloaded the RBZ and have tried a few variations of tagging but keep getting zero perimeters. The areas are working as expected with simple rectangles and no grouping. Bug or have I missed something?

Update: If I change "Report Surface Area" to Yes then perimeter is reported.
You must apply an area tag directly onto a face.... how the hell is it going to know what face to use if you apply it onto a group or instance ?
So... in the same [edit] context as the face you want to tag pick that face to add an area tag onto it.
If you later export those tags from that context into a CSV file the faces' areas and the faces' perimeters are returned...
The 'surface'=Yes tag is intended for adding area-tags to bound-faces that are 'facets' with hidden/smoothed edges, forming a 'surface' where you want the one area reported for all of them together, getting the perimeter of a 'surface' is much more complex than with a face [in fact it's too complex!]...