I'm with tinanne... Personally I leave the sky to white (like in SU5) and then I might use a background sky-image, a sky-dome or a style... In my latest project I used the Instant Watercolour 2 made by Ross Macintosh... [image: 1Bft_Scene3-Water2.jpg]

Sounds like a case for a new requirement of the API to be able to handle a BLOB (binary large object). Perhaps a new flavor of an attribute. I'll forward your plea. Todd

Thanks for the ideas. 1. Pasting components with mateirals I just tested pasting a component which had materials with the same name as materials already in my model. It renamed the old materials using square braces. 0001_PaleVioletRed - was in my model already [0001_PaleVioletRed]1 - was the renamed, pasted material So it looks like were going to have to modify the code which checks for carets to check for square braces as well. 2. SU 5 models I downloaded the original model from the 3D Warehouse. When I load it in SU 5 - it has no carets on material names When I load it into SU 6 - all material names have carets. I tried a new SU 5 model, and the same thing happens when you load it into SU 6. Again, thanks for your ideas on this - it put me on the right track.

Thanks Gai. I searched there and could not find what I was looking for. But it is good to know that it is there. I remembered what we had to do (finally). If, during execution of ruby, you change the model, (even just adding an attribute), then all smoothing normals are lost. They get restored when the ruby exits. But you cannot use them -- for instance when exporting faces from Ruby -- unless you let the ruby routine (and any routines which called it), exit first. We get around this by altering the drawing, and then executing the next function with a 0 length timer. This causes the second function to get executed after the first function completes. This code will not work because the normals do not get recalculated. def do_export Sketchup.active_model.active_entities.set_attribute("t1","t2","t3") export_data # calls another ruby to export faces and normals # normals are not recalculated properly after the model was changed... end#def def export_data #export the data end#def This code, which sets the attribute and then uses a time to execute "export_data", will work properly. def do_export Sketchup.active_model.active_entities.set_attribute("t1","t2","t3") # use time to run second routine after model cleanup UI.start_timer(0, false) {UI.stop_timer(id); export_data} end#def def export_data #export the data end#def I seem to remember that there is some command you can issue to get SketchUp to clean up or repair the model, but I can't remember what it is. If anyone remembers, let me know!

Strange things actually. On a PC with Windows XP in French, Sketchup v6.0.277, I get the following: Sketchup.get_locale --> "FR" Skectup.os_language --> "EN" (so two characters only). On another laptop, with Windows XP US International version and Sketchup v6.0.515, I get: Sketchup.get_locale --> "EN" Skectup.os_language --> "EN" (so two characters only). So this new behavior you report seems pretty recent.

@avariant said: Ok. Has this been reported to SU as an official "bug"? It would be very nice to get it fixed some day. for SketchUp 2017 @unknownuser said: (https://help.sketchup.com/en/article/141303)":2kct16r6] Fixes/Improvements General SketchUp API Release Notes (Mac) Fixed issue where SKM files lost attribute dictionaries when saved from ‘In Model’ to local library.

This is normal. For German characters, you do not need Unicode. So you should swith it off. For MSVC, I don't know if there is an efficient way to enter the extra characters. I am personally using Notepad++.

IMO too iRender is overpriced for this market as well as most of the other add-ons. dtr

By special features, I meant things that it wouldn't do yet. The main special feature now is the 4 ways of creating the 3D PDF Just the 3D PDF itself - this is good for embedding into Web pages. (And a "special feature" we could add would be to create the HTML code for embedding the PDF into the web page for people who would rather copy and paste HTML code into their web pages.) The 3D image area with titles, captions and body text. The 3D image placed onto a raster background. You create a raster image for a background and place the 3D image on top of the other image. Both a Background image and text. This is helpful for putting images at the top, left and bottom of a page, adding the 3D image and then adding titles and captions. See: http://forums.renderplus.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPS_3D_PDF_Tutorial_-_Page_Layout [image: eKbY_background-and-text-pdf.jpg] Another important feature we added recently is "batch mode" This lets you automatically create several 3D PDFs from saved .SKP files in a single operation. You create a batch file with the .SKP file names, the .PDF file names and a saved settings file, push a button and create all the 3D PDFs at once. One of our clients has a library of 3D symbols and is using this to create 3D PDFs for each symbol which can be used by clients to preview the .SKP file before downloading it. See: http://forums.renderplus.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPS_3D_PDF_Docmentation#Batch_Mode

Thanks for all the information. Umlauts and other accents are more of a problem then I expected. I am going to look into some things and I will report back. It looks like they are supported in Ruby and SketchUp for some things, but then lost for some other things.

