[Plugin] Color by Slope

Chris Fullmer

@tig said:

Hope I'm not standing on any toes...

Nope, not at all! Thanks TIG,

Chris

anilnimesh

Color by angle by you is amazing...
rather i had changed name of the tool as 'Slope by angle'

wow! ur work is amazing.

Please brief about color assignments in case of 'color by Slope'?

About myself, i m an Architect from India and doing practice in Delhi.
regards,
Anil Nimesh

Chris Fullmer

@anilnimesh said:

Please brief about color assignments in case of 'color by Slope'?

Thanks for using my plugin. I'm not entirely sure what you are requesting though. Let me know if there is a feature you think should be added, thanks!

Chris

anilnimesh

Hi Chris,
i using sketchu pro v7.
while using the tool, it is bit difficult to understand, which color is applied for which slope. i need to calculate, hw the tool is working?
is there any color which defines slope (like 0-5% or 5%-10%) in slabs? i mean say 'red' for slope slab 0-5%

u wrote highest color no. is for low gradient and vice versa. u also wrote to explode the group (containing the terrain) and select color and make a new group out of those.

i tried but found it little tidious...

althought it is much simplied then what we do manually.. but i need to understand more about your tool.

u also made a new one for v8 where it is called 'Color by slope stepped'. i found the previous one more relevant for my work.

so i need to know that can the tool defines colors w.r.t. slope in slabs (like 0-5% or 5%-10%) ?

regrds,

Agama

@tig said:

Hope I'm not standing on any toes...

### edited/replace the code from here................
> faces = []
> flat = []
> angle = 0.0
> sel.each do |e|
>   faces << e if e.is_a? Sketchup;;Face
> end#do
> ### first set up some [r,g,b] colors for various slope angles
> ### we use them if they exist, but if not make them...
> if not color_00_20 = model.materials["color_00_20"]
>   color_00_20 = model.materials.add("color_00_20")
>   color_00_20.color= [120,0,0]
> end#if
> if not color_20_40 = model.materials["color_20_40"]
>   color_20_40 = model.materials.add("color_20_40")
>   color_20_40.color= [150,0,0]
> end#if
> if not color_40_60 = model.materials["color_40_60"]
>   color_40_60 = model.materials.add("color_40_60")
>   color_40_60.color= [180,0,0]
> end#if
> if not color_60_80 = model.materials["color_60_80"]
>   color_60_80 = model.materials.add("color_60_80")
>   color_60_80.color= [210,0,0]
> end#if
> if not color_80_90 = model.materials["color_80_90"]
>   color_80_90 = model.materials.add("color_80_00")
>   color_80_90.color= [240,0,0]
> end#if
> ### you can adjust the colors' rgb values to suit...
> ###
> faces.each do |e|
>   enorm = e.normal
>   flat = Geom;;Vector3d.new(enorm[0],enorm[1],0)
>   angle = (flat.angle_between enorm).radians ### angle in in degrees
>   ### now set up the tests for different angles
>   ### change these test ranges etc to suit your requirements...
>   if angle>=0.0 and angle<=20.0
>     color=color_00_20
>   elsif angle>20.0 and angle<=40.0
>     color=color_30_40
>   elsif angle>40.0 and angle<=60.0
>     color=color_40_60
>   elsif angle>60.0 and angle<=80.0
>     color=color_60_80
>   else ### angle>80.0
>     color=color_80_90
>   end#if
>   e.material = color
>   e.back_material = color
> end#do
> ### end of edit/replace.................
>

Make a backup copy of the original ruby script outside of the Plugins folder so it won't try load twice. If you mess up then you have the original to use again...

Now edit/replace the version that's still in the Plugins folder, as set out above [open with Notepad.exe or equivalent plain-text editor].
Save it and restart Sketchup - all slopes should now be colored in the angle-ranges and colors you've specified...

Hello,
Can you please explain how to do it 'step by step'? I've never used ruby script, however this tool will be very usefull for me if I can influence the slope colours.
Thank you for your help:)

dansphere

Yes I'm also having trouble, I've had a shot at changing the ruby but no luck.
Perhaps a logarithmic function for the assignment of colour to slope angle would work well, and then being able to reverse the log direction.. ??

Dan

Chris Fullmer

What are you trying to do Dan? Just use a different method of determining the color to assign?

brookefox

Here we have a near flat creek be with sloping sides and a near flat upper terrain. Faces picked to be colored are still shown picked. Highest slope r255 g0 b0; lowest r0 g0 b255 (or something like these values). There are some blue vertical slopes elsewhere.

I think it would be helpful if the flats got colored, too. So everything gets a color value. I would have thought lowest slope = flat, rather than vertical, which it seems to be. color by slope-2.JPG

I had wanted to try to use this as a means of selecting the slopes vs. the near flats for grouping, which I did manually with not too much difficulty.

sherwood11

Hello,
The plug-in appears to load properly. However, I get this Ruby Console feedback when I run it.

segment 3 [60 to 90]
segment 2 [30 to 60]
segment 1 [0 to 30]
Error: #<ArgumentError: comparison of Float with nil failed>
(eval):2304:in >' (eval):2304:in update'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/clf_color_by_slope.rb:230:in colorbyslope' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/clf_color_by_slope.rb:223:in each'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/clf_color_by_slope.rb:223:in colorbyslope' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/clf_color_by_slope.rb:254 (eval):2304:in call'
(eval):2304

Has anyone encountered this before ? .... any solution or direction to resolve ?
I have checked that faces are faces (not surfaces).
Segment materials appear in the list of materials.
The faces just don't want to color ...

