[Plugin] Skalp for SketchUp v2.0 (live section plugin)

Skalp · 17 Oct 2014, 11:12

I'm having trouble with two sections in the drawing I'm working on. I can't seem to get them to both update. when I view the inserted model in Layout one section is working and the other isn't. They are separate sections, separate planes, separate layers.

There can be two things:

You don't use the function 'update all scenes (Layout) ' You can find this in the menu of the Skalp dialog box.
You need this function to update all the different section to use in Layout or to give the model to somebody without Skalp.

There is a problem in Sketchup to Layout with the active scene while saving your model. Activate a scene you don't use Layout in Sketchup when saving your model.

regards,

The Skalp Team

Krisidious · 17 Oct 2014, 11:14

K... I'll look into those. thanks for the super fast customer service as usual.

mk11 · 17 Oct 2014, 11:23

Kris;
I was having the same issue yesterday and the "update all scences" seemed to fix the issue.

Marc

Krisidious · 17 Oct 2014, 12:14

Didn't seem to work... I ended up deleting the offending sections through Skalp and making new ones. I'm sure I just messed something up.

mk11 · 17 Oct 2014, 12:21

Hmm... I'm just started in my first full CD set with several scalp sections. Will report if I run into any more issues like these.

Krisidious · 17 Oct 2014, 12:51

Well, updating the scenes and making new ones didn't work. I restarted SU, saw the update for Skalp, did so, restarted and made sure to be on an inactive scene when I saved in SU and now it seems to be working fine. and fast I might add.

juju · 17 Oct 2014, 14:59

Skalp just announced their RC2 build. Go get some!

Skalp · 18 Oct 2014, 08:51

@krisidious said:

K... I'll look into those. thanks for the super fast customer service as usual.

Thanks, Krisidious.
But to be sure to get the best and fastest support, please mail to support@skalp4sketchup.com

The Skalp Team

Skalp · 18 Oct 2014, 08:53

@mk11 said:

Hmm... I'm just started in my first full CD set with several scalp sections. Will report if I run into any more issues like these.

If you find issues please mail to support@skalp4sketchup.com and we try to help you as fast as possible.

The Skalp Team

Krisidious · 18 Oct 2014, 09:41

@skalp said:

@krisidious said:

K... I'll look into those. thanks for the super fast customer service as usual.

Thanks, Krisidious.
But to be sure to get the best and fastest support, please mail to support@skalp4sketchup.com

The Skalp Team

Yes, I understand... One of the reasons I post here is that I know you're very busy and that you have other customers. my issues are normally made of my own ignorance or laziness in not reading instructions. Therefore I don't really deserve that instant support. I save it for when I'm on a deadline. The other reason is that when others have the same issue, they can find it here by doing a search on Google. And yet another reason is that it pops this thread to the top of the forum and lets people who may not be aware of the plugin see it for the first time.

Skalp · 22 Oct 2014, 15:03

Come and get your 14-day FREE Skalp for SketchUp trial TODAY!

DOWNLOAD FREE TRIAL

TommyK · 4 Nov 2014, 15:07

I am loving Skalp. I have a suggestion though with Sketchup 2015...

As you are probably aware, Layout 2015 has a new autolabel feature, which allows information to be extracted directly from the model's geometry. This is potentially awesome for construction drawings for which I use Skalp for. However, as Skalp produces faces, when you point Autolabel to a Skalp section, it gives you only the simple attributes of the face - no information on the component from which it was created. I thin it's safe to say Autolabel and Skalp do not work well together.

To make Skalp absolutely awesome, it would somehow have to pull information from the components and groups that it takes cuts from. Sketchup haven't made this easy by not providing an API for their Autolabel system. The questions are:

can this situation be fixed by Skalp?
will this situation be fixed by Skalp soon?

It would make Skalp my perfect construction drawing plugin.

Skalp · 4 Nov 2014, 15:13

@tommyk said:

I am loving Skalp. I have a suggestion though with Sketchup 2015...

As you are probably aware, Layout 2015 has a new autolabel feature, which allows information to be extracted directly from the model's geometry. This is potentially awesome for construction drawings for which I use Skalp for. However, as Skalp produces faces, when you point Autolabel to a Skalp section, it gives you only the simple attributes of the face - no information on the component from which it was created. I thin it's safe to say Autolabel and Skalp do not work well together.

