[Plugin] Face Flattener 0.19

cerevellum

Hey,

I have made a script to simplify models or correct geometry that is close to coplanar and making it coplanar. Currently the script flattens geometry either to a plane with a normal of (0,0,1) - facing straight up - or (X,Y,0) - facing straight out - and after you flatten to an initial (X,Y,0) direction all else will follow either parallel or perpendicular (90 degrees) to that initial flatten. Faces with a normal within 30 degrees of (0,0,1) will flatten to a plane that just faces straight up, where all else flattens straight out. These settings can be adjusted within the code.

The order of operations:

Select some geometry
Right click, select Flattening Script
Left click on a face (this decides the plane the geometry will project to)

Thanks,
Zach

faceFlattener019.rb

lewiswadsworth

Thanks, Zach. I was actually thinking about a script like this, fond as I am of the similar "Setpt" command in Rhino.

dylan

Thanks Zack.
This could prove really useful for the bad AutoCad imports I sometimes get.

matteo

Thank you. This may become one of the most used scripts in my daily work.

kwistenbiebel

I love the idea!
Can it also remove the unneeded edges afterwards , so we have clean geometry to push pull?

cerevellum

No problem, glad it could be useful to some!

So, in fact there is more functionality to this script, but a lot of the methods are not being used currently. I need to get it up to speed, maybe over the weekend. Basically, if you intersect with model you can erase the inside edges, and I'm working on getting them to remove automatically. The methods are all in the script, they just need to be called, and in the right order (what I have been struggling with).

Anyway, feel free to play around with the script. I'll do my best to update it, too.

Thanks again,
Zach

Mike Lucey

Thanks Zach,

This looks like the Ruby that we talked about at the
Hotel Avante, very useful indeed.

Be sure to get your Avatar up there soon and don't be
a stranger

Best,

Mike

RayOchoa

Dang, Sketchup is starting to look more and more like CAD programs like Wings3d and Rhino. he he its going to end up as complicated too. All it needs now is faster control over high poly models

rv1974

@Rayochoa:
This is a PLUG-IN. If you don't need it simply don't plug it.
IMHO it has a good potential. And if this tool will help me to save a couple of hours per year so why not?

cyan.archnet

thanks a lot for the plug-in, sure a big help!!

Jackson

Zach- thanks for this ingenius ruby, can't wait to give it a try!

plot-paris

nice tool. I am definittely in danger of flattening every model I can lay my hands on (my colleagues won't like that ).

I am looking forward to the "auto-cleanup" version.

cheers,

Jakob

RayOchoa

@rv1974 said:

@Rayochoa:
This is a PLUG-IN. If you don't need it simply don't plug it.
IMHO it has a good potential. And if this tool will help me to save a couple of hours per year so why not?

I didin't say i didn't like it i said that all these plugins are taking sketchup very far. But hey i like this better, rather than learning everything at the same time little by little is way better

RayOchoa

U maybe wan't to take a look at this

cleanup.rb

MALAISE

Thanks a lot

 What a waste of time I got, trying to understand why theses blood... lines didn't made a surface.

friendly MALAISE
( sorry for my approximative english )

watkins

Dear Ray,

I tried out your script on the following simple model.

Draw a rectangle, say 100 mm by 100 mm, and then pull it up 10 mm into a 3D shape.
Use the move tool to pull up one corner on the top face by 0.1 mm.
Draw a few lines on the sides to divide areas into two, and perhaps a few random, un-terminated lines on various surfaces.
Select all and run your script.

When I do this I lose the top face. Interestingly enough this also happens when I run the script cleanup_model.rb (by John H. Aughey). The script deletecoplanaredges.rb (by Jack Dolabany)removes all redundant co-planar lines, but leaves the top face with its centre fold untouched.

I imagine that this is not what you had in mind.

Kind regards,
Bob

rcossoli

thanks, will be very useful

cerevellum

Hi Ray and Bob,

This is something I've noticed while working on my flattening script, and I still haven't figured out why it happens. The simplest way of reproducing this is to draw a box, add a rectangle to the top surface and connect it with a line to the outer edge loop. When erasing one of the edges of the rectangle that was added, both faces disappear.

However, if you were to erase the edge that connects both edge loops first, then you can erase the edges of the inside rectangle just fine. It apparently has to do with the order in which you erase coplanar edges. Delete edges in the following order: edges connected to 0 faces go first, then edges connected to 1 face, and finally edges connected to 2 faces.

See ya,
Zach

watkins

Dear Zach,

The script deletecoplanaredges.rb failed your example too, so some recoding is needed to get a more reliable cleanup script.

Regards,
Bob

Gaieus

@cerevellum said:

Hi Ray and Bob,

This is something I've noticed while working on my flattening script, and I still haven't figured out why it happens. The simplest way of reproducing this is to draw a box, add a rectangle to the top surface and connect it with a line to the outer edge loop. When erasing one of the edges of the rectangle that was added, both faces disappear...

Ha! Beautiful! I love these "glitch hunts". And you cannot even heal the face by redrawing an edge of it until you get rid of the leftover geometry in the middle!