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.