[Plugin] Groups to Components

mac1 · 9 Jul 2010, 18:04

Matts plugin is still buggy, he has been very busy and not able to update many of his scripts - on the other hand Fredo's scale tools include a group to component command, so Thom you don't really need the extra effort for this plugin - but perhaps a CTRL toggle between the wider context and not could be handy...

Ref Matt's tool is Buggy but I can work around by just including a line I draw in my selection and has worked Ok for me that way

JClements · 9 Jul 2010, 18:12

Thank you, Thomas!

Might I suggest this plugin could stand as it isand another be created to deal with the issues mentioned above where there are identical instances of a group and rename this plugin"Groups to UniqueComponents" or something similar to describe what it does ... a quick and dirty conversion.

autarchos · 23 Jul 2010, 23:11

i'm looking for a method to simplify an xfrog tree using perhaps this plugin, or matt's, but i'm running into problems with the component axes.

the idea is:

make each leaf (1.5"x1" rectangles) into a component.
in the component window, i replace the selected unique leaf components with a single leaf component.

the glitch comes with the fact that each leaf is tilted to a different angle, but component creation scripts seem to set the axes identical to that of the world axes (see pics below). thus when i replace the selected components with one single component they all end up angled to the exact same direction. so is there a way that i can do this and maintain the orientation of each individual component? ie. can an option be included in this script to set all component axes exactly the same relative to each 'unique' component?

good if axes of each leaf is the same, maybe here:

bad if axes of each leaf component is different relative to comp.:

thanks!

thomthom · 24 Jul 2010, 01:35

That is a good question. I got X-Frog trees myself - have it on my todo list somewhere to find a way to optimize them.

thomthom · 24 Jul 2010, 01:36

Maybe my component dropper plugin will work for this...?

autarchos · 24 Jul 2010, 17:07

thanks for the tip, thomthom. i see solo proposed the idea in your component dropper thread. i am experimenting with it on a few trees. it actually makes the workflow quite a bit faster and easier, but does not keep geometry in the exact original orientation.

thus, i'm creating components of each leaf (painfully slow), using component dropper to make them all the same (instantaneous, even for thousands of leaves), and then using chris fullmer's scale and rotate multiple to give them a little bit of randomness. i'll show you a tree with some stats when finished - it's slow, but i think will yield a more natural chaotic result than the original trees - xfrog tends to be too fractal and perfect in my opinion.

a note however, your 'groups to components' works almost instantly, whereas the same function with matts plugin took several minutes. perhaps at some point this script could be updated to work on non-group entities as matts does, but with more efficiency.

publied · 26 Jul 2010, 12:11

very interesting Thom,
now i'm trying it!

halroach · 23 Sept 2013, 13:22

Hi,

Sometimes when I'm using this plugin it only converts one selected group to one component leaving all the rest as groups. Not sure what's causing that. ideas?

halroach · 23 Sept 2013, 13:24

@halroach said:

Hi,

Sometimes when I'm using this plugin it only converts one selected group to one component leaving all the rest as groups. Not sure what's causing that. ideas?

I copied and pasted all the groups to another sketchup model (outside of the one component they were in, and they were all converted. could it be this plugin doesn't work within a component?

tt_su · 23 Sept 2013, 21:42

Do you have a sample scenario/model where I can reproduce this?

irwanwr · 25 Jul 2014, 17:03

I thought there's already Group to Components function in Selection Toys, isn't it?

thomthom · 25 Jul 2014, 17:06

@irwanwr said:

I thought there's already Group to Components function in Selection Toys, isn't it?

It's somewhat different. Selection Toys got a function to convert group copies to component instance while ensuring each instance isn't made unique.
This small extension had a special purpose for preserving naming in a special way by request of some user.

bsfranza · 29 Sept 2014, 08:50

hi there,

could it be that its not yet updated for su 2014???

its not showing in any menue

Dave R · 29 Sept 2014, 09:54

@bsfranza said:

hi there,

could it be that its not yet updated for su 2014???

its not showing in any menue

No. It works fine n SketchUp 2014. How did you install it? If installed correctly, it will appear in the Plugins menu.

koliboti · 2 Feb 2015, 20:05

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?

TIG · 2 Feb 2015, 22:04

@koliboti said:

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?
I assume you mean to make component-instances into groups ?
This one liner processed a selection. Making any component-instances into groups, using the same name/layer/material/attributes as the original...

m=Sketchup.active_model;a=m.active_entities;s=m.selection;m.start_operation('!');s.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance).each{|i|g=a.add_group();e=g.entities;n=e.add_instance(i.definition, i.transformation);n.explode;g.name=i.definition.name;g.layer=i.layer;g.material=i.material;i.attribute_dictionaries.each{|d|d.each_pair{|k,v|g.add_attribute(d.name,k,v)}}if i.attribute_dictionaries;i.erase!;};m.commit_operation

koliboti · 24 Feb 2015, 20:50

@tig said:

@koliboti said:

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?
I assume you mean to make component-instances into groups ?
This one liner processed a selection. Making any component-instances into groups, using the same name/layer/material/attributes as the original...

m=Sketchup.active_model;a=m.active_entities;s=m.selection;m.start_operation('!');s.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance).each{|i|g=a.add_group();e=g.entities;n=e.add_instance(i.definition, i.transformation);n.explode;g.name=i.definition.name;g.layer=i.layer;g.material=i.material;i.attribute_dictionaries.each{|d|d.each_pair{|k,v|g.add_attribute(d.name,k,v)}}if i.attribute_dictionaries;i.erase!;};m.commit_operation

Thank you very-very much TIG! it works perfect also with imported 3ds objects.

camilo_caicedo · 10 Mar 2015, 23:39

Hi thomthom.

Your conversion tool changes all groups in the selection to components, one component for each group where the group's name is transferred to the component's definition's name.

Please, do you know about some plugin which changes all groups in the selection to a single component (the groups should be a copy of a single group), so you obtain one component for each group, where the component definition name of each component is the same?

People often forget to make a component instead of a group, so if you repeat a group, and then you rotate or move that group to diferent places many times, it would be hard to make a component and then repeat it, rotate or move it many times again. A tool to convert those groups to one component would allow you to go on with your job.

Thank's

thomthom · 11 Mar 2015, 17:23

If the group haven't been modified (or even opened) then Selection Toys can convert such groups to components. But if the user has performed any kind of action that makes SU kick in the make-unique then it won't be able to detect that.
You can force replace with Component Replacer, but you need to pick out which ones to replace with what.

rv1974 · 27 Jan 2017, 06:02

Thomthom, may I request this tool to keep the object(s) selected after conversion?