No problem at all, I'm very happy to help, and will even spend some time to test stuff if you wish

Maxwell is a render engine. The RAL library is most likely a SketchUp materials library with advanced material properties for Maxwell configured in the xml file.

Personally I'm not sure you need to do anything. I seriously doubt there is a conflict with your application and the skm files. There seems to be no conflict with the SUPodium renderer.

You might want to check for conflicts with the driving dimensions plugin (a tool for parametric geometry) but in the unlikely event that there is a conflict between SketchUpBIM and the skm library, you could probably ignore it, it's not a Ruby plugin, and it may be that the way the additional properties have been added to the special skm files is broken in some way or other.

Podium doesn't do anything with SKM files, I can't see how this has anything to do with us. I can't find a conflict with SketchUp BIM.

No problem with Podium and SketchUp BIM - at least as far as I can see.

Metric version works okay so far.

There are some glitches, but I have some suggestions for next version:-

1. Fix font in dialogs. Ideally this ought to match the standard SU dialogs. Courier is ugly and big
2. Add configuration options for beam sizes & profiles. Right click for properties?
3. Add customisation options for materials. Ability to choose from existing materials would be cool - allows these models to be rendered without (re)applying all materials.
4. Add ability to draw in perspective view. One of the nicer things about SU is the ability to do everything in 3d!
5. Creation of slabs doesn't seem to be working properly, and doesn't snap to intersections of geometry. It only snaps to intersections of SU_BIM elements, and not always consistently. Sometimes it will snap to the intersections at the centreline of joints, other times to the outer edges.
6. Clean joints at wall corner intersections. At the moment these overlap at each end of the intersection. This will probably cause problems with overlapping textures when rendered.
7. Place elevation grid(s) on own layer

Great start though, this is coming along nicely - thanks for all your hard work!

I'll check out Podium and SketchUpBIM, but Maxwell I'm going to leave to NextLimit.

Damn - never mind, worth a try! Looking forward to testing the metric version.

Good call +1 for this!

Oh yes - very nice work Alan! I was expecting it to be good because I've seen and bought some of your form fonts stuff in the past.
Don't know what was going on with the previous image, looked a little odd to me.

I have attached some images of the first two trees I have built using a modified version of Richard's TreeFactory.

Needs a little more work (I want to make it so that I have enough components and variations to build all types of trees) but it seems to be coming along nicely.

Render time in Podium (on my MacBook Pro) is quite good.

Completed Magnolia Grandiflora, probably needs more and larger flowers

WIP version before the trunk was textured.

When I'm done, I'll upload the file here.

I had a similar problem a while ago. I solved it by finding a Voronoi diagram image file which I imported into Vectorworks.

I then traced the image to produce the lines, created the individual 'islands', and smoothed them with a bezier curve. I exported these curves in dwg format and brought them into SU. Worked just fine. I even made it so that it tiled seamlessly.

Not the workflow that you are looking for, but it's not as easy as you are hoping.

This isn't a 10 minute plugin that one of the Ruby gurus can write. Most people use Rhino for this.

Hmm, a larger version image would be good... I'm not sure if there are some weird things going on, or it's just an optical illusion.

Yeah, it's not really ready for general use yet because there are far too many anomalies. The inserting leaves into every model is one example, which causes problems with other plugins.

I really don't intend any criticism of Pierreden (because he's been kind enough to share the results of huge amounts of work with us for free) because this plugin is almost spectacular, and we all owe him thanks for his time and generosity.

I've tried for a long time to try to work out what the problem is, but I have failed to make it work. I don't have the time or need for the results to devote any more time to making it work, and if it requires hours of effort for at least some people, something doesn't seem quite right.

@ mitcorb - what have you been smoking? Can I have some please?

Richard, I don't really bother too much with mapping. As long as you get the trunk right (I use Whaat's UV plugin for this and use cylindrical mapping - but only if I need it) you don't really notice the mapping on the branches by the time you add the foliage.

