Webdialogs for SketchUp ......RIP!

tomot

I forgive Dan, he was probably off his meds again, although you can always count on him to give you his undivided attention when one is looking for a problem that needs solving. I'm not talking about dumping Ruby.

You can see the Visual Programming, in the attached pic, the underlying Scripting is what makes the 3d surface appear, but its not something the user has to concern him or herself about. If you want to experiment you can replace a DIV module with a MULTI module and see the 3d result instantly, or replace TAN with a COS module, etc. etc.

In addition, Download a free copy of Houdini from http://www.sidefx.com/index.php
and you will see the same principles as grasshopper. Houdini calls it Procedural modeling, as opposed to Visual programming. The process is the same.

other examples of what grasshopper can do generating experimental Architecture. http://formularch.blogspot.ca/

thomthom

Well, yea. Procedural modelling is a mighty interesting topic. However, there is nothing preventing that being done with the current Ruby API and WebDialog we already have.

Procedural modelling can be implemented in whatever underlying scripting or programming language is available.

I'm all for procedural modelling and I'm mighty interested in whatever project jolran is plotting.

jolran

Yet another Grasshopper framegrab...

One thing not discussed here regarding visual-flow-mombo-jumbo-programming is the complexity behind evaluating the chain of hierarchy, and when or what to update as soon as something changes in the gui.

I'm not sure Python would have any advantages over Ruby solving that computation..

But I guess that discussion is OT.

The GUI part is all very possible with webdialogs. In fact it's already happening

thomthom

@jolran said:

In fact it's already happening

jolran

What I've produced after months of work you or some of the others JS-nerds around here(you know who you are!) could probably have duddled together in a weekend or less, Thomthom

Although the connector framework took some time to get acquainted with..

Dan Rathbun

@tomot said:

I forgive Dan, he was probably off his meds again, ...

Or ON them. Sinus cold this past week!

@tomot said:

I'm not talking about dumping Ruby.

It's not feasible to have the app engine making two callbacks into 2 different scripting sub-processes.

IN truth... I am so weary of waiting for the Ruby API to be fixed, that I no longer care what language it is.

As long as it is fixed and kept updated.

If it's not Ruby, it is more likely to be Javascript IMHO.

Aerilius

@unknownuser said:

Javascript IMHO.

Especially since such a partly implemented API already exists, and even a first plugin.
Even if JS is not a beauty of a language, it's benefits are the wide-spread and the billions that have been invested into its speed optimization (although Python/Ruby&Co. have also benefited from such developments).

For the original topic of this thread, neither webdialogs nor SketchUp's choice of scripting language matter. Node-based interfaces (previously mentioned as visual programming) are neither a replacement nor conflicting with webdialogs.

ilay7k

Interesting, why does ex-Asgvis use port of Ruby to Python and pyQt dialogs in vray for sketchup?

thomthom

They use such a bridge because they make V-Ray for SketchUp and V-Ray for Rhino share the same code-base so they can be developed in parallel.

DavidBoulder

Interesting discussion. I work on OpenStudio which is a C++ SDK that includes a SketchUp plugin that uses ruby. We use tool called SWIG http://www.swig.org that gives us bindings to Ruby, Python, C# and potentially many other languages. Ruby is our most supported binding, but users are starting to use other bindings as well.

David

AdamB

Dave,

Marshalling parameters and providing some glue to call a C function isn't the problem - though I'm sure SWIG does a great job.

The 'heavy lifting' is around exposing underlying C++ entities as first class objects in your chosen host language.

Adam

qiucx

I do not know SU three month ago and never use ruby for programming. I would like to share my idea of three month usage.

Webdialog is great idea for ui and HTML5 will extend this advantage. The disadvantage is that the UI provided by SU is not so good.
The shortage of SU is that the api functions are not powerful, i expect more api to operate the SU and the support for ruby is not up to date. I'd like to easy use of new version ruby api in SU.
SU should consider to support the usage in ipad and andriod base system.

icehuli

I don't think ruby is the one to blame. It is very flexible. With the possibility to write ruby extensions in c/c++, on a Windows PC, one can also write it in C++/cli. Thus one can easily integrate any .net stuff. If one do not like webdialog, any other gui library can be linked through the extension. E.g. one can build c# plugin via p/invoke [DllImport("msvcrt-ruby18", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]...
For stuff like Visual Programming the most challenge thing is parametric model. In sketchup this is not easy, since entities can easy be manipulated. I mean e.g. if you simply delete the area of a face, it becomes 4 lines. The entities are not consistent. They are so flexible. And if this is not a issue, one can make some effort and create a Visual Programming interface for su.

jolran

@unknownuser said:

if you simply delete the area of a face, it becomes 4 lines. The entities are not consistent. They are so flexible. And if this is not a issue, one can make some effort and create a Visual Programming interface for su.

That is why I use Open GL objects through a tool's draw class to visualize entities for "Visual Programming interface". It is to sketchy to try to alter Sketchups entities parametrically. Subdivide a face with a slider and youre toast, as you mention.

The biggest problem, as I see it (so far) is that a webdialog freezes during any Ruby operation. Making webdialogs only really usable being used as a form-submit type of thing. One have to write very efficient Ruby code that masks that behavior.

I wonder how other type of GUI's, you mention behave during Ruby operations..

icehuli

One can use c# wpf or winform for the GUI. One can create another thread for the GUI. And use dispatcher for the calling, something like:
in the ruby thread do
wpfWindow.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)(() =>
{
wpfWindow.Show();
wpfWindow.Activate();
}), System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle, null);
to open the window and call other functions in the gui.

and in gui thread do
using VALUE = System.Int32;
ruby_extension.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Input,
(Action)(() =>
{
VALUE state = 0;
VALUE rb_mKernel = rb_eval_string_protect("Kernel", ref state);
rb_funcall(rb_mKernel, rb_intern("puts"),
rb_eval_string_protect(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Hello, World!" + '\0'), ref state));
}));
to call ruby functions or evaluate ruby scripts.

jolran

Oh, I wish I'd taken up on C or C++...

Anyway, I gather Windows only ?

Both plattforms ought to be provided to keep people happy.

jiminy-billy-bob

Jolran, what do you use for your JS node-based interface ? I was wondering about something similar for a material editor (For vray and friends) like 3dsmax's.

JSmaker ? http://jsmaker.com/jsmaker/

icehuli

@jolran said:

Oh, I wish I'd taken up on C or C++...

Anyway, I gather Windows only ?

Both plattforms ought to be provided to keep people happy.

I think the same method can be applied for c++ gui, e.g. qt, as well. A new thread need to start for the GUI to avoid it being frozen while ruby scripts are being evaluated.

jolran

@unknownuser said:

I think the same method can be applied for c++ gui, e.g. qt, as well. A new thread need to start for the GUI to avoid it being frozen while ruby scripts are being evaluated.

Great! It's just the small detail of learning c++ then

Seriously though, I was under the impression these kinds of 2 way Communication was not possible outside webdialog-World.

I would really like to know more.

jolran

JSmaker is not an option I think.

I use JsPlumb. It's depended of Jquery UI, which is a bit sketchy when dealing with CSS3 transforms. It does not recognize them So zooming is very fun to deal with
Anyway one have to write nodecreation functions oneself and where endpoints should be added. Jsplumb is only a view technology. Does not do any type of layout (yet).

I've been looking into D3, and it's an awsome framework! But also very low-level so it would take ages to come up with something that's even close to where Jsplumb is now.
But still very interesting...

edit: Removed some off topic ramblings..