I actually found this implied in an example in the length class API. If you use a float, the math comes out like you would expect. The Length class is where this changes (as Al suspected). Notice that the 0.001" value that I got while testing is not mentioned as a limiting factor. @unknownuser said: < The < method is used to see if one length is less than another length. Syntax status = length1 < length2 Arguments length1 - a length value length2 - a length value Return Value status - true if length1 is < length2; false if length1 is not < length2 Comments For example, if l1 = 1.0.inch and l2 = 1.000001.inch then l1 == l2 so l1 < l2 should return false.

Thanks TT. After seeing if it worked, I was going to have someone try to type it in in SU6 to see what happened. Al

Al, There's a problem ( perhaps - please confirm ) I've been experimenting for a week-or-so regarding the problem with the Model ID being 'inherited' from a parent model, when using the 'Save as...' or 'Save copy as...' commands. As you noted, the 'cloned' file has the same 'mid' number as the parent model file. I've been testing ruby code with the ruby console. Problem description I discovered how to delete the 'ModelID' key, exactly the same way you coded in your ruby script. I could indeed upload the 'clone' file to the 3DWarehouse, as a 'new' model. I then completed the upload process by saving the file before closing it, as you're supposed to, in order to save the new ModelID into the 'clone' model file. When I reload the model, there is NO 'ModelID' key stored in the file. Doing it again, I checked for a 'ModelID' key as soon as the upload was successfully completed. Again, no 'ModelID' key! In the ruby console, I am using the following to return the 'ModelID' key: Sketchup.active_model.get_attribute('3DWarehouse','ModelID') Experimenting further, I found that the Warehouse apparently does generate a new 'mid' number, but it either does not return it to my model in SketchUp, or the model fails to accept it. Additional testing revealed that a new 'mid' number does not get coded into the model unless the entire dictionary, '3DWarehouse' is deleted. (This deletes the 'ModelID' key, which is contained in the dictionary.) I used the following in the ruby console: Sketchup.active_model.attribute_dictionaries.delete('3DWarehouse') Checking afterwards, the dictionary and key are indeed deleted. Uploading to the Warehouse is accepted as a new model, and a new 'mid' number is generated, just as before. Upon completion, and checking my model for the 'ModelID' key, the correct number is, this time, returned in the ruby console (by correct, I mean it matches the URL 'mid' number.) By using, primarily, the two ruby snippets above, I'm convinced that deleting just the key doesn't completely fix the problem - the dictionary has to be deleted, as well. During testing, I also used these two snippets (for diagnostics): Sketchup.active_model.attribute_dictionary('3DWarehouse').keys Sketchup.active_model.attribute_dictionary('3DWarehouse') Would you be so kind as to confirm this behavior? If your posted ruby script requires revision, now's the time to catch it, before many people download or reference it. Regards, Taff

nice thinking outside the box or radian as it were... Rick

lol good point

Bump maps would be very, very useful for representing rows of rivets without a hugeamount of geometry being retained. Same could be true for nuts and bolts. For those sorts of things being able to create bump maps would be really helpful.

Thanks, We will make sure we get the name for Layer0 (Calque0) from the layer list itself.

Al, I didn,t see .skp on the open file list, but the 3D capture method works. Larry

I dis-like that you must select a section plane by clicking on it becuse if you ahve a large model and are in close you have no way of determining whether or not you have the section plane selected. Often I must zoom out completely until i can see the grip arrows on the section plane in order to visually verify that the section plane I want is in fact selected. For instance you might have two section planes only 6 inches apart from each other and it's difficult to actually select which one you are selecting from a far back distance.

Hi writers and devs in this thread. Just 4 years later I found this! I am looking for an exporter that can export (to .png) "whatever" colors or material used in SketchUp into 1 file, and so that it can be used in an OBJ file. In fact, something similar to what Blender can do ( Blender call it "bake" or "baking") is this possible, does something similar already exist, or.. would someone do it? Regards