[Plugin] SceneTextureSwitcher v1.3

samtsham2

🧩 SceneTextureSwitcher v1.3

Plugin Release & Developer Notes

SceneTextureSwitcher_v1.3_Release.zip

The above .ZIP-file includes .RBZ file, documentation and sample textures/file structure.

ABOUT

I've been using SketchUp professionally for nearly 25 years in set design, working on close to 90 full-scale productions — many of them incorporating projections and, more recently, LED surfaces.

As a designer who visualizes all technical and content aspects directly inside SketchUp, I often need to swap imagery on panels and screens depending on the scene. Until now, I've done this by layering individual images onto surfaces and toggling their visibility with tags and scenes.

That approach worked — until I hit a show with 26 different visual states. At that scale, manually hiding and revealing images becomes unmanageable.

Initial Goal

I was looking for a plugin that could:

Switch out a texture based on the active scene
Use a shared index across multiple mapped materials (like Surface01, Surface02, etc.)
Work with scene change events, not just manual clicks
Keep the whole system project-folder based and portable
Require no tagging, object duplication, or visual overlays

And with guidance and iteration from ChatGPT — this tool now exists.

SceneTextureSwitcher v1.3

A lightweight SketchUp plugin for per-scene texture switching — ideal for set designers, media planners, and projection/LED-based designs.

What It Does

SceneTextureSwitcher lets you:

Assign a scene-specific texture cue number (01–99)
Automatically update textures on multiple named materials when switching scenes
Load textures from your project folder, not the plugin directory — fully portable
Support .png, .jpg, and .jpeg formats (with .png prioritized)
Retain individual scale and UV mapping per material

Folder Setup

Textures must live relative to your .skp file, in this structure:

MyProject/
├── MyModel.skp
└── textures/
    ├── Surface01/
    │   ├── 01.png
    │   ├── 02.png
    ├── Surface02/
    │   ├── 01.jpg
    │   ├── 02.jpg
    └── ...

You can use any number of Surface## materials (up to 99), each with their own folder. All materials share the same scene-wide cue number.

How To Use

Install the plugin .rbz via Extensions > Extension Manager > Install Extension...
In your model, name any materials you want controlled as:
```
Surface01, Surface02, Surface03, ...
```
Assign any texture from your project’s texture folder to each of those materials initially.
In SketchUp, open:
```
Extensions > Scene Texture Switcher
```
Choose a cue number from the dropdown and hit OK.
Just switch to another scene or create a new one — the cue is saved automatically.
Repeat for other scenes — the plugin stores the cue number per scene.
Switch scenes: textures update automatically.

Works across projects
Works with external drives
Works with .png transparency
Requires no object duplication, tagging, or overlays

Designed For

Theater, film, and live performance set designers
LED-based stage visualization
Projection cue planning
Architectural mood setups or material cycles

️ Requirements

SketchUp 2021 or newer (tested on macOS and Windows)
Ruby Console recommended during setup (for logs)

Known Limitations

No GUI for previews (future version may include thumbnails)
Materials must follow Surface## naming (future: custom mapping via config file)

Future Plans

Visual thumbnail grid to choose cues
Cue editor panel with copy/delete/preview options
Auto-generation of texture folders
Custom naming and mapping of materials

This plugin was developed in collaboration with [@samtsham2] and ChatGPT through iterative real-world testing in production design contexts. Free to use, adapt, and share with attribution.

Rich O Brien

That's really clever.

Not just for your use case but if you wanted to show a client a house build, product etc with material variations.

If you want to add this to our Extension listings let me know. Super useful tool.

samtsham2

Thank you, Rich!
Yes, please add it anywhere you feel it may reach people it could be useful to! I've never published in these forums or the warehouse before, so anything that can get this to users would be great!

I think it's enormously powerful with a very minimal footprint. It's the kind of basic tool that could easily be part of the basic SketchUp toolset, as I can think of a hundred different ways of using it, especially for stage design.

I just needed something for my own use case, and I've used workarounds for situations like that for over 20 years. And now I wanted to basically draft a request to a Ruby group, to ask if anyone could cobble something together, and after only 3 hours of trial and error I ended up with a fully working tool. This will save me so much time on the next three sets, and I'm certain, it can help many others too. Enjoy!

FlorinAp

Curic Design Option might be a better option...

samtsham2

Curic Design Option appears to be a great tool!
Particularly for – as Rich suggested – offering design options for clients.

What my tiny texture switcher does is very different. If I have a stage set with a back-projected screen on it, that screen will display different imagery in every scene. The only way I can display that within SU is to have a unique copy of that screen for every scene and toggle visibility.

With this tool you can just assign a new image to every scene. And to the two independent LED walls left and right. I switch the scene, all these images change. Minimal setup, no hidden tags, no duplicate geometry. Just calling one or more image files in your project folder.

Of course you can also change a wall texture, a curtain texture and a floor texture and you have design options, but of course the Curic plugin is specialised for that and a lot more feature-rich, unlike this tiny one-trick-pony. For me that trick is a life-saver.