Absurd camera behaviour

[Diggsey]

I have a situation where I need to take control of the camera temporarily, but I'd like to return it to its original position at the end. The API docs show that you can create new instances of the camera class, so I just saved the original camera, did my stuff with the new one and then restored the original camera at the end. The problem is that once a camera has been set as the camera for a view, it actually modifies the old camera instance!

Example:

cam1 = Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera
cam1.perspective = true
cam2 = Sketchup;;Camera.new
cam2.perspective = false
cam1.perspective?                                # outputs true
cam2.perspective?                                # outputs false
Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera = cam2
cam1.perspective?                                # outputs false
cam2.perspective?                                # outputs false

Seemingly the only way to get this to work is to save all the properties of the curent camera individually at the start and then restore them at the end, but this means the script would break if any new properties are added to the camera class.

I've also tried using "clone" on the camera which seemed initially to work, but gives the strange error: "Error: #<TypeError: (eval):0:in `perspective?': reference to deleted Camera>" when I try to use it.

[Dan Rathbun]

cam2 = Sketchup.Camera.new

is incorrect for 2 reasons:

1) the class reference is: Sketchup::Camera

2) The new() constructor has 3 required arguments

[Diggsey]

The first one is a typo (fixed), and the second one is not true, both the API docs and ruby reflection clearly show that it can be called with no arguments.

[Dan Rathbun]

@diggsey said:

I've also tried using " clone" on the camera which seemed initially to work, but gives the strange error: "Error: #<TypeError: (eval):0:in `perspective?': reference to deleted Camera>" when I try to use it.

clone() and dup() only work for standard Ruby classes (or those API classes that Google specifically overrode, ie, redefined the clone method that is inherited from class Object. [.. And there are only a few or these.])

[Dan Rathbun]

@diggsey said:

The first one is a typo (fixed), and the second one is not true, both the API docs and ruby reflection clearly show that it can be called with no arguments.

OK.. so when no args are given, what is eye, target and up ?

and P.S.: the API docs are full of errors and typos.. and the majority of code samples are erroneous or worthless.

[Diggsey]

@unknownuser said:

clone() and dup() only work for standard Ruby classes (or those API classes that Google specifically overrode, ie, redefined the clone method that is inherited from class Object. [.. And there are only a few or these.])

I realise that, I was just making sure I tried every possibility I could think of.

@unknownuser said:

OK.. so when no args are given, what is eye, target and up ?

It doesn't really matter as long as they are valid (which they are, I've tested it). Either way it's not directly related to the problem, which still occurs in code which does everything "properly" and that code was just the simplest way I could demonstrate it.

[Dan Rathbun]

@diggsey said:

..., so I just saved the original camera, ...

Example:

> cam1 = Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera
> 

No, actually you did not.

Ruby has ONLY 2 basic things. Objects and References that point at objects.

It does not really have variables, like BASIC or Pascal.

So all you did was define a reference cam1 that points at the current view object's camera object.
Later you made that same camera object's pointer (bypassing your cam1 reference,) point at the cam2 referenced camera object.

So yes.. you need to save at the minimum the camera object's eye, target and up, in some way. Local references, a hash, an array.. etc.

[Diggsey]

@unknownuser said:

Ruby has ONLY 2 basic things. Objects and References that point at objects.

It does not really have variables, like BASIC or Pascal.

So all you did was define a reference cam1 that points at the current view object's camera object.
Later you made that same camera object's pointer (bypassing your cam1 reference,) point at the cam2 referenced camera object.

So yes.. you need to save at the minimum the camera object's eye, target and up, in some way. Local references, a hash, an array.. etc.

I know how references work, and this strange behaviour is not simply a by-product of that:

• First I save a reference to the view's camera
• Next I create a NEW camera object, and set the view's camera reference to that object
• Now there should be two camera objects in existence, so modifying the properties of one should not affect the properties of the other, but it does.

I've tracked it down and the reason for the behaviour is this:

• Camera objects start off "empty", and simply store a set of parameters, and don't relate to an actual camera, so you can have many instances of them and change their properties independently.
• When a camera object is assigned to a view's camera, the camera object completely changes to become a wrapper around an actual camera - all its parameters are applied to the actual camera and then deleted, and instead the camera object has a pointer to the actual camera, so from now on when you set/get a parameter it goes straight through the wrapper to the actual camera.

In reality these two states should be separate classes, the first storing the properties of a camera, and the second wrapping an actual camera in sketchup, with methods to set/get a cameras properties as an object.

[Dan Rathbun]

Ok I played around a bit in the console.. and I agree with you. This is another example of poorly wrapped C++ objects that can cause Rubyist's nightmare.

Each time we call Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera we get a new Ruby object.
Ex:

Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera == Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera %(#008000)[>> false]