[Plugin] Shape Bender Beta

Rich O Brien

Hi Allen,

First off, welcome to SCF!

I noticed you're using SU 7.0.1, Google released 7.1 awhile back it's alot faster, give it a go..

As for plugins, Gaieus posted a little tutorial here

Basically all plugins are placed in your plugins folder...

Program Files>Google>Google Sketchup 7>Plugins

Allen Brown

Thanks Rich. I got both the progress bar rb & the shape bender rb's copied into my plugins folder. It appears to have worked somewhat, because I have the shape bender tool on my toolbar, and under the plugin menu I have the chris fulmer tools. However, I don't see anything about the progress bar rb in the plugin menu, should I?

Anyways, I create some 3d letters, click the shape bender tool, and I would expect to see "Please select a single line..." down at the bottom of my screen, but I get nothing. It's as if it doesn't really activate. I also tried by going through the plugin menu, but I get the same behavior.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

BTW, I did try exploding the letters, then shift selecting, right click and making "Component", but still the same.

Thanks,

Allen

Chris Fullmer

This loos like you probably just got some files in the wrong spot. In your base Plugins folder, there should be a file called clf_shape_bender_loader.rb and a folder called clf_shape_bender. All other files (a bunch of icons and and file called clf_shape_bender.rb) should all be inside the clf_shape_bender folder.

If you feel like you have the files in the right spot, then you need to open the Ruby Console in the "Window" menu. Have that open, then try to run shape bender once. It will probably write a bunch of errors to the console. copy (ctrl-c) those and paste them back here. I'll look at what the error is and we'll go from there,

Chris

InterArchi

@chris fullmer said:

Good, glad you got it working.

The main problem with this plugin is that it was written by a no good hack of a programmer. Everytime this plugin works it surprises me. I love this plugin and I'm certainly proud of it. But it could use a major re-writing to get it to be more stable and more versatile.

Thanks for using it,

Chris

I have the honor to have an answer from you mister Chris, I'm now in this forum, and in the plugins world,

But I really need some help, I started to add some plugins to my Plugins repertory but I sometimes have a problem with the loader file

for exemple with the 1001Bit it didnt work please see what the error message shown by sketchup

and this is the screenshot of the those files right indside the Plugins folder

THIS IS THE ERROR MESSAGE

thomthom

You've put all of 1001bits files into the plugins root folder. All but one, 1001bit_tools.rb should be in a 1001bit folder.

Allen Brown

@chris fullmer said:

This loos like you probably just got some files in the wrong spot. In your base Plugins folder, there should be a file called clf_shape_bender_loader.rb and a folder called clf_shape_bender. All other files (a bunch of icons and and file called clf_shape_bender.rb) should all be inside the clf_shape_bender folder.

If you feel like you have the files in the right spot, then you need to open the Ruby Console in the "Window" menu. Have that open, then try to run shape bender once. It will probably write a bunch of errors to the console. copy (ctrl-c) those and paste them back here. I'll look at what the error is and we'll go from there,

Chris

Awesome Chris! That was it.

Thanks so much for all you do!

InterArchi

@thomthom said:

You've put all of 1001bits files into the plugins root folder. All but one, 1001bit_tools.rb should be in a 1001bit folder.

Thanks Bro ..U have a heart of Gold

thelandscaper

Hey, you have no idea the way you are helping me my friend!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

keep on the gooooood work.

charly2008

Hi,

Yesterday I installed the beta version 0.55 and get the following error message.

The clf main folder is containing all files. the progressbar and the shape bender loader are in the plugins folder. Can anybody help.

Charly

shape bender.JPG

TIG

Try replacing this file in the ../Plugins/clf_shape_bender/ sub-folder clf_shape_bender.rb - there was a potential error with the YouTube linking in part of its code [around line 1003] that got 'masked' if you have other clf tools loading it correctly before this one - this now fixes it in every case.

charly2008

Hi TIG,

thanks for your quick response it works now.

Charly

mjsnyder80

Hello out there. I'm new to the forum, but have been using sketchup for many years now. I just discovered the bender script, but am not able to get it to work. The progress bar at the bottom stops either at 1% or 5% depending ont he complexity of the group. The ruby console shows the following text:

Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method /' for nil:NilClass> C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb:676:in draw'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb:676

As I am not a programmer, this is completely over my head. Can anyone help to get this script working?

Many thanks.

Chris Fullmer

This sounds like you might be having a conflict with an old version of Component Spray plugin.

If you have component spray installed, please uninstall it and re-install the newest version. THat should fix your problem. Let me know if works or not.

Chris

mjsnyder80

That did the trick. Thank you very much. And by the way, this is an awesome plugin. Nice work, and thanks again.

Mike

darkhelmet

I've almost given up. Ran Ruby console while trying to use this plugin and this is what i got:

Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method all_connected' for nil:NilClass> C:/Program Files (x86)/SketchUp 7/Plugins/clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb:307:in line_picker'
C:/Program Files (x86)/SketchUp 7/Plugins/clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb:239:in `onLButtonUp'
C:/Program Files (x86)/SketchUp 7/Plugins/clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb:307

WIN7 64bit

Chris Fullmer

Hmm, do you have component spray installed? If so, please update. There was a version that was around for a while that caused problems.

If that does not work, please verify that you have the files in the right places. In the plugins folder you should have a file called clf_shape_bender_loader.rb and a folder called clf_shape_bender. All other shape bender files (another .rb file and a bunch of icons) should go inside the clf_shape_bender folder.

So I guess verify those two things. If you do have the most current version of component spray instlled (please actually do re-download and install it again) and you do have your file structure set up correctly, then come back and we'll keep trying things.

Chris

yna

im having problems with the plug in. in the video after i click both the curved line and the straight line the red highlight appeared but the green diddnt and when i pressed enter, nothing happened. what did i do wrong? please help me

Chris Fullmer

The red and green highlight will not always appear at the same time. So if you get the red highlight, then you're doing pretty good - better than most who have initial problems with the script.

It could be that the thing you are trying to bend is too complex. Test it with a simple box or something. That should bend instantly. If that works, then you might just need more patience. If the box does not work, and it still hangs on the red/green highlight, then there might be bigger problems. If that is the case, please open the Ruby console (from the Windows menu). Then try running the plugin. It will probably write errors to the ruby console. Please copy and paste ALL of those errors back here. I'll dig through them and see what I can see. Thanks,

Chris

yna

i tried using it with a less complex shape and it did work. thank you. amazing plugin!!

Chris Fullmer

Great! Now it should also work with complex groups. It just might take more time. I've run some shapes that took 3 hours to bend (it was a fairly detailed corvette model). So once you know its working, you can start experiemneting with more complex shapes. Kust let it run until its done.

Thanks for trying the plugin,

Chris