Posts made by AcesHigh

@sdmitch said:

My Ceiling Grid generator could be used as the basis of such a plugin.

What are the dimensions of a standard "waffle"?

about 0,8 x 0,8 meters.

but your plugin only has I think 3 measurement sizes right (all in Imperial Measurements).

Plus, it doesn´t generate components. It would be awesome if those thousands of panels were components, so I could replace it with a "waffle" mold.

I could use your 2x2... it´s about 60x60 cm and there are waffle molds that size.

But I could swear there was a plugin like Chris Fulmers "Component Onto Faces", but that would resize the components so they would match the face size, wasn´t there? If there was, it could certainly be used to place my mould components unto the faces created by your plugin.

@cotty said:

What's wrong with a component and the array copy function?

[attachment=0:1uf4y65z]<!-- ia0 -->comparray.gif<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1uf4y65z]

it´s appropriate for simple ceilings... but when you have lots of walls and posts, etc, with borders around, it starts getting complicated to place all components in the correct place. I thought of something more like drawing the shape of the place where you want the components and a plugin to place all the components inside that boundary?

I once did a component and applied by hand below an entire floor... it was a pain to do it... keeping distances to walls and pillars, etc.

Does anyone think there might be a plugin that could help me automatizing this job?

@jql said:

I've been using path select tool since I had it and it's really different, you have to manually select your path there while here the plugin seems to find this in an automatic fashion. Both have it's purpose and path select might succeed where this one might fail sometimes as there the user imput is manual and gives you full control, but when this succeeds it's way faster than pathselect.

the cool thing however is that it selects the paths with the green line, and you move the cursor away until the part it is still the correct path that you want, and you click and it "locks" that path until that part... so you can go correcting it.

it´s pretty fast to select even complex paths.

but yes, THIS plugin is faster in some cases. As I said, different uses for both. I would suggest using first this plugin with like 2 different settings, if it fails, use Path Select because the time you will need to select the path with that tool is quite short and certainly will be faster than trying like 3-4 more different settings with this tool here.

it was called to my attention that there are other similar tools. One of them I always had (since the plugin became free) and I never noticed it, I guess because the Plugin has an entirely different purpose: PATH SELECT TOOL, from SketchUV plugin.

It´s very good and more "visual" in the selection method. I guess that each plugin has it´s uses...

it took one month for people (including me) to notice his plugin. Funny how some threads go unnoticed for a while.

I suppose this is not the place... or maybe it is... but I followed the Roadkill SketchUV road mapping tutorial and it didn´t work at all.

The problem was that my road had a more complex triangulation and when I started pulling the border vertexes arond at RoadKill, Roadkill did not know how to deal with the vertexes in the middle of the road... it resulted in a bad mess, specially when I would pull the right vertexes to the right side of the map... there were triangles jumping all over the place inside Roadkill

what can I say...

this is BEYOND amazing.

Thanks, it will surely be one of my most used plugins.

Just used it and I will give the example so people can have an idea of it´s infinite uses:

I do have a terrain mesh with plenty of triangles.

I drew over it the shape of an avenue central median strip (is that the correct word for those strips with grass and shrubs and trees separating both carriageways of an avenue?).

Now, I wanted to put a curb on it and also raise the grass area. Followme and Profile Builder were not working very well for it), so I used ToS Offset, then used Vector Push Pull to pull the curb straight up some 15cm.

Very nice, HOWEVER, the outside border of the curb was 90º and I wanted something more rounded... so I decided to use Roundcorner.

However, how to select ONLY the correct edges I wanted rounded? Even though Round Corner HAS some tools to help select connected edges, none of them was doing the selection right. They were either selecting ALL edges, or just a few, or just the one I clicked above.

THIS TOOL however, selected EXACTLY the edges I wanted in the FIRST try!

yes, it was 2.3.8

thanks ThomThom. Anyway, there are a few other plugins that are giving me errors too since Sketchup moved its plugin folders to appdata.

so I will try to change my username profile path following this tutorial
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/28/how-to-change-a-windows-account-name-and-user-profile-folder-name/

@thomthom said:

What version do you have installed?
(Yes - it works in SU2015)

funny, I could swear I had written a post regarding a topic somewhere else where a guy had a problem with Selection Toys and you answered him, and the problem seemed to be his username had a Unicode character.

and yes, my username has a Unicode Character. (the username is AcesHigh, but for some reason, the windows path is user/usuário instead of user/aceshigh

And I have no idea how to change the user path without breaking Windows into an unusable mess.

Is Selection Toys working with Sketchup 2015 for you guys?

At Preferences, it shows there as loaded.

But I get no toolbar, no right-click context options, no submenu either at Extensions nor Tools...

It seems it can´t UN-SMOOTH the models?

I have this model with a ridiculous amount of groups and subgroups. And it's all softened, although it should not be softned at all.

It´s impossible to unsoften by hand because of the amount of groups, and I also don´t want to ungroup them all (because I might have to move the groups around)

But setting the SOFTEN to 0 degrees does not unsoften the groups and subgroups, unlike the Soften Edges Panel...

It would be really nice if we could set % of random replacement.

example:

have a building with 300 closed window components. These will be the target

then we also have 4 other window components that will be used as sources: totally opened window, 3/4 opened window, half opened window and 1/4 opened window

this plugin, as it is, will replace ALL closed windows with a random number of each of the other 4 windows.

but it would be ideal if we could decide to make random ONLY which components will be replaced, not the number.

So...

