• Login
sketchucation logo sketchucation
  • Login
โ„น๏ธ GoFundMe | Our friend Gus Robatto needs some help in a challenging time Learn More

[Tutorial] PickHelper - Visual Guide

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Developers' Forum
34 Posts 11 Posters 2.4k Views
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • E Offline
    Edson
    last edited by 19 Aug 2010, 13:48

    sorry: wrong mumber. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    edson mahfuz, architect| porto alegre โ€ข brasil
    http://www.mahfuz.arq.br

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • C Offline
      Chris Fullmer
      last edited by 19 Aug 2010, 19:32

      ๐Ÿคฃ

      @Thom - I've decided I do not know enough about the pickhelper to understand this yet. I've used it, but only the best_picked method. So I've never had to worry about leafs and paths. Maybe once I get more into the pickhelper I'll have something useful to say ๐Ÿ˜›

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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • T Offline
        thomthom
        last edited by 19 Aug 2010, 19:51

        Well - that means there is room for improvements. ๐Ÿ˜‰
        Is there some parts that does make sense?

        Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
        List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • T Offline
          TIG Moderator
          last edited by 19 Aug 2010, 21:13

          Sorry, but I understood it better before you published your guide ๐Ÿ˜’ ๐Ÿ˜‰

          TIG

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • J Offline
            jessejames
            last edited by 20 Aug 2010, 06:36

            Wow ThomThom this is a tough crowd tonight! ๐Ÿ˜ฒ. My connect speed seems to be on granny mode tonight (or your pdf is really large) but as soon as i can get an eyeall on that PDF i'll let ya know what i think ๐Ÿ˜‰

            Always sleep with a loaded gun under your pillow!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • T Offline
              thomthom
              last edited by 24 Aug 2010, 07:14

              Nothing to it but back to the drawing board. Think I'll make the next one bigger. Bigger is better, right? ๐Ÿ˜„

              Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
              List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • M Offline
                MartinRinehart
                last edited by 26 Aug 2010, 17:22

                Bravo, ThomThom! ๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘

                I love it when explorers return from parts unknown bearing and sharing maps.

                (Nit: The plural of child is children.)

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

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • T Offline
                  thomthom
                  last edited by 26 Aug 2010, 17:58

                  @martinrinehart said:

                  Bravo, ThomThom! ๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘

                  Someone understood this? ๐Ÿ˜ฎ ๐Ÿ˜„

                  @martinrinehart said:

                  (Nit: The plural of child is children.)

                  Thanks - I'll sort it out for version 2. Getting a better idea on how to visualize this.

                  Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                  List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • T Offline
                    thomthom
                    last edited by 2 Jan 2013, 19:50

                    Revision 3

                    I've finally got around to work on a revision for this. Would you please have a look at this draft and give me your thoughts? Is it more understandable?
                    This version is more verbose and instead of trying to explain the entire class in one diagram I broke it down into categories.


                    PickHelper - Rev3 - 09-12-2013.pdf

                    Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                    List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • J Offline
                      jolran
                      last edited by 2 Jan 2013, 21:01

                      I had a quick look. Good stylished job! Appears very easy too follow.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • D Offline
                        Dan Rathbun
                        last edited by 2 Jan 2013, 21:07

                        Text in Console Boxes a bit too small.

                        Green bubble text 2 steps too small.

                        Content text a bit too small.

                        Any Ruby expressions could be in Ruby-color.

                        Basically - too much wasted whitespace on the pages.

                        BUT the organization looks good... a should make a nice tutorial.

                        I'm not here much anymore.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • T Offline
                          thomthom
                          last edited by 2 Jan 2013, 21:26

                          @dan rathbun said:

                          Text in Console Boxes a bit too small.

                          Green bubble text 2 steps too small.

                          Content text a bit too small.

                          How are you viewing it? Full pagewidth? On what size monitor?

                          @dan rathbun said:

                          Any Ruby expressions could be in Ruby-color.

                          Higher contrast for the code expressions would be good. But I wanted to ensure the content made any sense before I polished up the graphical details.

                          @dan rathbun said:

                          Basically - too much wasted whitespace on the pages.

                          Specifically where? The edges?
                          I've deliberately used white space to separate the sections and divide the information into chunks so the eye is served smaller units. Hearing why you think it's too much white-space would be interesting.

                          First of all I'm trying to gauge if the information is making sense. I want to nail the big details before I polish the small details.

                          Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                          List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • T Offline
                            thomthom
                            last edited by 2 Jan 2013, 21:27

                            @jolran said:

                            I had a quick look. Good stylished job! Appears very easy too follow.

                            Did it make any sense?

                            Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                            List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • J Offline
                              jolran
                              last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 08:58

                              Yes it made sence. I love these visual guides ๐Ÿ˜„

                              I might be a good testsubject because I have never used pickhelper.

                              Segments and Points confused me a little, and maybe another row of explanation would not hurt.

                              Theese following ideas may just be a subject of personal taste.
                              (People have their way of "taking in" information visually, and it might be impossible to please everyone.)