This is all based on the principle of building trees to for 3d entourage to decorate scenes, not to render in their own right. In this instance, you would need to texture map the branches properly.

I hope to add leaf options for conifers as well as deciduous trees. I don't think I'm even 50% done yet. Even with deciduous trees there are compound and single leaves, and clusters. Each will need their own approach. Even the way leaves hang varies. Some droop, some are held erect, some simply project. Some are grouped symmetrically, others alternate. So far I have increased the number and variety of branches, next I'm going to work on leaf options.

I'll post something when I have done more on leaves.

I'm conscious of my ignorance about the subject, so I'm learning as I go. I have actually bought 3 books to help me with this!

Okay, no problem I have taken your original Tree Factory file and added a larger range of branch sizes and types to it.

The idea is to try to expand on it to duplicate even more types of trees with a greater degree of individuality and flexibility.

If you look at branches (I've been doing a lot of this - it's winter in the UK right now and, most of the trees are bare) you'll see that some are straight, some are curved, and some are somewhat twisted.

I'm building a series of branch types that people can use to simulate these. I also tend to use single texture-mapped rectangles, or texture-mapped folded planes (for leaflets) instead of leaf-shaped geometry. This reduces poly count.

Essentially it is the same as your (old) approach, which I think is very logical and simplifies creation.

I'll do a little more work before I upload it, but I'm quite happy to send you what I have beforehand. If you have some useful observations based on what you have already done, I could implement them.

Richard, do you still have this file anywhere, or didn't you get around to uploading it?

I'm logged in but don't see any attachments...

@fionmacool said:

• The business model of high cost software cannot survive. Unless legislation like #SOPA, #PIPA, or #ACTA get enacted and destroy the internet.

Try telling any of the major CAD/BIM vendors that! Despite the whole argument surrounding legality, it's often easier to get pirated software than legitimate stuff. I once ordered an AutoCAD upgrade that took 2 weeks to get an authorisation code for. I could have downloaded a pirate copy and installed it within a couple of hours!

I'm not an apologist for software piracy by any means, but for some companies it actually enhances their market presence. I accept that this is an a controversial thing to say, but if you look at Photoshop, and the cost, and the number of users around the world, the fact that is is the market leader I suspect is down to piracy. Not many people can afford to pay for the full application, yet a disproportionately larger proportion have used it extensively.

So - even in the content of internet piracy or 'copymism' (Google it) these companies still make a lot of money. I'm not advocating software theft (the term 'piracy' is a romanticised euphemism for theft) for a second, just highlighting how considering how prevalent it is, it won't kill high cost software any time soon.

Sorry about that the original response just quoting your previous post! I must have had a timeout (our web access in the office is, let's call it 'variable') which meant that my actual reply didn't get posted when I resubmitted the page.

_1 to that, it's the only thing that stops me from using it.

Keep up the good work guys, I would be prepared to pay for this if it worked well.

I see this all the time, t's down to mesh triangulation when you have cut in your 'decals'. You could try re-smoothing the mesh.

Should this be in the 'Plugins' section?

This looks amazing!

This isn't strictly a plugin, but more of a suggestion for a plugin. I recently came across this (http://blog.maideinc.com/introducing-maide-control#more) where an iPad can be used as a way of manipulating a 3d object using a 2d surface - in this case an iPad.

Very cool - if you have an iPad, but it started me wondering whether it would be possible to implement a similar sort of input control for a multitouch trackpad.

Certainly on the Mac there are a couple of tools to extend multitouch trackpad features, (MagicPrefs and Jitouch) and the former has a plugin type API to extend functionality. If anyone cared to write an extension for SketchUp (or MagicPrefs for that matter) which created Maide's very nice 3d navigation, it's something I would definitely pay for and I suspect it would be popular with lots of other users as well!

Would this be something that could be accomplished with a Ruby plugin and linked to a trackpad utility, or would it need to be coded specifically for the OS?