Yet another SphereTool

driven

hi all,
before I go much further with my 'version' of a sphere tool, I was wondering if

does any other sphere plugin work 'off axes', i.e. between any two points, with it's own axis on 'line between points' ?
is context menu access to an options-box considered good practice?

I got it to write it's own 'how I work' giff, the user only make the first two clicks, for each sphere, the points and workings will not normally be shown.
john

Rich O Brien

Hi John

The only thing that comes close is the typical light insertion tools that various render apps provide.

This looks cool. If you are looking for feature requests then I'd say having the ability to insert primitives in this manner would be a big plus.

Right click > Insert... > Cube/Plane/Icosphere/UV Sphere/Circle/

Torus/Cylinder/Cone/Grid

Once choice is picked then direction (if circle, cylinder, sphere etc... then segment count would need an option also)

Once direction is picked you can scale by dragging on the line

Also, if geometry created obeyed Thomthom's QuadFace rule it'd be sweet

Finally.....I'd pay for it.

As it currently stands I'd have no real use for it as I've a component library that contains all of the above in various formats for quick insertion.

driven

@ Rich,
I doubt it's worth paying for, it's just been my long term 'try and write a plugin' project because I thought a 'sphere between points' would be useful to me.

I have thought of incorporating TT UV quads if I can understand it, but the basic parameters I'm looking at are.

segments for path
segments for arc
tolerance/clearance i.e. a ball for a race, click race edges and it resizes with clearance. [handy for 3d printing]
face material?

Cylinder is easy if I keep it married to linetool.rb and I was accidentally making torus's yesterday , so maybe I could add those.
I was also thinking of adding a grid plane, after second click, pausing while a profile is added on plane, then continuing to lathe that profile instead.

for now, is the basic tool worth pursuing?
you need 3 or more side as it is a lathe tool
john

thomthom

@driven said:

is context menu access to an options-box considered good practice?

Make it an option - as the context menu can quickly fill out when you have a few plugins installed. If my plugin doesn't have an options window I usually add a simple toggle menu in one of the top menus. (Like in QuadFace Tools)

Let me know if you need clarification on how to implement quads compatible with QuadFace Tools.

driven

I think this will give me 'quad faces'

        # quadify edges...
        edges = gents.grep(Sketchup;;Edge)
        edges.each{ |edge|  edge.soft = true; edge.smooth = true; edge.casts_shadows = false; }

but does anyone know how to write the uv sphere-mapping to a newly formed sphere, I have all the faces, and edges in arrays from the making and also the centre, top and bottom
john

thomthom

No, you set [ruby]edge.casts_shadows = false[ruby] only on the diagonal edge dividing the two triangles making up the quad.

The other edges can be soft,smooth, hidden whatever - but do not set Cast Shadow to false for these.

driven

@thomthom said:

No, you set edge.casts_shadows = false only on the diagonal edge dividing the two triangles making up the quad.

The other edges can be soft,smooth, hidden whatever - but do not set Cast Shadow to false for these.

I couldn't see how hiding those others helped, which is why I asked, so thanks.

Can I expose the diagonals through code, then soften them?
would I need to collect faces.each face.edge_loop.verticies, add an edge between [1] and [-1] then hide those?
will that do it?

thomthom

Does your code currently generate true native quads? (planar)

driven

It is just a 'followme' sphere, so I assume yes, I can only show the diagonals by distorting after completion.
john

thomthom

Basically, a QuadFace compatible quad is either:

a native quad (face with four vertices)
two triangles made to act as one unit (separated by an edges that is soft+smooth and cast_shadow: false)

The reason that cast_shadow needs to be false for the diagonal is that in case the whole mesh is made soft+smooth there needs to be a way to detect what is the diagonal - and since cast_shadow is on by default and it appear most people don't use this property I made that the "magic marker" for the diagonal. This allowed for non-planar quads in SketchUp.

driven

@thomthom said:

Basically, a QuadFace compatible quad is either:

a native quad (face with four vertices)

So, it should be ok as is?

thomthom

It would work. But maybe Rich has hoped for a triangulated version so things can be manipulated without ending up with the edge that SU's AutoFold feature adds. But then again, QuadFace Tools had a function to add triangulation and there is my recent AutoSmooth plugin that both addresses this.

driven

@Rich

is this what you mean? edges as per 'quadface tools' definition
@TT... does this look right, I applied to all edges, but could just do the diagonals if that's better.

Rich O Brien

@John

Thomthom nailed it. I triangulate everything using the QuadFace tools.

It will make for a better exchange of data from on app to another.

driven

@Rich
would this do what you need
just an off axes sphere, with tri's

Rich O Brien

There's something funky with that because none of Thomthom Ring Select/Loop Select are finding the edges.

Even trying to convert it doesn't work.

Thom can help here more than me. I do understand the property needed but generation of that property through code is not my bag....

Unless I am missing the obvious

thomthom

@driven said:

@TT... does this look right, I applied to all edges, but could just do the diagonals if that's better.

No - just the diagonal should have cast_shadow set to false. Cast Shadows set to false is what marks an edge as separating the two triangles of a quad. The border edges should not have this set.

Also, I see that lots of your edges are 1 segment Curve entities. Why is that?

Rich O Brien

D'oh....

missed the edges that parallel

driven

@thomthom said:

No - just the diagonal should have cast_shadow set to false.

I'll exclude the original edges...

@unknownuser said:

Also, I see that lots of your edges are 1 segment Curve entities. Why is that?

It's a rotated arc so before I split them with the diagonals, you can scale using 'move-tool' on the cardinal points.

for uv is it better if I explode the edge first?
john

thomthom

For UVs I won't matter. It was just odd to see a one segment Curve. I noticed it because the Smooth and Sort property was gone in the Entity Info when I selected one of them.