[Plugin] Shape Bender Beta

Dave R

So I'm learning. Many of the plugins I have picked up had instructions for placing in the tools folder. I will remedy that on my end.

I've never seen a plugin with instructions to put it into the Tools folder. I'd also be interested to know which ones those are. There are plugins that will appear in the tools menu but that's entirely different.

rob-m

I actually don't recall which ones, sorry. Not from this site, I found them elsewhere before I found SketchUcation. Everything I need seems to be here or referenced here. Strangely though, all other plugins I had in the Tools folder seemed to work.
Thanks for the help.
My goal was to take a 3d wall carving and wrap it around a post for cutting on a 4 axis cnc router. This should work very well. thanks for this great plugin!

carammilla

nice

pbacot

Hello,

Thanks for the great plugin work! This is one I've never tried before so I thought I would, since it is often mentioned here. Is it supposed to work on Macs?

In this test I wish to make the rectangular bar bend in the shape of the curve shown. Are there any further tips on how to make it look more like the arc shape?

Thanks, Peter

Screen shot 2012-06-02 at 2.07.11 PM.png
AutoSave_shape bender test.skp

Dave R

Peter,

I got it to go but only after I deleted your funny shape, purged unused stuff from the file, saved it and reopened it. Notice I also moved the line relative to the component. The distance between the line and the component will be used at the distance between the new component and the arc. I expect there distance you had in your set up was a bit too much for Shape bender to create the properly bent shape from the straight version.

AutoSave_shape bender test.skp

pbacot

Dave,

Thanks for the help! I didn't pick that up about the distance. I didn't find anything to purge but the object created by the plugin.

Peter

Dave R

You can play the distance thing to your advantage so it the curve is the centerline of the bent shape, you'll put the straight line on the centerline of the unbent form.

I found 13 unused materials also.

pbacot

Thanks. Yeah, I forgot to look at the materials!

sags

thank you for the shape bender sir..

huntress_ss

Hey Chris,
I've tried ading this plug-in to my sketch-up but it's not working. Show's up with error load with "Error Loading File clf_shape_bender_loader.rb
no such file to load -- progressbar.rb"

Any suggestions on how to get this working?

Gaieus

Please, read the instructions carefully. Chris clearly wrote that you (also) need to install progresbar.rb.

mwm5053

Not sure if this has been covered but getting error when using Shape bender with a slew of plugins in plugin folder when all are removed but
Shape Bender it works fine screen shot on ruby console
Thanks in advance.

Screen Shot 2012-06-24 at 9.23.44 PM.png

TIG

This is an odd error... it relates to a variable that should be set to a number by one of the tool's methods in line #676, clearly it's failing to do that hence the 'nil' error message when its used for a '/' divide calculation...
@offset = **@y_total** / 6
This is set around line #641, as either
@y_total = @line_y - @ymin
or
@y_total = @ymax - @ymin
So it seems the get_max_y method is failing somehow.
That is turn is called from the get_geom_ents method; which is in turn called in line #249 when the user has picked the required objects to trigger the 'bending'...

This suggests that if there's no error in the script [used without issue by thousands?] then perhaps another script is making an 'unwrapped' call of its method[s] with similar names and thereby causing the issue - unlike the usual rogue scripts which redefine how Sketchup treats Groups etc, which is far more awkward...
A 'fix' could be to do a find/replace on all of the code in the script [using Notepad osa], so that all of the get_max_y become say get_max_y_CLF and get_geom_ents become get_geom_ents_CLF - then any clash with other scripts might be averted...

thomthom

Hasn't that error been described and explained earlier in this thread? Think it comes up pretty often. Might be a bug in the code itself. Might be worth adding it to the first post (when we work out what it was again.)
Wasn't there something about the orientation of the geometry?

cris_santiago

hell yeah
!!!

VictorB

I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me out on this crash I'm getting while using Shape Bender. I'm trying to make a bangle/cuff bracelet for a friend's bday. I've designed the bracelet as a flat bar, and then was going to use shape bender to curve it into a bracelet shape. When I run Shape Bender, it says that it's calculating the curve and angles, and that it's breaking the component into 13 pieces, and then shortly after it starts processing, it just crashes.

I've tried rescaling the component so that it's true to size, and I still get the same crash. I'm at a stand still right now and don't know if it's a problem with SketchUp or Shape Bender. I'm still a total design newb (this is only the 2nd thing I've designed), so there is a great chance there is a flaw with my work.

I've attached the file I'm working with if anyone wants to try to bend it and see if they get the same crash. Any help or words of wisdom are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

RB component.skp

Dave R

Where's the curve to which you want the thing bent? It's a lot of geometry to deal with. Perhaps you could split it into smaller chunks and process them one at a time?

It looks like you could do a lot of clean up. Delete coplanar edges and correct the face orientation.

TIG

Ok...
A few pointers.
It has some very small facets so works at say x100 scaled up, then scale down back to 'real size'.
Small facets can exist but making/manipulating them is problematical.
Presumably the bracelet is for 3d printing ?
It'll probably needs to be a 'solid'...
You have several reversed faces - make all seen-faces off-white and all unseen back-faces the blue - use 'reverse' or 'orient'.
You have several 'nested' parts - e.g. the letters - these need exploding into one set of 'raw' geometry inside the 'container'.
Some of these letters will have coincident edges with the 'studding' below them and probably inner faces when merged - therefore these edges will have more than 2 faces - the requirement for a solid - the form is edges/faces only and all edges in the form have only 2 faces [now more no fewer]. You'll need to do some editing to relocate or remove these so it will be 'solid'...

I assume you want to bend it with the lettering on the outside - it might therefore be easier to set the object on its side and bend it around that way ?

The model is far from a disaster - you can readily fix it up, and bend it as needed, with a little thought and effort...

VictorB

Thanks for the input guys. I think what I'll do is start from scratch and try to do things the proper way. Again, this was only my 2nd design ever on SU and in 3d at all. I'm going to take everyone's advice here and see if I can make this new version much, much cleaner.

Thanks for the input! I appreciate it.

TIG

@victorb said:

Thanks for the input guys. I think what I'll do is start from scratch and try to do things the proper way. Again, this was only my 2nd design ever on SU and in 3d at all. I'm going to take everyone's advice here and see if I can make this new version much, much cleaner.
Thanks for the input! I appreciate it.
As I said it quite salvageable as it is... just relocate slightly and explode the nested bits, reverse some back-faces, use section-cuts to see inside and erase 'partitions' etc, erase coplanar edges [several free tools for that] - Entity Info reports it as a "solid" when it's fixed; scale up x100, then orient the object on its side and shape-bend it... finally scale down.