Two problems with an 'Export to Vue' ruby script

[Alex Jenyon]

I've been working on a ruby script to take a SketchUP camera into 'Vue'. It's heavily based on Grant Marshall's 'camera2modo' ruby, and it's ALMOST working.

However, I've come across a couple of issues I'm trying to solve, and my head is just about fried. The information may well be around, but if it is, it's not in a form I'm currently capable of understanding - so your time / patience is appreciated!

Problem #1:

 camscript.puts("cam.SetPosition(" + vx.to_s + ", " + vy.to_s + ", " + vz.to_s + ")")

outputs something that looks like this:

 cam.SetPosition( 5.44m, -7.92m, 9.85m)

I would like it to output this, WITHOUT the units:

 cam.SetPosition( 5.44, -7.92, 9.85)

I thought that 'to_f' would be the correct command, but that doesn't seem to work... Any ideas on how I could do this?

---

Problem #2:

I need to calculate the 'roll' (i.e. z-axis rotation) of the camera.

I've found a tutorial on highend3d on how to do this:

404 Not Found

(www.highend3d.com)

And I'm pretty sure that in Ruby, (rather than MEL) it should look like this:

 # Calculate Y-rotation of camera (roll)
 globaly = [0, 1, 0]
 normal = zaxis.cross globaly
 projection = normal.cross zaxis
 cosine_roll = up.dot projection
 ry = Math.acos(cosine_roll).radians
  if (upy < 0)
  ry = -ry
  end

But this doesn't return the correct result. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Many thanks for your time.

AJ

[solo]

Alex I cannot help with the coding as I'm useless at such things but I would like to add my support and urge any of our code wizards to look into this as being a dedicated Vue user, such a facillity would be most welcome and very needed.
I'm very happy someone (you) is doing an effort in making this feature possible.

[Chris Fullmer]

#1 try this:

camscript.puts("cam.SetPosition(" + vx..to_f.to_s + ", " + vy.to_f.to_s + ", " + vz.to_f.to_s + ")")

You were right thinking you wanted .to_f, but it still has to end up being a string. So keep the .to_s on the end also.

I'll have to think about #2. Maybe someone else will come up with the answer faster,

Chris

[Alex Jenyon]

Thanks Chris...

It's currently working perfectly for SketchUP scenes in which the camera isn't rotated in the z-axis (i.e. rolled / dutch tilted), and is above ground level.

You also have to enter the camera 'field of view' by hand once you're in Vue.

That's why I haven't posted it up yet - super user-unfriendly!

If I can solve these two problems with Ruby, and the 'FoV' issue with Python, SketchUP and Vue are ready to go.

AJ

EDIT: I've just got problem#1 to work, using .to_f.to_m.to_s - your script still produced a value in inches. Thanks for the pointer, though...

[Chris Fullmer]

Oh good! I never get unit stuff right on the first try. Glad you figured it out.

I'll keep thinking about the other issue.

Chris

[thomthom]

@alex jenyon said:

EDIT: I've just got problem#1 to work, using .to_f.to_m.to_s - your script still produced a value in inches. Thanks for the pointer, though...

SU always works in inches internally. Use .to_mm to turn the SU units to mm. Look at the Numeric class for other conversions: http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/numeric.html

[Alex Jenyon]

I've solved both problems now - please see my other thread for the finished plugin