Original Component Remaining: 30% (I set to 30% so 30% of the 300 closed windows will remain as the "closed window" component

Source 1 - 10% (of 300)
Source 2 - 20%
Source 3 - 30%
Source 4 - 10%

After the operation, in random locations of the building, we would have
90 closed windows (original component)
30 4/4 open windows
60 3/4 open windows
90 half open windows
30 1/4 open windows

@calstock said:

Hi Aces, thanks for the tips but I'm happy with my workflow method and don't need to change it.

not trying to change your workflow. Trying to understand other people workflow so I can improve mine where I can or see fit.

@unknownuser said:

1. If this plugin does the trick and saves you time, surely $40 is a very small amount to pay per year ? That said are you using SU for commercial use like me are "for fun" ?

that depends on your currency exchange rate, your other expenses and how much you will be using it and for how big projects.

@unknownuser said:

2. I personally don't see how draping a road on a mesh would work on anything but a very flat site, that is for anything other than a visual only type road - not a representation of a real road with real road characteristics. That said I could see how you could drape the road layout and then delete this area to enable you to construct the actual road within that cleared space. Obviously I could be totally wrong on this and some people may drape a road and then play around with its contours to adjust the levels - seems a long winded route to me.

as mentioned earlier, draping directly over a terrain created from contours will result in a road full of bumps, sometimes tilted sideways, etc. But with Roland's method, you can first work on the terrain like a real terrain and smooth or flatten the places where the road will go over.

Then you drape the road streets from the dwg (Roland does not do this, but I am still waiting for him to explain better his workflow method).

@unknownuser said:

3. Like I said, I don't "drape" very often, I create the road, (more like paths, decks, lawns and patios in my case), in the 2D plane and then give them some depth to make them a solid and then "insert them into the mesh, (which usually represents the existing lawn and other levels surrounding the property). IF the property is as near to flat as makes little difference, I ignore all levels and create the whole model on a flat 2D plane.

I don´t understand how you make the paths smoothly follow the terrain if you just extrude 2D planes.

It simply doesn´t work for me in Sketchup 2015.

nothing happens when I click the Show Tools Icon (the one with the magnifying glass).

In fact, nothing happens when I click any icon, except the "Profile Schema" icon.

ps: nothing changes if I use the "Change the Profiles List File" option in the extensions menu. I can choose the profiles file, but still no icon of the tools functions...

edit: it worked on Sketchup 8, which I still have installed.

@Catstock:

1. one alternative is to use Roads Nui plugin, but it´s an expensive plugin that is subscription based ($40 dollars per year)

2. another is like mentioned by Roland, to paint a bmp of the dwg over the bumpy original terrain then to smooth it out and do "earth works", etc, in the terrain, following the bmp.

3. but after it is smoothed in the right places, I still wonder what methods Roland and you would use aside from draping. How to lay the roads, curbs, sidewalks, etc, etc over the terrain except by draping?

if you don´t drape the DWG over the mesh, how do you separate parts to use different materials (Example, grass, pavement, sidewalks, etc)

You use ToS on it? But won´t ToS also create a nightmarish mesh impossible to work with?

@roland joseph said:

@unknownuser said:

Roland Joseph, from your images, it seems you only work with VERY planar streetscapes.

No...I live in Ontario. There is no flat ground in Ontario anywhere.....sorry Windsor is flat.

@unknownuser said:

It results in sideways sloped streets

No, you need to start with a relatively accurate mesh.
The roads can be contoured and flattened as per drawings manually with a projected image as a guide before you start building road mesh.

Just like building on the site. Once you have a road bed you can cut the roads in easily.

This example would represent a more typical street contour in Ontario.... http://ibuildmodels.com/JMC2/beaverton/intersections.html
All of it with TOS.

now, this is a very nice example with realistic terrain.

it would be awesome if you could show your workflow, from autocad drawings to the modelling of the streets and sidewalks, etc.

as I gather...

1 - you create a terrain from the elevation lines.

2 - you project an IMAGE of the project (including cities, etc) over the terrain, so you can flatten some surfaces for roads, etc. Can you give some more details on this workflow? Do you use the standard SKP terrain tools or Artisan?

3 - you use ToS to draw the streets, sidewalks, over the terrain, which is already painted with the image of the project, making it easy to paint it. (why you use ToS instead of DRAPING the DWG streets, etc?)

4 - you extrude stuff up (or maybe down, if you do with the streets) with Joint Push Pull?

@kenny said:

I agree with Box, the Sandbox tool should be fine for the example shown with the house.

For creating roads on a terrain the following script is very useful:
http://www.valiarchitects.com/subscription_scripts/instant-road-nui

They charge too much for a subscription based script, no matter how wonderful it is.

@pilou said:

City Gen Street generator by Thomthom ?

not sure... it was discontinued 6 years ago... does it even works on non planar lines? (like lines created with ToS over a mesh?)

@roland joseph said:

I do many streetscapes. I don't really understand the dialogue here. The example you provided is completed quickly with tools-on-surface. I see you already use TOS so now I'm really confused....Do you use TOS or soap skin?...hmmmm. Yes I'm totally lost now. Oh but wait! The title of the post is about making faces..... there is no face making required to complete the streets. Yikes!! I better leave

Roland Joseph, from your images, it seems you only work with VERY planar streetscapes.

@unknownuser said:

The example you provided is completed quickly with tools-on-surface

you mean, getting a terrain and just drawing the streets over it? Hmmm... nope. It results in sideways sloped streets and plenty of totally irrealistic bumps on streets and sidewalks. ToS does not generates surface meshes or faces anyway.

I use Soap Skin to generate meshes from contours.

Be them contours like the ones I showed on my skp (as I mentioned, I had the STREETS but the city blocks were only HOLES between the streets. I used Soap Skin to generate those meshes that are the city blocks... already included in the file) or be for example terrain around a house, where I will draw a line around the house, walls, etc and generate the terrain.