Shuffle-ruby script?

GreyHead

With a little de-bugging and a lot of trial and error the MatrixProximity shuffle works nicely.

Create a 'Components/Proximity Components' folder and save copies of unique components into it. Mine were named 'container-001-.skp' 'container-002-.skp' & 'container-003-.skp'

Create a new SketchUp drawing with only one container in it (the shuffle will not work if the proxy containers are already in the drawing).

Create your stack and, if all is well, you will see a second dialogue asking you if you want to Merge copies of the other components. Say Yes.

I had to make a couple of small changes to the script to get round the Error message below. If you need them I'll post them here.

Bob

PS Creating 'zero-height' containers and adding them to the mix worked well. Using Sketchy Physics to drop the columns was a spectacular disaster . . .

miikka1978

Thank you for the help. I am still having some problems. I never get the dialog that asks to merge copies.

I have Proximity Components folder in this path (C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Components\Proximity Components) and I have named containers (cont-001-,cont-002-,cont-003-,cont-004-). I have taken the cont-001- and placed it in the drawing => run the Matrix => I get multible copies => I get dialog that asks if I want to drop the componets onto nearest faces => but after that I never get any dialog to asks to merge copies. I have tried this same workflow with components that were alrady in the Proximity Components folder but still it does not ask to merge copies.

Do you have any idea what could be the problem?

GreyHead

The problem that I found was that the script wasn't able to open the sub-folder. When I open the RubyScript console I saw an error at line 415 (or thereabouts).

There is a line that reads something like:

proxdir = (Sketchup.find_support_file "", "Components/Proximity Components/") + "Components//Proximity Components//"

I replaced this with two lines:

proxdir_1 = Sketchup.find_support_file "", "Components/Proximity Components/"
proxdir = proxdir_1 + "/Components/Proximity Components/"

Bob

miikka1978

Thank you for helping me. Now it works perfect.

GreyHead

Couldn't resist it. Here's a hacked version of the script that adds a 'Density' value to the dialogue box. The image below is at 85% which is the default (change this at line 234 to your preference).

Bob

Back up the original version and copy this to PlugIns folder.

todd burch

Thanks for saving me some work Greyhead! (from one soon to be grey head to another!)

TIG

Thanks GreyHead for the error report*. It's over 2 years since the MatrixProximity code was last looked at by me !

Here's the 'official' Update v1.7 - http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=46802#p46802

Note that GreyHead's changed version two posts below has some menu problems in it...

You might want to hack out his "density" bits if they are useful and add them back in ?

This fixes those AND the error* problem, with it finding the right directory - caused by changes to the way Ruby 'now' returns the FindFile path with/without a / at the end of a directory... [actually it changed ages ago, but I never caught it...]

Sorry for the slow response...

GreyHead

Thanks TIG - the density bit was very much a hack. More a learning experiment than serious coding. (Though I was quite impressed with myself that I got it to work at all!)

I forgot that I'd commented out the menu entries - is there a way of editing and rerunning a script that's loaded into a menu without re-starting Sketchup?

Bob

TIG

@greyhead said:

Thanks TIG - the density bit was very much a hack. More a learning experiment than serious coding. (Though I was quite impressed with myself that I got it to work at all!)

I forgot that I'd commented out the menu entries - is there a way of editing and rerunning a script that's loaded into a menu without re-starting Sketchup?

Bob

Easy: type, 'load "script_name.rb"', into the Ruby console - it will reload the script completely. You need the 'load menu if script not loaded' test bits at the end - or else you'll get multiple menu entries - even then the latest menu entry's on the end ! - but most scripters add that test in anyway...

All /Plugins/ .rb files load automatically at startup, but you can also load any .rb files that have a .txt suffix at any time by using the, 'load "file.txt"' method - that's useful for rarely used scripts that you wouldn't want cluttering things up all the time...

.

IF the 'density' bit is thought useful I could add it into the 'official' version... Comments please...

rv1974

@TIG: I'd rather use randomselect in this case

miikka1978

For my purpose/need this density function is just perfect. Thanks again GreyHead! But right now I can't think any other way to benefit from this function when using MatrixProximity script. I will be fine with this unofficial version.