I need to calculate the surface area of some welded steel frames I have drawn in sketchup to calculate the cost of painting them - this means only the areas reachable with paint should be included.

I thought perhaps there might be a plugin that could throw some kind of mesh over a model and give a relatively precise idea of the area I am talking about.

Anyone know of anything or even have a workflow that could help me that is more efficient than selecting each face and going Context>Area>Selection and adding them up in a spreadsheet....?

I think Solo's answer is most helpful in this instance - although the pasted tree has a relatively small file size its huge number of polygons is still too much and the CPU/GPU on most machines would struggle.

Everything runs fine once I have positioned said trees so what Solo says make sense.

Thanks Guys

Gai,

To say you are a ridiculously committed sketchup freak would be an understatement.

I did have high performance enabled for sketchup but did not have it as the global setting.

Have implemented your suggestions but no noticeable change.

I am copying and pasting trees for a forest scene (the trees have a lot of polygons but the overall file size is still under 5 meg) and the worst performance impact is when I am placing the pasted tree - would this indicate that it is more a CPU than GPU issue??

Thanks for your lightning fast input Gaius

I just bought an HP DV6 laptop with i7 processor
Chip: 3610QM - 2.3Ghz, turbo boost to 3.3Ghz
Ram: 8gb with 1600mhz FSB
Graphics: Geforce GT 630m (2gb dedicated ram)
64 bit config obviously
I know the ram and 64 bit dont help much but those are the specs available with an 'out of the box' laptop with the i7 and reasonable graphics card.

However, the new config seems to be struggling in SU with models that were a sinch to my 3 year old laptop which was:
2.6Ghz dual core (max clock speed)
Geforce GT 9600m (512mb dedicated ram)

What is going on?
The only thing I can think of is that there may be a significant delay from the 2.3Ghz to the turbo boost 3.3Ghz as I know the CPU has to process before the GPU gets a hold of things....

Has anyone else had trouble with an i7 chip?

Try making a simple SP file from scratch - sounds like there might be something in your file that is causing issues if you have been trying to open the same file - I get that often when I have made errors in SU models or ruby script before and it takes a while to work out what it is by elimination but I don't know a better way to do it

Probably just my older machine (2.6 ghz dual core) even though the rendering of SU is only on one thread.....

I tend to cut out any unnecessary geometry in my SP models but if you have the firepower to run it then no problem - again, nice work

Seems to require a bit more computing power than I have on hand, mainly due to the complexity of the geometry in the model I assume.

Had a look at your ruby and it looks really cool however

When I get some time I'll make a basic instructional video on scripting for sketchyphysics based on what I have learned through trial and error on my most recent project.

Congratulations on your hard work

Ash

You need to make sure that the name of your servo in the controller box (select the servo and press the 'UI' button) is the same name used in the script - in the example I have used the name '@servo1'

It looks like it is spazzing out because you haven't got a name right somewhere......

So you're not getting the issues I described two posts ago.....?

I seem to get it no matter how I run it (apparently the raytest issue was clashing with SU8 but I can't even get it working right in SU7)

Here is the answer to your question from this thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=44399

There is a much better answer than using a motor to place a joint where you want it - you need to use a servo and a little ruby script

Step1: place your servo within the group you want to move and attach it to a base group
Step2: select the servo and open the sketchyphysics UI
Step3: within the UI apply the following settings

min:0
max:1
accel:4000
damp:1000
controller:@servo1 (you can actually call it anything starting with @

Step4: Select the base of your model and open the sketchyphysics UI
Step5: place the following rubyscript in there:

    if frame<1.00
    @servo1=0.00
    end
    # this allows servo to incrementally increase based on joystick input (righty) you can change it to any of the joystick axes
    @servo1+=(0.5-righty)
    # this sets range of movement for the servo as it is not set in the servo's UI
    if @servo1>45;@servo1=45;end
    if @servo1<-45;@servo1=-45;end

It took me a long time to work this out (reverse engineering another model) so I am more than happy to help anyone out with it if these instructions are too hard to follow.

I believe this is a very powerful function in sketchyphysics and I have only seen it in one model in the 3DWH

You are just as capable as asking them as I am - send them a private message

I honestly don't know about getting the ontouch function to only be recorded with the object 'Bullet' but I am sure there is a way of doing it - who else can shed some light?

But Raytest has a tendency to cause SU to flip out - know of a workaround or why I am having the symptoms described?

I'd love to help in some way with the furtherance of SP but I have only just begun to learn Ruby let alone everything else that is required.

If I can help in any way I will. Personally I think SP could be a commercially viable product with a good polishing - anyone ever see any code for SP4? If its as good as it sounded I would pay for it.

Has Chris totally dropped the SP project now? The whole thing is a testament to Chris' brilliance and I feel I have missed out to have not got seriously involved until now.

I've added a little complexity that is causing this script to crash SP when I try to run it.

As far as I can tell it has something to do with the raytest function - potentailly related to the issue described on this thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=30558

I have tested it in SU7 as well but am getting the same issue - basically the model explodes, the POV zooms way out and all I can find left in the model is a bunch of endpoints (like on the end of a tapemeasure guide......can anyone shed some light?

Ash

I dont have a lot of experience with ontouch sorry - check this: http://sketchyphysics.wikia.com/wiki/OnTouch

You're going to have to place a code in the scripted field of your base that says something like

if frame>1
setVar("health",5)
end
getVar("health")
if "health" <0
"self destruct" # or something you want to happen once the health has run out

then in the ontouch field of your object, something like

ontouch setVar("health",+=-1)

None of that will actually work as the script isn't written right (I don't know all those commands well enough) but it gives you some idea about how to start going about it

Yeah I have the same issue with Hobbnobbs micro script - I am building a walking machine - the fluctuation which is somehow included in hobbnobs micro script causes my machine do hover and float around slowly.

When I implement MrDailyBlah's I get the kind of traction for my machine's feet that I was looking for. Can increase traction by changing the value'-1' in the part of the script that goes in the wheel to '-2'. Nice work

I've got no idea where the vibration is coming from - funnily enough, the other two variables marked '0' in hobbnobs script control push in a certain direction. You can make your machine/vehicles hover in certain directions using these variables.

As far as I know you can't stop it. Instead of importing, save it as another file, select everything in that file (ctrl+A) copy it (Ctrl+C) the go to the file you wanted to import into and go edit->paste in place.

That should do the same thing as import without losing all your info

Ash

Thats going to have something to with the ontouch field.....

Managed to reverse engineer some of the stuff on this amazing setup - see this thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=44399