[Plugin] Super Drape

TIG · 11 Jan 2012, 08:51

Like this...

charly2008 · 13 Jan 2012, 23:32

Hi TIG,

I would like to again thank you very much for your help.

Charly

rachmatrf · 21 Feb 2012, 10:19

Hi TIG,

Thank you again...
You Rock!!!

dansphere · 20 Mar 2012, 15:39

This is awesome! Used it loads already.

Is it possible to have the resultant lines and faces go to default layer 0 or a specified layer instead of matching the layer of the surface it's being draped onto? That was I could hide the surface and picked out the draped lines and faces all curvy n such

D

dbalex · 23 Mar 2012, 09:05

just wanted to say thanks for this one, it works incredibly well!

opal · 31 Mar 2012, 19:39

I love this tool! It worked great this morning - several times.
This afternoon - 4 bugsplats in a row, right as I click the second group.

I even reinstalled it.. splat.

I haven't changed anything in the program.. no updates on anything since using SU this morning. I don't know what I'm doing to cause the splat.

TIG · 31 Mar 2012, 20:54

@unknownuser said:

I love this tool! It worked great this morning - several times.
This afternoon - 4 bugsplats in a row, right as I click the second group.
I even reinstalled it.. splat.
I haven't changed anything in the program.. no updates on anything since using SU this morning. I don't know what I'm doing to cause the splat.
Have you used Model Info > Statistics > Fix Problems... ?
Have you tried moving the draped object a tiny amount ? Sometimes small facets cause issues.
Alternatively Scale everything up x10 or x100 and retry. Scale down afterwards...
Report back...

opal · 31 Mar 2012, 23:19

@tig said:

@unknownuser said:

I love this tool! It worked great this morning - several times.
This afternoon - 4 bugsplats in a row, right as I click the second group.
I even reinstalled it.. splat.
I haven't changed anything in the program.. no updates on anything since using SU this morning. I don't know what I'm doing to cause the splat.
Have you used Model Info > Statistics > Fix Problems... ?
Have you tried moving the draped object a tiny amount ? Sometimes small facets cause issues.
Alternatively Scale everything up x10 or x100 and retry. Scale down afterwards...
Report back...

Back after testing.

I had not used the statistics fix, but do use TT's cleanup frequently.

moved objects.. centered on origin.. nudged.

scaled up by 10 and 100

all splats

MartinK · 22 Apr 2012, 21:00

Thanks TIG, another useful plugin. This will be quite helpful in draping 2D site plans with materials onto a 3D terrain.

pilou · 22 Apr 2012, 23:19

Totally missed this one!

bravoddb · 22 Aug 2012, 21:55

Can I drape solids? can I do it with a mesh made in sandbox? I need to make a road that follow the terrain, I bought Instant road and I couldn't make it work, I tryed super drape but it crashes, what can I do? or how can I do it?

Thanks

TIG · 22 Aug 2012, 22:05

This doesn't drape 'solids' - only 'faces' - it you explode the solid and get the faces to drape?...

It you want to 'imprint' solids onto a terrain that's a 'whole new kettle of fish'...

bsintzel · 29 Dec 2012, 22:39

TIG,

First I'd like to thank you for your amazing plug-ins. They are all incredibly useful.

I had two questions:

1 - Your Super Drape plugin (above) is is labeled version 3.1, but your download 'appears' to be v3.0. Is this simply a typo?

2 - I experimented with this plugin using various constructs, all of which were grouped (see attachment). All worked well until I attempted to drape grouped text onto the surface of a circle. It appears that the material doesn't transfer. It's probably something I'm doing wrong so if you can...please let me know.

warm regards

Bob

SuperDrape Material anomolie.skp

TIG · 30 Dec 2012, 11:15

@bsintzel said:

1 - Your Super Drape plugin (above) is is labeled version 3.1, but your download 'appears' to be v3.0. Is this simply a typo?

2 - I experimented with this plugin using various constructs, all of which were grouped (see attachment). All worked well until I attempted to drape grouped text onto the surface of a circle. It appears that the material doesn't transfer. It's probably something I'm doing wrong so if you can...please let me know.

