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    Reading a file in Ruby

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    • TIGT Offline
      TIG Moderator
      last edited by

      @chris fullmer said:

      TIG, your last bit there to add the lines from the points could be greatly simplified. Instead of adding each line separately with .add_line, you can use the .add_edges. Replace the last chunk of code with this:
      model = Sketchup.active_model entities = model.active_entities entities.add_edges points
      Chris

      I know but I thought he might want to use the points in other ways to - e.g. close the 'loop'...

      TIG

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      • Chris FullmerC Offline
        Chris Fullmer
        last edited by

        I had guesses you probably had a good reson for writing it the way you did. But I thought I'd mention just in case you had just forgotten πŸ’š

        Lately you've been tan, suspicious for the winter.
        All my Plugins I've written

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        • TIGT Offline
          TIG Moderator
          last edited by

          He could even do
          face=ents.add_face(points) face.erase!
          To get a loop quickly with no face ???

          TIG

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          • W Offline
            wsellers89
            last edited by

            Dear TIG and Chris,

            You both are geniuses and I can't thank you enough for your advice! I am attaching what I pieced together based on your inputs, and from info in the Ruby SketchUp programming examples. I put together a quick input file with the coordinates of a parabola just to test out the code, and it works just fine.

            I am still not sure of some of the finer points of your discussion (e.g. edges versus lines), but this gets me started. Is there a good reference or tutorials for learning more about Ruby on SketchUp? I am experienced in Fortran and to a less extent C, but I can follow most of the the code. I am not sure what ".to_f" does in the loop to parse out the x,y points and would like to know more.

            I will attach the simple input file in case you are interested.

            First we pull in the standard API hooks.

            require 'sketchup'

            Show the Ruby Console at startup so we Can

            see any programming errors we may make.

            Sketchup.send_action "showRubyPanel:"

            UI.menu("PlugIns").add_item("LinesFromFile") {
            UI.messagebox("I'm about to import data")

            #Set your filepath by using

            filepath = UI.openpanel("Open Data File", "/Users/sellers
            ", "*.txt")

            http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/do ... #openpanel OR

            hard-code it in - if you get back-slashes in your path ..\folder\file.dat

            swap them for forward slashes for other ruby use filepath.tr!("\","/")

            Then you open the file for reading...

            lines=IO.readlines(filepath)

            Now process the array of lines to get the points as x/y values

            points=[]
            lines.each{|line|
            x=line.split(",")[0].to_f
            y=line.split(",")[1].to_f
            pt=[x,y]
            points<< pt
            }

            You now have an array of points.

            To connect points with 'Lines' use

            model=Sketchup.active_model
            ents=model.active_entities

            0.upto(points.length-2) do |i|
            ents.add_line(points[i],points[i+1])
            end#do

            }


            Simple data for a parabola

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            • Chris FullmerC Offline
              Chris Fullmer
              last edited by

              I put together a few videos on youtube that describe how I like to work in Ruby in SketchUp. It is designed mostly for people with no other programming knowledge like myself, but anyone can watch. Just don't be surprised if its a little basic - especially the first half of the first video.

              Anyhow, it is the first 6 videos listed in my video page on Youtube here:

              The first one goes over how to get started and explains a little bit about how to quickyl test code in SketchUp, and it has one quick code example. Then the other ones all show how to perform various short, but useful tasks in ruby.

              Chris

              Lately you've been tan, suspicious for the winter.
              All my Plugins I've written

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              • TIGT Offline
                TIG Moderator
                last edited by

                The 'lines' v. 'edges' is clouded by the "lines" of text read from the file too !

                'Line' and 'Edge' have specific means in SUp's API.
                The example code reads the file as 'lines' [of text] then processes each 'line' [of text].
                It then makes an array [list] of points from these and then uses those to add_line(p1,p2) stepping through the array of points in pairs. The ents.add_line method adds one 'Line' - or more correctly an 'Edge' - to the SUp entities collection. Chris pointed out that there is another method ents.add_edges(points) where ALL of the Edges are processed en mass from the array of points.

                The 'Line' tool in SUp is actually an 'Edge' tool - draw a 'Line' and Select it, get Entity Info > 'Edge' !

                The term 'Line' within the API has a specific meaning relating to an Edge - edge.line which returns a 2 item array of point and a vector - i.e. an Edge's "Line" tells you where the Edge starts and where it's heading to - which can be useful in getting intersections of an Edge's Line and a Plane etc...