To make Skalp absolutely awesome, it would somehow have to pull information from the components and groups that it takes cuts from. Sketchup haven't made this easy by not providing an API for their Autolabel system. The questions are:

can this situation be fixed by Skalp?

will this situation be fixed by Skalp soon?

It would make Skalp my perfect construction drawing plugin.

Tommy,

We need to look into that. Can you give us some feedback about the info you like to get from the sectioncut?

regards,

The Skalp Team

Krisidious · 4 Nov 2014, 16:15

thanks for the update...

TommyK · 6 Nov 2014, 23:13

@skalp said:

Tommy,

We need to look into that. Can you give us some feedback about the info you like to get from the sectioncut?

regards,

The Skalp Team

The thing is, I want the information that I can get to be ANY attribute that the Skalp-cut component has. I think it is important to have that flexibility built in. Some examples that I might use:

Component Name
Component Definition (I often specify a product name here eg. - "90mm Celotex GA4000 PIR Insulation")
Group Name
IFC class / attributes
From dynamic components - any number of useful attributes. (for a window, it could be width/height).

I am concerned that providing this feature would make your Skalp sections slow to cut (imagine copying all attributes from a component to a Skalp section face, which is then grouped, and doing it for each cut component/group).

You may come to the conclusion that the feature is not practical without the Sketchup team putting together an API for their Autolabel tool, which allows a Skalp section cut to reference the object it made the cut from within Layout.

It really must happen at some point, though! I can see Skalp being a serious tool for construction drawings within a Sketchup BIM model.

All I can say is good luck!

utiler · 24 Nov 2014, 00:06

Hi Skalppers!

I've just tried loading the latest skalp.rbz but get nothing. No toolbar, icons, etc....

Any ideas?

JClements · 24 Nov 2014, 01:08

You might try closing SU and then reopening it

utiler · 24 Nov 2014, 02:34

Blond moment.....

Thanks John.

otb designworks · 26 Nov 2014, 14:03

I've trying to integrate Skalp into my normal workflow, but the experience has been less than satisfying. I sent the following report to their support team 5 days ago and, other than three automated responses saying they got my report, there has been no response at all. I figured it couldn't hurt to post it here, too, in the interest of jumpstarting a dialogue. And, I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing these weirdnesses.

Hi! I have been using Skalp (or trying to) since a few beta tests ago and am now trying thee first release version. I thought you would be interested in hearing my experiences.

I am finding Skalp inconstant and frustrating enough to stop using it as part of my regular workflow.

I am running OS10.9.5 and SU 2015.

Some of my frustrations include:

1. I am experiencing lots of peculiarity with respect to consistent scene display.  I have my scenes set with skalp sections and everything is perfect for a while, but then, with no warning, a particular scene won’t display a section correctly.   Sometimes it won’t show the section, or it will only cut part of the geometry, or it will display nothing.

2.	I had a file with Skalp sections.  As an experiment, I unloaded the skalp plugin and erased all of the skalp layers.  Before I did that, I copied all of the sections.  Once everything Skalp related was deleted I pasted the sections back into the model.  These sections acted very oddly and I ended up having to delete them.  It’s hard to explain, but sometimes the active section wouldn’t update in the scene, or a scene without an active section would inherit the active section from another scene without me updating the scene.  In the end, the entire file had to be deleted to get sections and scenes behaving properly.  It was if Skalp left vestiges of itself in the file, from before Skalp had been deleted from Sketchup that negatively impacted the model.

3.	Once I had all my Skalp layers and sections arranged per the user guide, I went into layout and started setting up viewports.  I had unending issues with the viewports not correctly displaying Skalp scenes!  The viewport would go completely blank sometimes (editing the viewport and zoom extents did NOT bring anything back; the viewport would remain completely empty, regardless of scene chosen).  Once it displayed empty, I had to delete the viewport and set up another one to get my scene displaying again.  Some viewports were showing lines in the section that did not appear in the sketchup scene; very weird.  The issues were so unending that it was completely unusable.  And yes, I was updating the Skalp sections for Layout, per the user guide.

4.	Skalp will inconsistently  fill in section faces.  I noticed this particularly when I had faces inside solids, which I needed for the section to show the line between joist and flooring, for example.  I had a cladding layer that was an extruded rectangle with inside faces to show the border between 1/2” sheathing and 3/4” siding and Skalp would never close off both the 1/2” and the 3/4” portion; it always left the 1/2” portion un filled.  I obviously can’t use Skalp if it can’t predictably close all the faces.  And if Skalp doesn’t display the face, then what can be done to coax it to display a face?  I assume nothing, so, if it doesn’t show a face, then I am out of luck?