The downloadable archives' files' version is v3.1 [clear if you read the file notes in the .rb file inside the subfolder - but, for some reason I can't fathom [brain-fart! ], its archives are labeled incorrectly as '3-0' when they should have been '3-1'. After more than a year you have noticed it ! Several hundred others didn't...
The circle example you show IS actually working...
Look underneath the circle and you will see the material has been properly applied onto the front faces of the letters, the back faces do not get a material.
You have made the circle facing downwards - the default when adding a circle at z=0 is that the back is 'up' - because pushpulling it 'up' then gives the most likely anticipated 3d form. When you drape the letters onto the back of the circle they look like they've not taken the material - because you are looking at their backs; however, the material has been applied onto the letters' fronts [underneath!] as it ought to be.

When modeling it's important to get the front of the face pointing where you want - depending on the Style it's usually shown off-white, while the back of the face is a blue-gray. Some tools like this one, and renderers rely on the correct orientation to apply materials etc. Generally the 'blue' faces should be unseen... I recommend that you make your Style's back-face material a bright blue so that it's most noticeable. Also remember to use the Monochrome View mode now and again - it will display all faces in the default colors, this is very useful to help spot if a now textured face is correctly oriented. Also if you have applied a material onto a group or component-instance then any faces within it that have the default-material will display in that applied-material - both for front and/or back faces, so Monochrome mode is useful to reveal wrongly oriented faces in this context too, where the container's material will otherwise 'mask' the true orientation...

To fix a wrongly oriented face... select it and context-menu 'Reverse' to flip it over - the sibling tool 'Orient' can be used when a correctly oriented face is selected and all then connected faces are flipped to match it [works perfectly on 'solids' or meshes, but it will give unexpected results on complex forms with edges that bound three or more faces, because those faces can never all be oriented right]... A 'reversed' face's materials will flip with the face - if you want to flip the face AND leave the materials un-flipped 'in place'... then find my 'FixReversedFaceMaterials' tool which does this - it was specifically written to fix sloppily modeled objects - where backs have been painted in error and have gone undetected until late in the process, making it useful before committing to rendering, which will otherwise fail as most renderers do not 'paint' back faces, and they can render them white, black or transparent, rather than the expected material...

bsintzel · 1 Jan 2013, 15:52

Well...it seems (for me at least) your never to old to learn something new. It didn't occur to me to look at the .rb file in a text editor. Good call, thanks

The fact that the surface of the circle was face down was a complete surprise to me. I wasn't aware (until you mentioned it) that the darker (blue-gray)side of the face of a Circle is actually its bottom surface. It seemed intuitive to me that if I'm looking down at a circle when I create it, that it's surface would be facing up at me -- apparently not.

Your recommendation to "make your Style's back-face material a bright blue" and to use "monochrome mode", makes a lot of sense. I'll take your advice going forward. With respect to the 'FixReversedFaceMaterials' plugin, I will certainly add it to my collection, along with a gratuity.

I welcome your sage advice.

warm regards

Bob

Dave R · 1 Jan 2013, 18:00

Bob, that reversed face thing snags a lot of folks and it may seem intuitive that you're looking down on the front surface but if you think about it, that's the inside face of the soon-to-be 3D shape. I switched my back face color to a green color that I'd never intentionally use in my models. For me the green color is easier to distinguish from the blue gray default back color.

It's part of my starting template, too.

bsintzel · 1 Jan 2013, 21:13

Dave,

Thanks for your input....it's much appreciated

What I've learned today in this forum goes a long way to explaining many of the strange results I was getting when importing images onto solid surfaces. I'm now revisiting some of my past projects.

Although I'm impressed by the depth and breadth of knowledge in this forum, I'm more impressed with the fact that there's folks like you who take the time to help others less knowledgeable in Sketchup. I think I'm going to be here for a long time

warm regards

Bob

parsleybrain · 28 Oct 2013, 12:29

Hello there,

maybe I'm just stupid or blind but I can't find the installed plugin, I even installed it twice but I can't find it in all of the menus nor can I create a Toolbar icon for it. I also tried to activate it using the preferences window, nothing worked. Please help! Thanks.

Box · 28 Oct 2013, 12:49

Super Drape is an Extension (a fancy plugin) so it needs to be activated/turned on either via the sketchucation extension manager or the extension tab in preferences, found in the window menu.

Oh, you edited your post.

Dave R · 28 Oct 2013, 12:52

Also make sure you have full admin privileges to the Plugins folder.