                Another thing to note is that a 'Curve' in the API is not necessarily 'curved' ! An Arc or Circle is a Curve BUT any set of 'joined' Edges are technically a 'Curve' - a 'Polyline' in most other APIs ! There are free tools to join edges into Curves - e.g. weld.rb - which is useful in extruding smooth surfaces and essential with my EEby.. tools that need you to select Curves - if you are trying to use something other than an 'Arc'...

                TIG

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                • M Offline
                  MartinRinehart
                  last edited by

                  @wsellers89 said:

                  I am experienced in Fortran and to a less extent C, but I can follow most of the the code.

                  In most modern languages there is a loop that loops over each member of a group without need for subscripting (and therefor without chance to mess up by going one too far or one too few). In Ruby it's

                  for member in group do process_member_here end

                  For non-trivial processing its

                  
                  for member in group
                      process_member_here
                  end
                  
                  

                  Your job might go like this:

                  
                  first = true
                  for point in points
                      create_edge( prev, point ) unless first
                      prev = point
                      first = false
                  end
                  
                  

                  You'll see many Rubyists write that this way:

                  
                  ...
                  points.each do |point|
                  ...
                  end
                  
                  

                  My tutorial, beginning in Chapter 11 teaches Ruby and the SketchUp API. It has "Topic" boxes for programming beginners. Programmers such as yourself who know coding essentials, but not Ruby, can just read the topic (for example, "Looping") and, if you know what the topic means, you skip over the box.

                  By the by, Chris's You Tube tutorials are a lot more fun.

                  Author, Edges to Rubies - The Complete SketchUp Tutorial at http://www.MartinRinehart.com/models/tutorial.

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                  • W Offline
                    wsellers89
                    last edited by

                    Is there a SketchUp API command that would let you extract the beginning and end point (x,y,z) of a selected line or edge?

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                    • W Offline
                      wsellers89
                      last edited by

                      I think that I found my answer by digging into the SketchUp API documentation. Their examples show the following for the edge.start and the edge.end command. Don't know if there is a more elegant way.

                      edge = Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_line([0,0,0],[100,100,0])
                      vertex = edge.start
                      if (vertex)

                      display a pointer to the Vertex

                      UI.messagebox vertex
                      else
                      UI.messagebox "Failure"
                      end
                      point = vertex.position

                      Let's get the Point3d of the vertex

                      if (point)
                      UI.messagebox point
                      else
                      UI.messagebox "Failure"
                      end

                      vertex = edge.end
                      if (vertex)

                      display a pointer to the Vertex

                      UI.messagebox vertex
                      else
                      UI.messagebox "Failure"
                      end
                      point = vertex.position

                      Let's get the Point3d of the vertex

                      if (point)
                      UI.messagebox point
                      else
                      UI.messagebox "Failure"
                      end

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                      • Chris FullmerC Offline
                        Chris Fullmer
                        last edited by

                        Yup, that is one way to do it. Read all the methods available to the edge class:

                        http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/edge.html

                        You also have edge.vertices available which will return BOTH vertices in one shot.

                        edge = Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_line([0,0,0],[100,100,0]) vertices = edge.vertices position1 = vertices[0].position position2 = vertices[1].position

                        Lately you've been tan, suspicious for the winter.
                        All my Plugins I've written

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                        • TIGT Offline
                          TIG Moderator
                          last edited by

                          As well as getting the two vertices in order as Chris points out there is
                          vertex0 = edge.start vertex1 = edge.end point0 = vertex0.position point1 = vertex1.position
                          I made the 'vertices' just for clarity - of course you can miss defining the vertex and jump straight to the point like start_point = edge.start.position etc...
                          Also the edge.line defines its start thus start_point = edge.line[0], the [1] would return its vector...
                          You can extract the x/y/z values direct from a point with x=point.x or turn the point into an array with point.to_a where you can still get the x/y/z or 0/1/2 items - points and 3-item arrays are somewhat interchangeable, but watch for traps - so methods require a point rather than an arrays of arrays are 'sortable' while arrays of points are not [but sets are ?]... πŸ˜•

                          TIG

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                          • Dan RathbunD Offline
                            Dan Rathbun
                            last edited by

                            @wsellers89 said:

                            Is there a good reference or tutorials for learning more about Ruby on SketchUp?

                            post moved to this topic: "Ruby Docs"

                            I'm not here much anymore.

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