[Plugin] Groups to Components

autarchos

thanks for the tip, thomthom. i see solo proposed the idea in your component dropper thread. i am experimenting with it on a few trees. it actually makes the workflow quite a bit faster and easier, but does not keep geometry in the exact original orientation.

thus, i'm creating components of each leaf (painfully slow), using component dropper to make them all the same (instantaneous, even for thousands of leaves), and then using chris fullmer's scale and rotate multiple to give them a little bit of randomness. i'll show you a tree with some stats when finished - it's slow, but i think will yield a more natural chaotic result than the original trees - xfrog tends to be too fractal and perfect in my opinion.

a note however, your 'groups to components' works almost instantly, whereas the same function with matts plugin took several minutes. perhaps at some point this script could be updated to work on non-group entities as matts does, but with more efficiency.

publied

very interesting Thom,
now i'm trying it!

halroach

Hi,

Sometimes when I'm using this plugin it only converts one selected group to one component leaving all the rest as groups. Not sure what's causing that. ideas?

halroach

@halroach said:

Hi,

Sometimes when I'm using this plugin it only converts one selected group to one component leaving all the rest as groups. Not sure what's causing that. ideas?

I copied and pasted all the groups to another sketchup model (outside of the one component they were in, and they were all converted. could it be this plugin doesn't work within a component?

tt_su

Do you have a sample scenario/model where I can reproduce this?

irwanwr

I thought there's already Group to Components function in Selection Toys, isn't it?

thomthom

@irwanwr said:

I thought there's already Group to Components function in Selection Toys, isn't it?

It's somewhat different. Selection Toys got a function to convert group copies to component instance while ensuring each instance isn't made unique.
This small extension had a special purpose for preserving naming in a special way by request of some user.

bsfranza

hi there,

could it be that its not yet updated for su 2014???

its not showing in any menue

Dave R

@bsfranza said:

hi there,

could it be that its not yet updated for su 2014???

its not showing in any menue

No. It works fine n SketchUp 2014. How did you install it? If installed correctly, it will appear in the Plugins menu.

koliboti

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?

TIG

@koliboti said:

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?
I assume you mean to make component-instances into groups ?
This one liner processed a selection. Making any component-instances into groups, using the same name/layer/material/attributes as the original...

m=Sketchup.active_model;a=m.active_entities;s=m.selection;m.start_operation('!');s.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance).each{|i|g=a.add_group();e=g.entities;n=e.add_instance(i.definition, i.transformation);n.explode;g.name=i.definition.name;g.layer=i.layer;g.material=i.material;i.attribute_dictionaries.each{|d|d.each_pair{|k,v|g.add_attribute(d.name,k,v)}}if i.attribute_dictionaries;i.erase!;};m.commit_operation

koliboti

@tig said:

@koliboti said:

Hi, do you guys have plugin that makes components to groups, that work wit SU2015?
I assume you mean to make component-instances into groups ?
This one liner processed a selection. Making any component-instances into groups, using the same name/layer/material/attributes as the original...

m=Sketchup.active_model;a=m.active_entities;s=m.selection;m.start_operation('!');s.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance).each{|i|g=a.add_group();e=g.entities;n=e.add_instance(i.definition, i.transformation);n.explode;g.name=i.definition.name;g.layer=i.layer;g.material=i.material;i.attribute_dictionaries.each{|d|d.each_pair{|k,v|g.add_attribute(d.name,k,v)}}if i.attribute_dictionaries;i.erase!;};m.commit_operation

Thank you very-very much TIG! it works perfect also with imported 3ds objects.

camilo_caicedo

Hi thomthom.

Your conversion tool changes all groups in the selection to components, one component for each group where the group's name is transferred to the component's definition's name.

Please, do you know about some plugin which changes all groups in the selection to a single component (the groups should be a copy of a single group), so you obtain one component for each group, where the component definition name of each component is the same?

People often forget to make a component instead of a group, so if you repeat a group, and then you rotate or move that group to diferent places many times, it would be hard to make a component and then repeat it, rotate or move it many times again. A tool to convert those groups to one component would allow you to go on with your job.

Thank's

thomthom

If the group haven't been modified (or even opened) then Selection Toys can convert such groups to components. But if the user has performed any kind of action that makes SU kick in the make-unique then it won't be able to detect that.
You can force replace with Component Replacer, but you need to pick out which ones to replace with what.

rv1974

Thomthom, may I request this tool to keep the object(s) selected after conversion?

YCL furniture

Hello, Thom
maybe have any plugin to convert components to groups? without losing the component name

Dave R

@ycl furniture said:

Hello, Thom
maybe have any plugin to convert components to groups? without losing the component name

Why convert components to groups?

YCL furniture

@dave r said:

@ycl furniture said:

Hello, Thom
maybe have any plugin to convert components to groups? without losing the component name

Why convert components to groups?

Because I design furniture with components. After designing the furniture, I use the ABF solutions plugin to make report list of furniture panels cutting and edges bandings. This plugin only works with groups.
Maybe you know of another plugin that make report list of furniture panels and edges banding?
I made a video where I showed what features I need (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85djT5KbnZw)

Dave R

You are using SketchUp 2016 Make for your business?

There are numerous cutlist extensions that work with components.

YCL furniture

@dave r said:

You are using SketchUp 2016 Make for your business?

There are numerous cutlist extensions that work with components.

There are many extensions that calculate report list of furniture panels cuttings. But none of them count the edges banding