                              Label groups and components G1, G2 etc maybe adds 1 more level of translating information? If its for conserving space, maybe the example should include less entities.

                              The "Test scene" picture could be a "standard style"(lightgrey) screengrab? So user feel familiar with the scene and working in SU.

                              In any way. Great job, and thanks for doing guides like this.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • T Offline
                                thomthom
                                last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 13:42

                                @jolran said:

                                Segments and Points confused me a little, and maybe another row of explanation would not hurt.

                                Expand on what "segments" and "points" are?

                                @jolran said:

                                Label groups and components G1, G2 etc maybe adds 1 more level of translating information? If its for conserving space, maybe the example should include less entities.

                                This is something I went back and forth quite a bit with. Initially I had just plain colours, one for containers (groups and components) and one of leaves.
                                But I felt the need to reference and identify each branch - as the order of nesting is important. I find it difficult to remove the number of entities as the test scene is specifically set up to cover a multiple of scenarios. (Several entities overlapping each other but in different context.)
                                I agree though, it does add more noise to the chart - but without them I fear it'd be impossible to follow the flow. The Gx and Cx symbols are used to be able to reference specific entities in the descriptions.

                                @jolran said:

                                The "Test scene" picture could be a "standard style"(lightgrey) screengrab? So user feel familiar with the scene and working in SU.

                                Maybe so. I set it so I'd have darker background to match more the code blocks. But maybe that's not needed. But the light grey is just one of the default templates - Engineering templates are completely different.

                                I'll have to ponder on all this feedback.

                                Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • D Offline
                                  Dan Rathbun
                                  last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 14:35

                                  @thomthom said:

                                  @dan rathbun said:

                                  Text in Console Boxes a bit too small.
                                  Green bubble text 2 steps too small.
                                  Content text a bit too small.
                                  How are you viewing it?

                                  When I click the download... Chrome d/l's it into the " %(#004040)[~/documents/downloads]" directory.
                                  I have PDF set to open in Adobe Reader (a separate process, rather than within the browser.)

                                  @thomthom said:

                                  Full pagewidth?

                                  Yes. I have Adobe Reader set to open docs in page width by default.

                                  @thomthom said:

                                  On what size monitor?

                                  A 20 inch diagonal, Samsung 204B (1600x1200px,) which is 16" wide by 12" high.

                                  I'm not here much anymore.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • D Offline
                                    Dan Rathbun
                                    last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 14:39

                                    @thomthom said:

                                    Hearing why you think it's too much white-space would be interesting.

                                    That's a minor thing... don't worry too much about that now.

                                    @thomthom said:

                                    First of all I'm trying to gauge if the information is making sense.

                                    Yep.. I find the information very easy to follow.

                                    I'm not here much anymore.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • T Offline
                                      thomthom
                                      last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 14:48

                                      I'll have to review the page size. To be honest - I don't know what paper size it is any more. I started out with a normal page format - but in order to focus on laying out the info I abandoned it and just expanded the page to make fit. The physical size is probably inherited by the underlying grid I used. Being vector I wasn't too concerned.

                                      Thanks for the feedback.

                                      Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                      List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • J Offline
                                        jolran
                                        last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 15:25

                                        @unknownuser said:

                                        Expand on what "segments" and "points" are?

                                        The last part where it says "Segments and Points". ๐Ÿ˜„

                                        It all depends on what user-level you are targeting.
                                        Me, I felt I needed more information about points. (I've never used pic helper so I'm totally green on subject.) But then again I suppose this is meant to be a visual guide with as little text as possible, so that might work against the whole concept.

                                        @unknownuser said:

                                        I'll have to ponder on all this feedback.

                                        No need to "ponder" ๐Ÿ˜„ It is really good as it is.

                                        Got a 21 inch screen. At full screenmode and 66,7% zoom the text size was fine on my computer.
                                        Is target for print?

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • T Offline
                                          thomthom
                                          last edited by 3 Jan 2013, 15:33

                                          @jolran said:

                                          It all depends on what user-level you are targeting.
                                          Me, I felt I needed more information about points. (I've never used pic helper so I'm totally green on subject.)

                                          Yea, the thing with the pickhelper is that it serves multiple purposes. It let you pick entities in the model, but it also let you test against simple Geom::Point3d object - which which isn't represented by a model entity at all. I kind of feel the class should have been broken up into two separate classes because it's currently doing two separate jobs. I have been playing with making a wrapper that might make more sense to use.

                                          @jolran said:

                                          Is target for print?

                                          No, screen was the target. Saving them poor trees.

                                          Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                          List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • 1
                                          • 2
                                          • 1 / 2
                                          • First post
                                            Last post
                                          Buy SketchPlus
                                          Buy SUbD
                                          Buy WrapR
                                          Buy eBook
                                          Buy Modelur
                                          Buy Vertex Tools
                                          Buy SketchCuisine
                                          Buy FormFonts

                                          Advertisement