See the BBcode help page You need to use the [ code ] ... [/code ] bbCodes around your code example and it will look like this: [code:11ffgczd] Some example code; a = [1,2,3] last = a.pop puts last[/code:11ffgczd]

@massimo said: Moved to developers forum. Hi Stan, would you mind to post such threads in developers section of the forum? Usually the newbie section is about SU's usage. Thanks. hi massimo, sorry, of course, didn't think about that , i'll be carefull in the future! stan

hi tig, ok, you are right, puts does it automatically. the declaration of the variables happens in the beginning of the ruby, first loaded from the default file and then possibly changed by the user... these settings then create the geometry and are saved to a separate file (later as function : reload last user parameters). will just try the puts-version. stan EDIT: IT WORKS parameters are saved at the end of ruby and automatically reloaded on start wonderful!

hi tig, you are the greatest, as always. it works. it's funny, that "my" wrong syntax works at the beginning of the ruby...god knows....will correct all of them. again a step nearer to my first ruby (for everyone then, of course) regards and thax stan

hi tig, that's it . my logic was ok, your tip for the conversion of string to float was the point. basicly it works like this: i have menues for parameters then the geometry is created before the end of the ruby i save all parameters to a text file (by the way still looking for the syntax to save more of them line by line) then the user can recall the ruby and select -my last parameters -defaults and so on and so on again another step!!!! regards stan ( i'll report , when i get further)

@artmusicstudio said: @yorik1984 said: Use line, not surface [image: h_1380473431_5965694_2c8280c076.png] @yorik1984 said: Use line, not surface [image: h_1380473431_5965694_2c8280c076.png] to fredo: hi, i get to this point, but quitting / ok / whatever let the lines disappear again. how can i extract the middle line? thanx stan to yorik1984: thanx, yews, with one line it works. great. thanx stan

hi gai, nice to meet you again, and thanx for the tip, i have learnt a lot. i think, i slowly come to the point. regards to hungary! stan

solved! thanx to all. artisan works perfectly for this / round corner also for edges: thanx a lot to the forum! stan

hi and thanx to all of you, i just contacted chuck vali and will buy the script, since this one is really fantastic and even the free version managed a really complicated mesh. regards stan and thanx again for helping me!

Hi, My "lines2tubes" plugin should do it as well Here: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=226

you may want use our tool BackUp Prefs v1.12 (Win only) for saving/restoring the SU 8/7/6 prefs to a file (no malware, no adware, no installation). [update] version 1.14 updated for being compatible w/ SU v2013/2014 [/update] hth, Norbert

@mac1 said: Not an unsolved problem but normal design. 3d models have 6 clipping planes, top, bottom, left,right, front and back and is not limited to SU. The reason for these is they limit the amount of rendering the program must do to keep performance at a reasonable level.Other wise they would have to render a huge model extents.Rendering is not done outside these planes and is the reason the model ' dis-appears" when the limit is hit. Some programs like Blender allow you set the planes. The link above gives good guidance on how to avoid the problem. ok, unsolved was the wrong expression. i understand the limitations for rendering, my vis-software allows to adjust the clipplanes. i just was hoping to improve the editing work (modelling) in skp by a sort of 'hidden' adjustment of a near plane (for ex. editing components in huge project, where thos problem occures extremely).. so thanx a lot for all the infos and replies to everybody.... sta

It's built into the Materials Browser context-menus, but that only selects faces in the current active context that use the chosen material, ignoring any groups, instances, edges, text etc using the material. This one-liner copy/pasted+<enter> in the Ruby Console will select everything using the material specified by name - edit the 'mname=' to suit the material you seek... mname="Material1";m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;s.clear;m.active_entities.each{|e|s.add(e)if e.respond_to?(;material) && e.material && e.material.display_name==mname}

View the SKP in Monochrome mode, using a Style with a distinctive default back-color - perhaps 'bright-blue' - compared to the default front-color 'off-white'. Then you will be able to see the orientation of the faces' fronts and backs without any applied materials getting in the way. The direction of a face's loop determines the face's 'normal'. A 'flat' counter-clockwise loop produces an 'up' normal, and vice versa. This applies both in Ruby and manually made faces, However, any face that is made 'flat', on the ground z-0, will ALWAYS faces DOWN, irrespective of its loop direction. This is to assist in a subsequent PushPull which is usually 'up' and gives the expected result it the extruded face is facing downwards... Wrongly oriented selected faces are easily 'Reversed' using the context-menu, or in code with face.reverse! If it's a mesh with some wrongly oriented faces use Monochrome mode and View > Hidden Geometry > ON. Select one face that's correctly oriented and context-menu 'Orient' to flip all other faces to match. If there are any edges with more than two faces then the results will not be perfect because more that two faces sharing an edge cannot all be oriented the same way - topologically impossible? There is no simple API equivalent for 'face.orient', but there are some method examples around, using 'edge.reversed_in_face' etc and 'face.reverse' etc... Most rendering apps are particularly sensitive to visible back faces, and will usually render them without materials/textures - i.e. 'blank' - either transparent, black or white. remember that materials applied onto a group/component-instance [rather than onto the faces within it], will appear to be applied onto any default-material [both fronts and backs] although in that case the faces actually still have no material applied, but 'exploding the container' will transfer them across. Monochrome mode helps see this too... My FixReversedFaceMaterials etc and some other similar tools [e.g. by thomthom] are designed to flip incorrectly oriented faces that have a material applied to their back only, and assumes that the back is facing the wrong way, flipping the face and the material, keeping UV-mapping of textures correct too. There are also some 'forced' options etc that might help when both sides of the face have materials and you want to flip and swap materials across too...

Hi folks. There is more than a straight line that can be used to close a face from ends of arcs. This simplify works by avoiding unnecessary intersections. See this SU file for ideas. Curved face.skp

hi tig, thank you. the thing with skp 6 is, that i have a lot of rubies on it working very well, and still not time for checking all of them with skp 8. besides that i prefer the internal component system of skp6, in skp 8 it is online on my pc (maybe switchable, i did not check this yet). with the new laptop then..... but thanx for your info! stan

Then try my 'EEbyLathe' using 360 degrees. You Select a face or a set of welded edges [aka a curve] for the profile. Pick a 'center-point'. Pick a point off from this, to give the 'axis of rotation'. Type 360 and press <enter> to use that as the swept angle. You can enter any swept angle >0<=360, -ve values sweep the form in the other direction. No need to type 360 if you have used it last time as it's remembered for that session. To commit double-click or press Ctrl. Answer questions about coplanar faces, reversed faces, exploding the grouped form etc... Note: the other thing you need to be able to adjust is the number of segments in the swept form - the default is 9. You do this by typing Ns + <enter>, before committing... You'll probably want 24s or 36s, again this setting is remembered for that session, but easily adjusted as desired before committing the form.

If you just want to create spiral stairs, have a look at this one witch can also screw components: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=357 http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15784#p240238

hi, thank you very much, that is exactly, what i needed ! great! thanx again for helping! stan

One last try, this may be something near what you want or just be a another work around The inner working of axes tool [image: tFcb_pic_0024.jpg] I just leaned this today about axes tool, iso view, gives a perpendicular alinement.(cool). Help you to set red axes in step 1 Correct step 2: I sorry not a front view but a ground view of axis (one axis in front of other) . Rotate axes by orbit tool, the green axis into the red at ground level. This help you move the green and blue axis in step 3 [image: sqnC_Movie_0003.gif]