Entities.add_group(ents)

thomthom

huh! that's a bizzare bug...
I've never really made groups from existing entities - partly because I've not needed it so face, and partly because of all the reports of crashes and oddities.

The creation of the group in the wrong context is one thing - the jumping around is another. This method appear to be a can of worms.

@kwalkerman said:

I could find a decent workaround if there was a way to change the active path of the model!!

If only - it's an very annoying limitation.

thomthom

In addition I got a nice BugSplat when I tried to make a new model...

TIG

Rather than try to find ways to break Sketchup when making groups let's concentrate on doing it the other way...
You gave a group 'g0' [containing some faces making a cube]
You have a similar group 'g1' etc.
You want to add them to a new group - we'll call it 'g2'.
The rule is that the new group and the entities that will be added to it must be in the same 'context' [entities-set].
To trap for this NOT being the case...
return nil if g0.parent.entities != g1.parent.entities
This ensures that the entities-set is suitable.
Assuming they match...
entities=g.parent.entities
Now add a new new group to it, with entities...
g2=entities.add_group(g,g1)
We now have a new group 'g2' containing 'g0' and 'g1'.
g2.entities.to_a should list g0 and g1...
Any number of suitably 'contexted' entities can be added to new group as a list or an array - but not an entities-set - use entities.to_a to add everything in the new-group-to-be's entities-set - otherwise the 'entities' will refer to a set including the new group itself and it'll get into a mega-twist...

kwalkerman

TIG,

I see what you're saying... but the issue is not that the parent entities are not the same, but that model.active_entities is not equal to parent.entities.

Try this:

create a simple model, draw a rectangle and pull it up.

in the ruby console:

model = Sketchup.active_model
s = model.selection

now select the group.

in the ruby console:
g = s[0]

now add a new group to g.entities, through the ruby console

new_g = g.entities.add_group(g.entities.to_a)

So... is this an official bug that needs to be logged with the SU team? How do I go about doing that?

Thanks!

--
Karen

TIG

I think you can't do what you wrote!
You add the group then add the entities to it at that point the group itself is one of those entities!
This might work - it list the entities before the group is even thought about!
ents = g.entities.to_a new_g = g.entities.add_group(ents)
Make sure your new_group and lists of entities are in the 'context' AND that the list doesn't include the new_group itself...
It's an awkward area but it is possible to do it...

kwalkerman

TIG,

so let's back up for a minute.

What my code does, is look for certain existing items within a group (all items are within the same group), and creates sub-groups based on the items having certain characteristics, just like if you were editing a group, selected a few faces, right-clicked and said 'make group'. I want the user to be able to run the script on multiple groups at once, so the components to be grouped, will be part of active groups, but not part of model.active_entities when the script is run.

Am I making sense? Is this completely impossible? Is there some reason I'm overlooking that makes this unrealistic?

Thanks,

--
Karen

TIG

model.active_entities is just a shortcut to the context [entities] that you are in when you run a tool - the current edit's entities set.
It will point at model.entities, or definition.entities or group.entities as is appropriate.
When you make a new group to contain some entities those entities AND the new group must be in the same context [entities]. The entities need NOT be the 'active_entities' which is a 'shorthand'.
You can compare each of the entities using entity.parent to check they all have the same parent and therefore are in the same 'entities-set' [context] and if so then entities_array=entities.to_a; entities[0].parent.entities.add_group(entities_array) should work...

kwalkerman

TIG,

try my test sample. It doesn't work unless model.active_entities is equal to the entities to which you are adding a group. I know that model.active_entities is a shortcut.

try my test sample. Just try it.

--
Karen

TIG

I can see what you mean.
If you are outside of the context you are working on, and try to add a group into a new 'sub-group' the database gets 'twisted'.
You therefore need to do this test -
if model.active_entities == group.parent.entities
if it's true you can do it as I described as the entities are 'active', if false you need to do it another way IF you are dealing with instances - although I find that 'raw' geometry etc seems to work OK...
A group is special kind of 'component instance' and therefore it has a 'definition' - only accessible through an obscure route - see below...
if model.active_entities != model.entities you also need to find the group's transformation as you need that too...
So now instead of adding the group directly into the new sub-group [as you can with 'raw' geometry] you need to add an 'instance' of it instead, then match its transformation and erase the original-group...
ents = group.parent.entities defn = group.entities.parent tran = group.transformation sub_group = ents.add_group() ### initially made 'empty' new_group = sub_group.entities.add_instance(defn, tran) ### group 'cloned' group.erase! ### remove original group
This works for me... the group is effectively cloned into the new sub-group, keeping its transformation, the sub-group is made in the same context as the original group itself, and the original group is then erased...

kwalkerman

TIG,

Ahh, I tried something similar a few days ago, but I think yours has an extra twist or two that just might work!

I'll give it a try.

Thanks,

--
Karen

kwalkerman

... actually this works if you want to create a sub-group that includes all entities of the parent group, but not if you want to create a sub-group that includes only SOME of the entities of the parent group. For instance, I start with a box, and I create one group for all walls, another for all roofs, and another for the floors.

I guess I could create multiple sub-groups using your method, and then erase everything that I don't want out of each group. Aarg! This is much more calculation intensive that I want!

--
Karen