[Plugin] Solid Inspector
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Ah - there we go!
Among the improvements I want to make to the plugin is to add a better UI - like a toolbar. I realize it's not the most intuitive at the moment.Glad it finally worked out.
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A toolbar is an excellent idea.
I have 2 ideas what would go on it. 
1: One icon should be a Direct to Edit mode. Once SI shows you the problem circles, the icon should go directly into edit mode, with the red circled item highlighted or selected.
Right now you have to exit SI mode, reselect the comp/group, edit it and go find the problem, which may very well be a twig in the forest.
2: 2nd icon is a toggle between normal view and a partial transparent view in SI mode. That would make it easier to see what the problems are.
Right now SU's transparent view is too transparent.
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@jgb said:
1: One icon should be a Direct to Edit mode. Once SI shows you the problem circles, the icon should go directly into edit mode, with the red circled item highlighted or selected.
Right now you have to exit SI mode, reselect the comp/group, edit it and go find the problem, which may very well be a twig in the forest.
You should be able to activate SI while inside the group/component you want to inspect.
Making it select the edges SI highlights is a good idea though.@jgb said:
2: 2nd icon is a toggle between normal view and a partial transparent view in SI mode. That would make it easier to see what the problems are.
Right now SU's transparent view is too transparent.
hmm... There is no Ruby API controls to adjust the X-Ray transparency. There isn't even an UI control to do so.
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@tt_su said:
@jgb said:
1: One icon should be a Direct to Edit mode. Once SI shows you the problem circles, the icon should go directly into edit mode, with the red circled item highlighted or selected.
Right now you have to exit SI mode, reselect the comp/group, edit it and go find the problem, which may very well be a twig in the forest.
You should be able to activate SI while inside the group/component you want to inspect.
Making it select the edges SI highlights is a good idea though.Activating SI while inside a group/comp is not the issue.
Once you activate SI you cannot edit the object unless you exit SI, select the object, and edit it. You lose visual context of the element to fix, especially if there are a few of them in close proximity, unless you zoom in to the element while still in SI mode, before editing the object. If it is a very tiny fragment to delete, this "mode switch" can become a bit repetitive to isolate it.
Transparency is not really an issue, just thought of it before I posted.
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There is no way I can keep the SI tool active while editing. The API doesn't have any feature to do so.
Best thing I can do is selecting the edges.
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@tt_su said:
There is no way I can keep the SI tool active while editing. The API doesn't have any feature to do so.
Best thing I can do is selecting the edges.
No need to keep SI active during an edit. Just make it easier to switch back and forth.
Selecting edges would be a real bonus.
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Like many people I have a model which just "is not manifold" (says Slic3r) and I cannot find the problem, so I found your program. I haven't found a manual or documentation for it though. My question is: how do I know it's working? The only indication is the check mark by Tools->Solid Inspector (which does not turn off when I click "Solid Inspector") -I would think an icon would be more intuitive. But anyway... No Ruby Console messages, no errors, no sounds, no screen messages or lines, no flashing popup (i.e. "group checks fine" or "component has n errors"). I tried pressing "tab"; does nothing. The only indication that it's enabled is that when I click outside of a group/component, it doesn't deselect it (a bug?) like the selection arrow does. It is ver 1.2, and library 2.9.8 BTW
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You might try selecting a non-solid group or component and then activating the tool. See what you get. There are instructions in the first post of this thread, too.
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Thomthom, I must say, and I'm sure many others have, that this plugin is a lifesaver! It is amazing how some details so tiny can have such a huge impact to STLs. I would have never found the errors otherwise!
Also... for anyone else having trouble with the installation process with rbz, I just searched google for "tt_solid_inspector.rb" and that regular ol' *.rb file is posted in other places =-)I put that in my plugin folder and it worked great!
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@psychomuffin said:
Also... for anyone else having trouble with the installation process with rbz, I just searched google for "tt_solid_inspector.rb" and that regular ol' *.rb file is posted in other places =-)I put that in my plugin folder and it worked great!
I'd recommend you install the latest version. If you are using SketchUp older than version 7 you can read this article on how to install it manually: http://www.thomthom.net/thoughts/2012/01/installing-plugins-for-google-sketchup/
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just T H A N X
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I just tried installing Solid Inspector via Extensions Warehouse in Sketchup 2014, but got an error message:
Downloading and installing manually worked fine, but also got a reminder to install TT_Lib2 (Duh!), which worked fine to install via Extensions Warehouse.
Just to check the process, I uninstalled Solid Inspector via Extensions Warehouse, closed and reopened Sketchup, then tried to reinstall it. Same error message.
So I can install manually, but not via EW.
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I really like Solid Inspector because it makes my life much easier for 3D printing. Thank you very much for this fantastic tool!
Unfortunately there is a small issue left in the pre-inspection phase (before I use Solid Inspector):
Most times I create a lot of groups of nested solid objects to ease the model organization. Before a model can be printed I create a copy of the skp file and manually ungroup all nested groups until I have all solids on the root level of the group (letting the group become a solid group). This must be done otherwise the solid tools can not be used. Then I start to merge, intersect, subtract the solid groups by using the solid tools. Afterwards I use Solid Inspector to fix the problems. Then it can be printed.
Especially for complex models this manually un-nesting operation of many groups took a lot of time.
Is there any possibility to do that un-nesting group operation with Solid Inspector? In other words I want to bring all nested solids on one level by a one-click operation to let all groups become solid-groups.
Here is a screenshot showing my problem. All nested groups need to be manually exploded to transform "1-Before" into "2-After" to let "2-After" be a solid group.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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i was building something and i found out that a component wasnt "solid" so i spent at least 2 hours trying to find the problem. i finally gave up and did a google search for my problem and found a website that had a link to this plugin, within 2 minutes, my component was solid
i cant thank you enough for this plugin!
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Thank you very much Thomas for this great plugin, really saved the day.
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I just downloaded this plugin and put it through a simple test. Not sure, what I am doing wrong but it does not seem to recognize a missing face.
I am using Sketchup version V14.0.4900
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It's not showing you any problems because there aren't any. You just hid the face so it looks like there's a hole. That's not the same as a missing face.
If you actually delete the face, then the plugin shows you the hole. The plugin works just fine.
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This issue came up with the STL exporter as well.
Filed new issue: https://bitbucket.org/thomthom/solid-inspector/issue/5/detect-hidden-entities
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