We had a lot of positive responses to this rendered image/3D Model in the same PDF file from IRender nXt users. (See: New 3D PDF interface for IRender nXt)

So we have added the same feature to RPS 3D PDF. The new version of RPS 3D PDF adds a rendering from the SketchUp Window to the PDF file to flip/flop with the 3D model. Using the new interface, you can easily replace the SketchUp rendering with any other image - including renderings from other rendering packages - achieve the same image/3D effect using any rendering package.

See: RPS 3D PDF Wizard - Image Tab

Thanks TIG, sorry I left you off the list of people who have already thought about many of these things. (And sorry to all those other developers who participate in discussions like this who I left out as well)

What I was hoping to find was a tool, almost exactly like the SketchUp Text tool, so I could modify it to use a premade label rather than the Component name. I see your coods-tag tool does not do the two-point input, (unless I missed something)

Another we would like to do it to point to a component or group which already has a label and find its label, and/or point to a label and find the item it is attached to.

Does anyone have any insight into this. (I see that I move an object, the leader moves with it, so there must be some way to know which item is associated with which label)

I have a request from a user who wants to place a text label in the drawing, using the value of an Attribute on the entity for the text.

Before I start to write something like this from scratch, it is usually best to post a query here and see if ThomThom or Didier have already written it.

Does anyone have a ruby tool which places a text label, so I can just modify it to prefill the text for the label?

I have a suggestion for carrying over the name of the group as the name of the component definition as well:

The last three lines in this snippet:

		# Iterate through the rest of the copies
		protodef = proto.definition
		if (group_name != "")
			protodef.name = group_name
		end#if

It seems to work pretty well, and SketchUp adds #'s as needed to make the name unique.

I see you have addressed the "Definition of a group" in another thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=19765

It looks like I may have some luck using:

definition = group.entities.parent

to get the definition, and

definition.instances

to locate the groups which use the same definition.

My client mentioned there was already a ruby to convert groups to components. Did you write it, or do you, (or anyone), know where it is?

[Edit: It looks like I am looking for: Selection Toys. I will try to find it]

Very interesting thomthom.

How to find the groups which can be made into the same component?

I do not see how to get to the "definition" of a group. (Much less how to find all the groups which use this same definition)

I see there is a .equals? operator on a group which will let me determine if two groups are identical.

So I suppose I just need to check all other top level groups to see which are identical, and then create the component, and then replace all the groups with the new component.

I have a SpaceDesign client who would like a script to convert groups to components, but thinks it would be handy if copied groups all became the same component.

@unknownuser said:

Group Copies eg if 4 of same Group already exists, becomes 1 Component (with 4 Copies).

Any ideas how I am going to know that copies of a group are the same. This seems like a lot of work.

Or is this just a pipe dream?

Thanks.

I have searched for "Clay" but it didn't just pop up for me.

Is there a ruby somewhere which sets all material colors to white in order to get a clay image?

We didn't want to have ads anywhere on our Forum.

Also, it someone was searching for "Nighttime Scene" on our site, they might get an ad for one of our competitors, sites.

So it is worth $100.00 per year to eliminate the ads.

@unknownuser said:

That is not free?

Google has to make money somehow.

It is nice though - they let me load the search results directly into my own web pages, so the user is not taken to a Google Search form:

There was another thread where a forum user was wondering how to search the forum for 3 letter words, or to do other special searches.

For example, try searching for PDF in the search box in the upper right corner, or using the advances search - nothing is found.

However, you can also search just the forums using a standard Google search, using the site search format:

In the Google Search box, search for:

site:forums.sketchucation.com pdf

to find all Forum entries containing the work PDF (for example)

Or if you want to search all of SketchUCation, use:

site:sketchucation.com pdf

This also allows other special Google search terms like "multi word pharase" , +word, -word, etc.

On my own forum, I pay Google about $100.00 a year to include the site search as a edit box on the forum:

I presume you know about this trick:

Search for:

site:http://forums.sketchucation.com pdf

to find all Forum entries containing the work PDF (for example)

Keep your ese on this thread as well: [Plugin] Trace Ruby messages

@unknownuser said:

Your script is working great for me! Just that timestamp needs to be logged with each console message.

I made a version with an optional parameter which will show the date and time for each message.

The new version is in the initial post for this thread.

# comment one of these out to add time to traces
@show_time = true
#@show_time = false

Here is output with timestamp:

Console messages from: !trace_console.rb
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011
SketchUp Version: 8.0.4811
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011: -----
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011:
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011: Console messages are going to c:\tmp\ruby_trace.txt
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011:
Sun May 01 23:14:29 2011: -----

I'll make the change.

The only thing I hate is that it is often difficult to find the real temp folder on Windows,

Typing in %TEMP% in Windows Explorer will find it, but I don't know if everyone knows that.

@unknownuser said:

Al,

You should make your code portable on Windows and Mac

> tmpdir = (RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /darwin/i) ? "/tmp" ; ENV["TEMP"]
> @sfile = File.join tmpdir, "Trace_Ruby.tmp"
> 

This also avoids calling mkdir (since the tmp directories always exists)

Fredo

Thanks mitcorb and leedeetee. I have been looking at thois image so much the past few days that i felt that way too.

Here is an image I found on the web of the actual place: Here is a photo of the actual Drive Inn: (See: Michigan Exposures)

MuseumMaker has a nice rendering of a SketchUp model of the Chick Inn in Ypsilanti on his blog: Sketching Ypsi

We asked him if we could use his model to make samples for our new Volumetric Fog feature in IRender nXt. Here are the results:
(They obviously turned on more lights because it was such a foggy night. )

[Edit: Added some reflection to the Asphalt and lit up the taillights on the white car]

One of the other nice features for a nighttime scene like this was the use of Lighting Channels. I was able to assign separate channels to groups of lights, and then balance them while rendering and after the rendering was complete. This is much easier than having to change the intensity of the lights and re-render to see the effect.

@ledisnomad said:

Al, your Javascript-only implementation is nice, too, but doesn't have the polish yet.

Actually it is raw "Web Exporter".

Perhaps if there is some interest, SketchUp can work on it some more.

I know, it was a little scary the first time - (I used a datepicker JQuery script.

After I make a sample, you can just download the JQuery stuff, and copy things from the sample HTML.

Also, if we ever find a solution we like, we plan to add it to RpTools, RPS 3D PDF, and IRender nXt to generate the web pages automatically

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

You just download the basic JQuery, and store it on your web server, and ink to it in the HTML, and then download the special JQuery piece you want to use.

That sounds like this:

@unknownuser said:

你刚才下载的基本jQuery和存储在您的Web服务器中，以及油墨的HTML，然后下载的特殊JQuery的一块你要使用的。

I guess I'm gonna keep looking for an easier solution.