Thank you for your help

sdmitch

The problem appears to be associated with the progress bar.

@unknownuser said:

C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/clf_color_by_slope.rb:230:in `colorbyslope'

refers to the the statement
@unknownuser said:

pb.update(count)

If the problem persists, then I would just comment or remove the line. The only consequence will be progressbar will never update but, unless the model is huge, you will not know the difference.

sherwood11

Yeess, Thank You !

I commented out that line ...

#pb.update(count)

I was/am testing it on a very small dummy file.

I shall investigate my version(copy) of progressbar.rb

Thanks again

sherwood11

sd,

Based on your help, I also found that my version of progressbar.rb
was affecting :

clf_color_by_z.rb
clf_greeble_2.rb

So, it turns out to be predictable....

Thanks again

TIG

Do you have the current version of ' progressbar.rb' - which can be downloaded free from http://Smustard.com ?

sherwood11

TIG,

.. I just downloaded and compared both files. They appear
to be identical ... Author, date, history, no. of lines, size, etc.
(by-the-way, it is in the 'plugins' folder)

However, I still replaced it with the fresh download.

I did a search and found another progressbar.rb
in another folder ... plugins\TT_Lib2\

They are different, but I can't see how it would have an affect...
I temporarily renamed it.

I un-commented the pb.update(count) lines in the clf_... .rb files
and I still received the same Ruby Console feedback, as before. http://forums.sketchucation.com/posting.php?mode=reply&f=323&t=20635#

I restored things back to working order and will continue to debug another day.

I appreciate your suggestion, Thanks much

I'll post when(if) I find the solution.

TIG

When an author includes a file inside their own subfolder like TT's it's to keep a similar but separate code set.
Don't worry about that one.
Are you sure the require files are all really inside Plugins and not sidetracked by some 'Compatibility Files' OS trickery because you don't have FULL access rights to the Plugins folder ???

sherwood11

Ahh ... require files ...

sketchup.rb is in ...google sketchup8\tools
progressbar.rb is in ...google sketchup8\plugins
offset.rb is in ...google sketchup8\plugins\ (additional require file in greeble_2.rb)

I have administrative access to my computer.. is that what you mean ?
I see all file extensions...ie, hidden etc.
i keep my program files rooted under
majority of other files under user\username\documents .. user\username\downloads, etc.

I noticed this (if it matters):
single quotes in color_by_slope and color_by_Z
require 'sketchup.rb'
require 'progressbar.rb'

double quotes in greeble_2.rb
require "sketchup.rb"
require "offset.rb"
require "progressbar.rb"

I here ya about the 'Compatibility Files' OS trickery stuff ... frustrating at times.
in a few hours I'll do a complete fulll search to try and get to the bottom of this.

or maybe it could just be my computer ... it does wonky things on occasion
and it's about 100 degree (F) outside here today ...

TIG

Don't worry about 'xxx' and "xxx" these enclose a text string xxx - and they are often synonymous.
Although 'escaped' characters [\n etc] behave differently inside them.

A require statement is simply a way of ensuring that a file is loaded before the rest of the code. If it has already been loaded [for example by a script that loaded earlier] then it's skipped over this time. Some special functions are created by the sketchup.rb so it's often 'required' in scripts, the progressbar.rb adds a visual progressbar in the status text to show you how far along the processing has got.
You don't need to worry about a required file's location.
Sketchup's own files [like Sketchup.rb] are kept in the Tools folder.
The vast majority of others go into Plugins folder, as directed by each tools installation notes...
As Ruby files are auto-loaded as Sketchup starts a system array is read - $LOAD_PATH - by default this includes the path to the Plugins folder and then Tools folder - so 3rd party tools add extra paths to it at startup so that Sketchup loads files from additional locations as well. Files load in alphanumeric order so 'aaa.rb' loads before 'xxx.rb' from Plugins. Because 'sketchup.rb' loads later on from the Tools folder it's important that scripts loading from Plugins 'require' it so it's preloaded to be used by their code.
Some rogue/misguided scripts add an old 'Sketchup.rb' file into Plugins. If so then please remove it; the only copy should be the one installed by Sketchup itself, and that must be in Tools.
'Compatibility Files' can cause unexpected issues - ensure your security permissions to all files an subfolders within the Sketchup folder are set to 'FULL'. This is particularly important for the correct installation of scripts and their subfolders of helper files inside Plugins, and also not frgeting the Materials, Components and Styles folders, where you may wish to use 'save_as' for some aspects of your models, or to keep 'libraries' of others bits...

sketchy

does this script work for 2013? I tried downloading from the extension warehouse and got some odd error messages. Next I tried the smustard download and installed in the plugin folder (along with progress bar plugin), restarted sketchup, checked my plugin section and do not see it any where. Am I missing something? I would love to try this out.
thanks for any help you can shed

Dave R

What were the "odd error messages"?

sketchy

I tried it again to get the direct quote and this time it worked. It may be that I tried the extension warehouse first then smustard. When looking at the smustard site it listed the prerequisite ruby (progress bar) which I installed.

If this were true it would raise the question: does the extension warehouse (via SU) give a warning or list of prerequisite scripts?