[Plugin] follow me rotate

brookefox · 24 Apr 2012, 23:47

Results with a 2d spiral:

pilou · 25 Apr 2012, 00:05

Better if surface is drawn on the ground (Flat) as a top view as the helix is vertical
but not obliged in theory any orientations can be made
Seems your examples fail because of the Construction Point is out of the surface!

You can add a Construction Point on the surface By the Didier Bur Projection

Images following by Takesh

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 00:32

Thank you for your very helpful help. I will try to implement it.

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 00:39

It's a start!

Dave R · 25 Apr 2012, 00:43

Looks like a drogue to drag behind a boat.

mitcorb · 25 Apr 2012, 00:53

Do you have to group the polygon first? No?

pilou · 25 Apr 2012, 01:08

Your result is normal
Scale 0.2 signify 1/5 at each segment generation!
so
1, 0.2, 0.04, 0.008...so toward very tiny very speedy
Take 0.95 if you want a more smooth reduction

PS Put a Construction Point at the center of the surface make nothing more!
This one must be excentered for make something funny!

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 01:31

You pick the face and the path, face and curve, no group.

Getting somewhere, at least.

I'm sparing you the mis-starts, by which means I absolve myself of error.

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 01:33

I think that degrees of rotation and scaling over the entire path would be useful settings, saving much perhaps tedious calculation for the machine, which does it so much faster.

Dave R · 25 Apr 2012, 02:19

I had to play a little.

pilou · 25 Apr 2012, 10:15

The curious is that works for the v6 but not for the V7 for me

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 16:52

I will get a boat and try it. Thank you, Dave.

Thanks, Pilou. I figured my interpretation of the scale setting was the problem. I assumed it was over the entire path and that the number would be the result, i.e. 20% of the original at the end. A few extra words in the setting dialog might save a lot of dead drouge drag. Did you miss my construction point? I managed that.

I think another problem is the helix has too many segments to be workable and I am trying now to work that but so far the routine reverses the helix, etc.

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 18:02

My main problem at the time of my first post, apart from understanding that the settings were per segment rather than per curve, was that I had picked the edges of the face as well as the face. You must not pick the face edges.

The movement of the path from its original location seems inconsistent, though I don't doubt it is obeying some rule. My faces lie on the path and my control points are at the end of the path and on the face, but sometimes the routine moves the path to have its other end meet the face and point. Once with the same entities but a simplified curve it did not do this.; at the moment it is so instead of decreasing from the big end I contrive to increase from the small end.

Use Simplify curves to reduce the segment numbers in a curve if it suits your purposes as it does here for me as I want the faceted look.

Pilou's pics by Takesh, with Pilou's notes, at the wonderful site pushpullbar.com : http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums/showthread.php?9467-Visual-Index-of-Ruby-Scripts

What happens for you now, Pilou?

This is close to the kind of thing I was looking for.

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 18:20

Suggestion for settings dialog, with a tweak.

mitcorb · 25 Apr 2012, 23:15

I downloaded the zip version on page 4 or 5, extracted to V7 Plugins. No sign of any part of the script in the menu. No info in preferences>extensions. No toolbar selection. Nothing in the tools menu. Is it a right click context thing? Did I miss something?

brookefox · 25 Apr 2012, 23:29

Did you try page 1: far.rar?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7 or 8\Plugins\FollowAndRotate_en.rbs

Called by name in plugin drop down menu...

mitcorb · 26 Apr 2012, 01:11

The files are in the correct Plugins folder, they just don't "install(?)" to be seen in the drop downs.

Dave R · 26 Apr 2012, 02:10

It didn't work for me until I put the ...cn.rbs file in, too. And it shows at the bottom of my Plugins menu

pilou · 26 Apr 2012, 10:05

Yes I have made some tuts images for this cool series!

Must be "Rotation Angle per segment"

Try also 2 faces + Path by Kyrill 2008
Very funny plug with options!

mitcorb · 26 Apr 2012, 10:57

I had the "Far" folder in the Plugins menu. Opening that and copy/pasting the files out of that folder to the file list was the next step. I don't know why the folder would not deploy the files at the last step. So, now I will experiment.
And yes, I see the FollowAndRotate call in the Plugins Menu, now.
Thanks, y'all.