Volumetric visualization

[martinspixis]

Hello Experts!

for study purposes I need to create a SketchUp Ruby script for volumetric visualization of radiation dose. Dose volume must be divided into voxels where each voxel have x;y;z coordinates and value V which represents dose intensity, besides the voxels must be colored in different colors regarding to value V. For example, if 5>V>3, then color = blue, but if 10>V>5, then color = green et cetera.
Can someone suggest a script to modify for my needs or help solve this problem?

P.S. I am not an IT professional, my field of study is physics, so scripting is not an ordinary activity for me

Thanks in advance,

Martins

[TIG]

How is the data input into SketchUp ?
I imagine you don't want to type x,y,z,v in for every one !
If it is the form of Comma Separated Values in a CSV file - read/writable in Excel - then as the data is plain text you can read in the lines as individual voxels.
I recommend that 1 unit in the file is represented by 1" in SketchUp [makes the number crunching easier].
So then we have an array called 'voxels' containing several array of [x,y,z,v] data.
Your tool needs to start by making a 'voxel' component - I suggest a 1x1x1 cube - easily done by making a definition and adding a 1x1 face from 4 points and pushpulling it by 1.
Next you need to set up some colored materials to use later [suggest material.alpha= opacity at ~0.4] - you can specify by name - e.g. 'red' or create your own colors etc.
Now make add a group in the model.entities to contain the voxel 'instances'.
Now iterate the vowels and to the group.entities add an instance of the voxel definition.
Read that voxel's array x,y,z,v values - use .to_f to convert the imported strings into numbers
Make a point3d based on these x,y,z values.
Use that point3d in a new Transformation.
instance = group.entities.add_instance(voxel, transformation)
The new instance of a voxel is added at x,y,z, it uses the default material.
Now use a series of 'case' or 'if' tests to decide on the 'instance.material=' you use for that instance.
You can also set the instance.name=v.to_s so the Entity Info can tell you the exact value of a selected voxel.
After all of the voxels are processed you now have a stack of cubes colored by their 'v'.
If the color has transparency then you can see through them, or Xray view-mode ?

There are several plugin/code examples on SCF for the reading of CSV data, use of .to_f, making materials/colors, making components, adding instances with transformations, making tests assigning materials and so on

[AdamB]

Your best bet is to extract the iso-surface from your data using marching-cubes rather than generate zillions of cubes.

It would mean you could create N colored surfaces representing each of your threshold values for V.

If you're asking whether its a trivial 10 minute script. The answer is unfortunately, No.

Adam

[martinspixis]

Thank's to all, problem solved!