[Plugin] Tools for architects
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First, I apologize for barging in to the forum like this, but I think some of you may find my contributions interesting.
For my work I often make tools. Tools that I had hopelessly kept waiting for in the next version of SketchUp. These tools are not complex and they don't accomplish fancy tasks. They are very natural extensions of SketchUp. What they do is perform the trivial tasks for you so you can focus on the fun parts. They don't take your time, they give you more time. They are made with great care to stay within SketchUp logic, using mostly the VCB instead of dialogs, they have toolbar icons matching the style of the classic SketchUp tools, some of them use custom cursors, and they display instructions in the status bar.
Massing Box Tool lets you draw boxes by area size.
Type in area size and the rectangle you draw will keep this area. It is ideal for the initial stages of the design process. I will add more tools to this category in the near future.
Area Scale scales any shape to a specified area.
You can scale any odd shape you wish, a superellipse, a flower, a hippo, literally anything, to contain exactly the area you wish. Which basically means you are free to draw any shape without concern for the area. That will be taken care of by this tool.
Turn Texture lets you turn textures with a single click.
This is very useful when you work with linear textures like wood, brick or sheet metal, if they are oriented wrong just use this tool to turn them. It works on individual faces as well as selections of faces or groups, even embedded groups.
Randomize Texture Position well, it randomizes texture positions with a single click.
If you make a long row of columns with the same texture, it will easily look very unnatural if they all have the same position. With this tool you can randomize their positions with the click of a button. Just as the Turn Texture tool it works on individual faces as well as selections of faces or groups.
Unit Switch lets you easily switch between two units.
By assigning a keyboard shortcut you can switch between units with a single keystroke. Very useful with other tools, e.g. you may switch between millimeters when drawing and meters for measuring area.
Scale Ruler lets you measure in arbitrary scale.
It is very useful when building real world models, for measuring in any scale you can imagine, 1/200, 1/33.3 1/72...
Random Selection does the random jobs for you. You may know how difficult it is to be intentionally random, so this one does it for you. You simply specify how many percent or how many objects you wish to keep in a selection. I could make many random tools for color, moving, scaling, grouping etc. With this simple tool you will be able to do all of these. This tool is deceivingly simple, give it some time and you may realize the potentials of it.Most of the tools I release will not be free, but in these tough times please consider supporting a struggling young architect to pay rent and afford warm meals.
You will find the tools at
http://rubits.com.Please follow this thread as I will announce more tools soon. You can sign up for my newsletter if you wish to.
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cool plugins if only i was an architect
unit switch is useful for me but i look forward to more posts.
keep it up
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Well done, rubits! I will follow with much interest....
Just a tip for your website; maybe add a YouTube video of each tools working. makes it easier to decide whether you want to buy it or not.... -
Looks interesting, I'm gonna watch this thread for news.
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Thank you for your encouragement and interest.
I will post some videos of the tools in action the coming week as well as some more free scripts, probably starting with some selection scripts, I realize however that some of these may not be strictly architectural though.
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I have just released a new free script, Random Selection, please try it out and tell me what you think. As usual it comes with toolbuttons. Keep on the lookout this week, more is coming.
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My explanation of the tools may not be so easy to understand, so I am now uploading video demonstrations of them. You can see the first one for the Massing Box Tool at http://rubits.com/video.php?file=massing. I will upload some more later today. They will all be accessible from the mainpage too.
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No video there, Alex....
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sorry, the server had some troubles, it will be back up in some hours, hang tight.
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The server troubles kept me busy, so a bit off schedule I have just added some new texture tools, Turn Texture and Randomize Texture Position, the latter being a reworking of a very unstable free script I worked on a long time ago. I have also added a new massing tool, Area Scale. I am sure many of you will find these new scripts useful. Please see the first post or my site for details.
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basic is always helpful. thanks for sharing this.
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