[Plugin][$] Vertex Tools

Builder54

@builder54 said:

Bug Splat

Up to now I have not been developing a single model, rather gaining experience with organic modelling tools. So I will take on a small project and see if I can reproduce the error messages. On a side note, I know that Quad Face Tools was recently updated. I was attempting to use the offset loop option but kept getting the same error message that VT2 is giving me. I've used to offset loop in the past without any problems. I thought I would mention it because they are both your plugins. I'll send you what you need as soon as I can reproduce the problem in VT2.

Builder54

@thomthom said:

Did you in this case really mean the SketchUp BugSplat dialog? Not the Vertex Tools error dialog?

I can't be sure. I do remember Sketchup shutting down suddenly and giving me a Bug Splat recently, but I don't remember how I handled it.

thomthom

@builder54 said:

On a side note, I know that Quad Face Tools was recently updated. I was attempting to use the offset loop option but kept getting the same error message that VT2 is giving me.

Can you post back what that error message was?

Builder54

@thomthom said:

Can you post back what that error message was?

I was referring to the Error Report Box. I posted the gif in Quadface Tools thread. Sorry I don't know how to reference the post.

Builder54

Feature request

I would love to be able to achieve smooth curves

VT2 Curves.gif

A work around I'm using is Shape Bender by Chris Fulmer

thomthom

Are you looking for something other than what Shape Bender offers?

Builder54

@thomthom said:

Are you looking for something other than what Shape Bender offers?

Since Vertex Tools already has multi-plane rotation capabilities, I was asking if options could be added that would allow for the bending of a given series of vertices and faces into a smooth arc form. As you noted it is not essential since there already exists plugins such as Shape Bender. When I wrote the post, I was experimenting with "primitives", ie box, spheres, cylnders etc. So being able to "pull/stretch" a cylinder out to a point in an arc form from within Vertex Tools would I think be very helpful.

Edit
I also have True Bend which works really well. I'm probably just spoiled

Einstein

Hello Thom Thom,
Sorry I am responding back to your post so late, but lately I was the one to have rather hard (busy) time

You asked me to specify exactly what I meant by that request:

"bevel vertices with more segments (like Fredo Corner, but Fredo Corner doesn't work with flat faces)"

My suggestion was to enable not only bevelling vertices but also rounding them. So let's say bevelling means that you add one edge at a vertex between two existing edges and rounding means that you add more edges and create an arc between them. Like in Blender - you bevel a vertex and use mouse scroll to add more segments. This is the feature I pursue. There are several corner-rounding tools for SketchUp but none of them allows manipulating vertices directly, like your plugin does. That's why I believe my suggestion makes sense

thomthom

@einstein said:

My suggestion was to enable not only bevelling vertices but also rounding them. So let's say bevelling means that you add one edge at a vertex between two existing edges and rounding means that you add more edges and create an arc between them. Like in Blender - you bevel a vertex and use mouse scroll to add more segments. This is the feature I pursue. There are several corner-rounding tools for SketchUp but none of them allows manipulating vertices directly, like your plugin does. That's why I believe my suggestion makes sense

Gotcha. Yea, I have it on my list of ideas already. Rounding, or profiled, bevels are however much more complicated. I need to do more research for that.

Einstein

I've got one more feature suggestion.
Merge close vertices "through groups", so if many groups/ components are selected, instead of raw geometry, vertice merge can also be performed. Currently it seems that we can only work on raw geometry. Merging vertices is sometimes a crucial fixing/ optimization algorithm and it's good if it can process many objects at once.

I recently worked with a model - bunch of people, hundreds of thousands of faces altogether and it got imported so bad that every single face was separate, can you imagine that... I mean, I know you can. I worked around by exploding all the groups, merging the vertices and regrouping with "Loose to groups" plugin, but I would rather not repeat that in SketchUp anymore...

thomthom

@einstein said:

I've got one more feature suggestion.
Merge close vertices "through groups", so if many groups/ components are selected, instead of raw geometry, vertice merge can also be performed. Currently it seems that we can only work on raw geometry. Merging vertices is sometimes a crucial fixing/ optimization algorithm and it's good if it can process many objects at once.

I recently worked with a model - bunch of people, hundreds of thousands of faces altogether and it got imported so bad that every single face was separate, can you imagine that... I mean, I know you can. I worked around by exploding all the groups, merging the vertices and regrouping with "Loose to groups" plugin, but I would rather not repeat that in SketchUp anymore...

hmm... main challenge here is that VT doesn't have any way to select anything other than vertices... Will have to think about this one.

Fletch

Hi ThomThom, your website says to post here, so... please forgive me if this is not the right place.

I purchased VT in Jan 2020.

The version I had downloaded in Jan 2020 throws an error when I try to install.

Must I now buy a whole new version just so that it will work in SU2021? Or do you have a version I can continue to use even in SU2021?

Einstein

Hi,
I'd like to say something more about vertex bevel here (I hope you don't have enough of me yet ).
I was able to reproduce the bug I once had when bevelling vertices of a face and I noticed two undesired things happening:

After selecting all verts of the Y letter and bevelling them a little the face gets removed, leaving only the edges. That I find a bug.
Bevel widths are uneven and these bevel are unsymmetrical. I guess that's because bevel values here are not absolute but relative to the length of bevelled edges. This surely makes sense, but it would also be very nice having another option for symmetrical bevels with absolute offset. Perhaps this could be performed by simply adding a unit following a typed value, just like in native SketchUp. For example, type "0.1m" instead of "0.1" in the VDB to get the absolute value.

Y.skp

Einstein

Version 2.0.5 - again: what is new?

jo-ke

I have updated SU2021 to 21.1.299 64 bits and vertextools disappeared.

I tried to reinstall, but it doesn't show it.

It is shown in extension manager but not shown in Menubar to select

What can I do?

Dave R

I see it in the latest release of 2021 on my machine.

Is it shown as Enabled in the Extension Manager?

jo-ke

yes, it is

Dave R

Latest version of both TT_Lib2 and Vertex Tools installed?

numerobis

I don't know, if this has been discussed before, but Vertex Tools 2 is crashing a lot for me (SU 2021). Sometimes every few minutes. Not the whole plugin or SU, but the gizmo disappears and i have to restart SU to get it back. It's possible that it is related to the SU autosave, since i see the windows "wait cursor" and the program is freezing for a short time, just before the operation is canceled and the gizmo disappears forever.

arxitekt

@thomthom said:

@rv1974 said:

TT could you add 'lock perimeter' feature please?

I have a feature request logged named "Lock Vertices". Would this be the same thing?

Hello ThomThom Fellow Norwegian here.
I am in need of a way to lock a set of terrain mesh vertices(property boundaries), from a larger landscape terrain. I want to do this to be able to manipulate only the terrain with this property line, without affecting the mesh beyond, leaving the correct elevations for the surrounding properties.

I have experimented with:

Grouping a set of "border" faces and edges and then locking these. This kinda works, leaving the surrounding mesh as-is, but it detaches the property mesh from this group and gaps in the faces between are introduced when manipulating the mesh. (This could be corrected by manually adding new faces to close the gap, after the terrain is finsished, but does not cater well for effectively reworking this terrain later)
Artisan crease, but this locking of edges/vertices does not support vertex editing tools, only smoothing and sculpting
I like your Vertex Tools2 for manipulating mesh, but locking vertices is sorely missing.

Is this feature on still in your backlog or in development now?

Thank you for great tools!

/arxitekt