[Plugin] (TIG) Rotate Plan View v1.1 20110316

Dave R

How are you going about installing plugins?

pbacot

It looks to me that these files should not be in a folder, but be in the "Plugins" folder itself.

Edit: woops TIGtools is not file but folder, so I mean that folder should be in the Plugins folder. Sorry.

the_sloth

Typically I just drag the files into my plugins folder.

Box

You might find the pluginstore useful. And it would be nice if your profile version matched your problem version. SU2014 in your profile but SU8 in the question.

Dave R

Ah, I see. It's no wonder, then. You should be using Install Extension, and the SCF plugin store.

the_sloth

@box said:

You might find the pluginstore useful. And it would be nice if your profile version matched your problem version. SU2014 in your profile but SU8 in the question.

You bring up a good point. In profile you can only choose one version. I use SU 8 at work (network license), 2013 at home (personal license), and occasionally SU2014 Make when there are no licenses at work. I would bet there are others who use multiple version of SketchUp as well.

I will read this later today: http://sketchucation.com/resources/tutorials/108-installing-sketchup-plugins

Thanks for the help.

Box

I was referring to this
http://sketchucation.com/resources/plugin-store-download

the_sloth

This is very cool. Thanks for sharing. I haven't used SU for some time in a serious fashion and am excited to be getting back into it

jimmylomax

This is great! Many thanks. Is there a known way to achieve this from another perspective (e.g. I'd like to make an ISO image)?

TIG

Look up my iso axo script...
https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=axo_iso

db11

A very useful little plugin.

@TIG: Is it possible to provide the same capability for the other ortho views? I'd like to be able to rotate front and side views in the same way.

I searched for another extension that could do it, but didn't locate one.

TIG

@db11 said:

@TIG: Is it possible to provide the same capability for the other ortho views? I'd like to be able to rotate front and side views in the same way.

It's a very very old, but [perhaps overly] simple script.
If you read the code it resets the Plan-view camera's 'UP' to be the Z_AXIS [Top view], and then transforms it around that axis by the specified angle.

To make a version to say look 'Front' along the green axis you'd use the Y_AXIS and so on...
Just try copying the RB file ../Plugins/Rotatefrontview.rb***, editing it and substituting the Y_AXIS for the Z_AXIS [in two places]...
Use a plain-text editor like Notepad++ on PC or TextWrangler on MAC.
***Name these new RB files logically e.g. Rotateplanview.rb==> Rotatefrontview.rb and also remember to change the other parts of the code to match - e.g. ' Class' name and associated lines of code setting up the cmd to suit, each time replacing [Pp]lan with [Ff]ront etc.
Change the Toolbar [copied] PNG names too...
BUT don't worry about the Toolbar code otherwise, because it only kicks in when there PNG images for the buttons exist.
Unless you recreate the PNG files inside the ../Plugins/TIGtools subfolder there will be no matching Toolbar buttons made - but the View menu items will always get created...

To make all 5 other possible ortho views, just substitute the Z_AXIS [Top] for X_AXIS [Right], Y_AXIS [Front], and their .reverse equivalents [Left & Back] + Z_AXIS.reverse [Bottom]...

db11

Thanks TIG for taking the time to describe the proper approach. Sounds fairly straightforward, so I'll give it a try this weekend.

db11

I made the modifications and produced 'Rotate____view' for the various views. Saved me a lot of trouble of rotating viewports in LayOut for a bunch of parts on a material list. So thanks for the directions — it was even simpler than I thought.

But it did make me think: wouldn't it be possible to make a single plugin "RotateCurrentView"?

If there a way to auto-poll for the current view, then wouldn't it be relatively simple to use a CASE statement to assign the correct axes relative to the current view?

The produced versions do the trick fine, but it would be cool to consolidate multiple plugins (and their corresponding menu items) into a single one.

db11

...I should add that it would be fun to try to make those modifications myself (assuming the approach is valid).

A fair while back I had started teaching myself Ruby and made a couple of super simple plugins for my own use. Then I got busy with paid work and dropped the effort. I've probably forgotten much of what I had learned, but I have been meaning to get back to it — and this might be a fun re-entry (especially since most of the work is already done).