Push/pull to work on 'unopen' groups

[a4chitect]

what do you think, is it possible to enable to push/pull to work on 'unopen' groups ( not having to enter the edit mode for the group would speed up mass modeling considerably )

or is it possible to customize the Normal Push Pull from the fantastic Joint push/pull toolset?

[fredo6]

It is indirectly possible with the JPP script.

In fact, because it would always be difficult to agree on what to do with a group or a component, what I did is to publish an API for the 3 kinds of JointPushPull where you specify the faces you want to act upon. It is documented in the tutorial.

def JointPushPull.Api_call (type="J", selection=nil, distance=0, vector=nil, 
                            finishing='K', borders='A', group=true, influence=true,
                            angle=30.0)

So all you need to do is to write a surrounding script that select the groups and the faces within the groups and then execute the JPP API.

[a4chitect]

thanks fredo, I was too lazy to check that myself

btw: why did you decide to have JPP work only on selected faces and not the way original PP tool works - first activate the tool and then confirm the on-mouse-over face by clicking on it?

[fredo6]

@a4chitect said:

btw: why did you decide to have JPP work only on selected faces and not the way original PP tool works - first activate the tool and then confirm the on-mouse-over face by clicking on it?

It's true that it would be more natural. I may actually do it in a next version.
And this is what I am doing for the Offset on Surface script.

[a4chitect]

looking forward to a 'next' version - even if the current one is most complete and satisfying, I am wondering about your remark of an Offset script - I was trying to code a new class for offsetting lines in sketchup (mainly because the default offset produces curling lines once you try to offset some convex/concave geometry) - but I couldn't find any easy to adapt algorithm and have tried to experiment with estimated results based on vector combination with respective weighted average... to no good. could you point me in a better direction for creating line offset function (as seen in autocad) since you are the offset guru around here?

thanks

[fredo6]

Well! it depends if you want to do it on a plane or a 3D curved surface.

[a4chitect]

I wouldnt want to image the maths involved in offsetting something on a curved plane, offsetting a planar line/polyline is what I was trying to achieve... but since you mentioned offsetting a curve on a surface - that would mean offsetting a 3d curve - which could come very handy - for a lots of applications . If there is anything that could be done to help you with this development - let me know.