I come from the computer aided engineering software world that is used to design chips. This is very expensive software that is usually leased. Every few years there is a discontinuity. Some new program comes along that makes it easier, faster or better. Some users feel threaten since they may haves years of experience with the previous tools. They have tons of scripts they have developed over the years. Switching means they lose their experience and are in the same category as new hires. They go to great lengths to explain why switching is bad. They criticize the new tool for lack of a few features. To me it looks like the same thing is happening here. If Sketchup is adopted then experienced users of other 3D modelling programs will lose their edge. Sketchup has a powerful scripting language so a lot of shortcomings can quickly be overcome.

I think the snobbery is due to Sketchup's success.

Sounds like you are thinking ahead on this. I am not an expert on this. I don't think you need to go crazy on it. However, there are lots of things that can be done that add almost no cost and don't look unsightly. The main ones I did wrong are:

1. Make closet doors 30" or 36". I have 24" doors that could easily be larger at no real cost difference.
2. Make hallways wider to make turning around easier. I can turn around today but just barely.
3. Make switches/controls accessible. I have some pool controls that are hard to reach. I moved water heater from tank in attic to tankless in garage.
4. Biggest mistake was toilet access. I could easily have added more room and changed layout.

Other possible items

1. Plan for grab bar attachment.
2. Role under bathroom sink

Things I accidentally did right.

1. Easy ramp access to front and rear door.
2. Bedroom is large enough to easily navigate.
3. Pavestone walkways around house are flat and wide enough.

I was able to put in a vertical platform lift to get between floors. It is a tight fit but it does work.

I use to think I would move to a new house when my needs changed. In this market selling a house is difficult. So I am leaning more towards planning ahead. My mother broke her hip a few years ago and came to live with us a few months while she recuperated. My mother-in-law has problems with stairs and she visits from time to time.

Wishing you the best on your project.

I just across this post. I have been looking at house planning for a while. I thought I did a good job on the house I am currently in. However, I found out I was terribly wrong. About 8 years I awoke to a slight twitch in my right cheek. I eventually found out I have a rare neurological disease. I am now confined to a powerchair. Looking at my house today it would have been easy to make it handicap friendly. I could have added a role in shower for almost no cost difference. I could have put 6' x 6' closets on the first and second floor that line up. This way installing an elevator would be simple. I could have made all internal doors 36". There are lots of other items I could have done to make my life easier. It is not something you want to plan for but it is something to consider.

I am on this quest to get Netbeans IDE working with SU Ruby. The development version of Netbeans has a capability to attach a debugger to a Ruby process. See link below:

http://blogs.sun.com/martink/entry/remote_debugging_debug_whatever_ruby

This works awesome on regular Ruby programs. So I thought I would muddle my way through trying to get it to work with SU Ruby. I have a regular ruby 1.8.6 install. Steps so far:

1. Created init.rb and put it in plugins dir. This is a one line Ruby program to add a regular Ruby install paths to the SU loadpath.

$LOAD_PATH.concat([".","c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8","c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i386-msvcrt","c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby","c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8","c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/i386-mswin32"])

2. Made sure I have the latest rubygems and rdebug-ide. Copied over the c:\ruby\bin\rdebug-ide to ..\plugins\debug\rdebug-ide.rb

3. Started SU Ruby console and did a require 'debug/rdebug-ide'. Got this error

require 'debug/rdebug-ide'
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method sync=' for #<Sketchup::Console:0x342ed90>> (eval) C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/debug/rdebug-ide.rb:19:in load'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins/debug/rdebug-ide.rb:19
(eval):0:in `require'
(eval):0

If I look at loadpath it seems to contain all the required paths. Any ideas on how to get this working.

$:
["C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Plugins", "C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 7/Tools", ".", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/linecache-0.43-x86-mswin32/bin", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/linecache-0.43-x86-mswin32/lib", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-base-0.10.3-x86-mswin32/bin", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-base-0.10.3-x86-mswin32/lib", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-ide-0.4.5/bin", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-debug-ide-0.4.5/lib", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i386-msvcrt", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8", "c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/i386-mswin32"]

Maybe I am thinking about this wrong but I think a good idea is to develop a rubygem that exposes the SketchUp Ruby API to a standard ruby install. You can continue to develop the embedded Ruby capability but a lot of existing Ruby capability/code/gems can be put to immediate use. The relieves the pressure to urgently add capability that exists someplace else. For example I may want to couple SketchUp to a RubyOnRails environment. I don't expect you to embed ROR into SketchUp. I would have the capability of doing it on my own if I could access the Ruby API from a standard Ruby install.

Also, as I understand the Sketchup Ruby API is based on 1.8.0. Exposing the Ruby API to an external Ruby environment would allow users to use a more current release.

Does this make any sense?

As I understand it Sketchup has a builtin Ruby Interpreter and they had added some classes to manipulate objects in Sketchup.

Say I wanted to interface to an Oracle db that contained info on size and placement of objects. I already have a standard Ruby install that interfaces with Oracle. It also has several Gems installed that perform mathematical calcs on geometric objects. How can I link the 2 Ruby environment? Can I add some path info to reference the other Ruby install from SU Ruby? Can I reference the SU classes in my standard Ruby install? It there some Gem I can install to invoke SU ruby commands from a standard Ruby install? Can I add a standard Ruby install to SU?

Thanks for any insight on this.

I just started looking at the Sketchup Ruby API. My favorite Ruby IDE
is Netbeans. I would like to be able to single step through my
Sketchup Ruby code using Netbeans and see how it interacts with the 3D
model. Has anyone done this? Any ideas on how to do this? This
could be a great capability.