{REQ} Perimeter Trace?
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Previously I was hand tracing the perimeter within a group. I need to do this on every project as a means to combine the home and newly designed structural elements with the imported geolocation terrain. An automated process would be a huge time saver.
The current method involves (shown in the video I posted) -
Gleaning the Perimeter Outline via -
1 Selecting and grouping the model
2. Moving the model upward on the Z
3. Creating a WorkPlane on the ground http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=31204
4. Processing Silhouette to Plane - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=31204
5 Deleting the work Plane
6. Exploding the Silhouette to Plane Group
7. Running EEbyVtoObject - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=37515
8. Deleting all but the top edgesMerging it into the Terrain
9. Moving to the Google Earth Terrain
10. Cut/copy the Perimeter Trace
11. Opening the GE terrain group
12. Pasting in Place the Perimeter Trace
13. Selecting the Grouped perimeter and the terrain together
14 Running Instant Site Grader Pro - http://www.valiarchitects.com/sketchup_scripts(Perimeter Trace can have NO truly vertical edges, or the Site Grader plugin won't work)
If at least the first 8 steps could be cut down by combining some snippets of existing code, that would be awesome. If it's a hassle....I'm more than grateful for the tools you've already created that make this possible in the first place! .....and it's still a lot faster than tracing it by hand!
Also, I think Instant Site Grader is great, but I don't like the linear fashion in which it grades the terrain into the perimeter trace. It seems it takes the footprint and offsets it by the user input, does some intersecting and deleting and then performs a "from contours" type operation to skin it back together. Perhaps using the perimeter trace to do the first part manually and then using Extrude Edges by Rails, would grade the terrain in a way it can still be sculpted. (just thinking out loud) Perhaps Bezier Patch will also be available soon.
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