So, all in all, a pretty disappointing experience. especially since I had such high hopes for what could be a fantastic extension to sketchup. I want this plugin to work beautifully as it is very impressive when it works correctly and predictably and I would always use it if I could produce drawings to my satisfaction. At least on my system, I would not call this a release-ready version. It is a start in the right direction, but not, in my opinion, ready for prime time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I haven’t seen anyone else complaining on the sketchucation site, so perhaps I am having isolated issues and, hopefully, I am missing something basic in the instructions, but I am pretty confident I am following the protocols laid out in the user guide.

Skalp · 26 Nov 2014, 15:56

Hello Chuck,

We would very much like to look at these things together with you to see what exactly is going on, why, and what actions can be done to improve your experiences. Most likely we can both learn and benefit from exchanging our mutual knowledge on using SketchUp with Skalp. We will contact you via mail and take your call from there.

Note to SketchUcation readers: We consider feedback very valuable and will always try to listen and be open in our communication. Please understand that we do prefer to handle support directly and personally. Please feel free to contact us at support@skalp4sketchup.com for your questions on Skalp.

Kind Regards,

the Skalp team

@otb designworks said:

I've trying to integrate Skalp into my normal workflow, but the experience has been less than satisfying. I sent the following report to their support team 5 days ago and, other than three automated responses saying they got my report, there has been no response at all. I figured it couldn't hurt to post it here, too, in the interest of jumpstarting a dialogue. And, I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing these weirdnesses.

Hi! I have been using Skalp (or trying to) since a few beta tests ago and am now trying thee first release version. I thought you would be interested in hearing my experiences.

I am finding Skalp inconstant and frustrating enough to stop using it as part of my regular workflow.

I am running OS10.9.5 and SU 2015.

Some of my frustrations include:

I am experiencing lots of peculiarity with respect to consistent scene display. I have my scenes set with skalp sections and everything is perfect for a while, but then, with no warning, a particular scene won’t display a section correctly. Sometimes it won’t show the section, or it will only cut part of the geometry, or it will display nothing.

I had a file with Skalp sections. As an experiment, I unloaded the skalp plugin and erased all of the skalp layers. Before I did that, I copied all of the sections. Once everything Skalp related was deleted I pasted the sections back into the model. These sections acted very oddly and I ended up having to delete them. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes the active section wouldn’t update in the scene, or a scene without an active section would inherit the active section from another scene without me updating the scene. In the end, the entire file had to be deleted to get sections and scenes behaving properly. It was if Skalp left vestiges of itself in the file, from before Skalp had been deleted from Sketchup that negatively impacted the model.

Once I had all my Skalp layers and sections arranged per the user guide, I went into layout and started setting up viewports. I had unending issues with the viewports not correctly displaying Skalp scenes! The viewport would go completely blank sometimes (editing the viewport and zoom extents did NOT bring anything back; the viewport would remain completely empty, regardless of scene chosen). Once it displayed empty, I had to delete the viewport and set up another one to get my scene displaying again. Some viewports were showing lines in the section that did not appear in the sketchup scene; very weird. The issues were so unending that it was completely unusable. And yes, I was updating the Skalp sections for Layout, per the user guide.

Skalp will inconsistently fill in section faces. I noticed this particularly when I had faces inside solids, which I needed for the section to show the line between joist and flooring, for example. I had a cladding layer that was an extruded rectangle with inside faces to show the border between 1/2” sheathing and 3/4” siding and Skalp would never close off both the 1/2” and the 3/4” portion; it always left the 1/2” portion un filled. I obviously can’t use Skalp if it can’t predictably close all the faces. And if Skalp doesn’t display the face, then what can be done to coax it to display a face? I assume nothing, so, if it doesn’t show a face, then I am out of luck?

So, all in all, a pretty disappointing experience. especially since I had such high hopes for what could be a fantastic extension to sketchup. I want this plugin to work beautifully as it is very impressive when it works correctly and predictably and I would always use it if I could produce drawings to my satisfaction. At least on my system, I would not call this a release-ready version. It is a start in the right direction, but not, in my opinion, ready for prime time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I haven’t seen anyone else complaining on the sketchucation site, so perhaps I am having isolated issues and, hopefully, I am missing something basic in the instructions, but I am pretty confident I am following the protocols laid out in the user guide.