@unknownuser said: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=c15010c5bf3a6eedc7eab6dd87fa39a9&prevstart=0 OMG! that WC looks flooded

Hey Didier, missed your post. My original thought was to combine the Create Materials from Layers function followed by the Apply Materials to Objects function as part of a Revit to SU workflow. It's less of a need than I originally thought though. I originally thought I'd need to do this each time I reimported the updated Revit model. But actually I only need the Apply Materials half of the equation after the first time since the materials already exist. If you think it would be of any value to others to combine the functions I'd love a copy. Otherwise, the separate functions actually work fine for what I'm doing now. -Brodie

Thanks for the input. At the moment I think I've got an ok workflow going from SU to 3ds Max and using Vray there. I'm at the early stages so we'll see what snags I run into. My biggest concern is materials. If something changes and I have to swap out models, I'll have to reassociate every material on every object again. I'd thought about breaking up my whole SU model and making it all one big group before importing to Max so I'd just have to reassociate the materials on one big object but then I'll lose any benefit from instances and layers. -Brodie

Try this http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=199643#p199643

Brodie, See this: http://www.smustard.com/script/SceneExporterPro An invaluable tool - I'd be lost without it. Pro version well worth the $10 - HIGHLY recommended. ........ There is also a free version. ........ I've found: For everyday images (eg for use in MS Word / other applications or for A3/ A4 printouts) you can export out as jpg's. For large (eg A0 / A1 size) high quality images, export out as png's (eg 6000+ px wide/tall ) - they come out really well - very sharp / crisp. ......... Hope this helps Regards Howard L'

How about just arranging multiple copies of this in a complete circle?

Thanks thomthom, I'll give that a shot. -Brodie

Actually this has been around for as long as I can remember. And while I use thomthom's cleanup script and purge all the time, this is still a big issue because sometimes you want to forcefully delete a material that is still in your scene. This happens a lot when you bring in some 3d elements and such and end up with a few oddball materials that you don't want, but don't want to dig around and find out where they are in the model. -Brodie

@unknownuser said: It sounds like my best bet is to just adjust how I'm used to working. For example, when I have a window, say, on a 45 degree wall I would sometimes copy it out and turn it 45 degrees so it lined up with the world axis. Then I could go in and edit it based on the world axis and later delete the extra component. -Brodie Yeah that axis change in SU-V8 really irks me. I was drawing an ancient (circa 1907) V8 aircraft engine with a very complex cylinder construction, where all the push rods and valve rockers were exposed. It was at about 50 degrees tilt each bank. I created a dummy cylinder component (just a rough sized cylinder) and copied it 7 times in the correct locations and angles. Then I made a copy and set its angle straight in some remote location on its own development layer. All my construction work was done on the development copy, while any interference adjustments were made on any cylinder on the full engine. Did the same thing on a radial engine. Worked like a charm.

Been using Gett for awhile. Not bad. Read about this the other day... http://www.joukuu.com/ Manage multiple online storage accounts. Having tried it yet but looks promising

First of all: I am NOT a programmer, so there is ZERO error handling on this quick-and dirty script. I had tried TIG's solution, but did not work on my DWG because some of the arcs would "clip" others as they were rebuilt by the script. So I wrote this small routine to: loop through imported AutoCAD entities. select curves and group them (individually) create a more refined clone of the curve (the number of segments is controlled by two parameters. See script) Delete the original curve. Anyone is welcome to turn this snippet into something better and more reusable. Best, Marcos. theModel = Sketchup.active_model #selEntities = theModel.selection theModel.selection.clear allEntities = theModel.entities Collect user values: prompts = ["Minimum number of segments:", "Minimum Segment Length:"] defaults = [36, 10] input = UI.inputbox(prompts, defaults, "Enter Desired Settings") #set minimum length for each arc segment (in model units) userSegs = input[0] minLen = input[1] #UI.messagebox(userSegs.to_s) #UI.messagebox(minLen.to_s) allEntities.each do |i| if (i.typename == "Edge") aCurve = i.curve if (aCurve) Sel = theModel.selection unless defined?(Sel) Sel.add (aCurve.edges) newGroup = allEntities.add_group (theModel.selection) Sel.clear else #not a Curve end end end theModel = Sketchup.active_model theModel.selection.clear allEntities = theModel.entities Loop through all entities allEntities.each do |i| #open Groups, search for Curves if (i.typename == "Group") #Loop through array of Entities inside each Group subset = i.entities subset.each do |s| curve = s.curve # if it is a curve, collect a few properties if (curve) # get coord. transformation, since entities are in a group #use "transform" below to translate to global coordinates tr=i.transformation cCenter = curve.center.transform! (tr) cSangle = curve.start_angle cEangle = curve.end_angle cRadius = curve.radius cNormal = curve.normal.transform! (tr) cXaxis = curve.xaxis.transform! (tr) cYaxis = curve.yaxis.transform! (tr) cLength = curve.length #UI.messagebox(" Curve Length is " + cLength.to_s) #divides arcs in minLen(model unit) increments divSegs = (cLength / minLen).to_i #UI.messagebox("Divided Result is " + divSegs.to_s) #for very small arcs, sets a minimum number of segments if (divSegs <= userSegs) numSegs = userSegs # UI.messagebox("Using: " + numSegs.to_s) else #subdivides larger arcs using target length numSegs = divSegs.to_i # UI.messagebox("using Divided total" + numSegs.to_s) end myarc = allEntities.add_arc cCenter,cXaxis,cNormal,cRadius,cSangle,cEangle,numSegs #Erases original i.erase! end # if curve end # entities inside group loop end # if it is a group end #loop through all entities

@starling75 said: Do Mac's still have any solid graphical advantage over PC? No. Ok. -Brodie

Good point Csaba. I wasn't thinking about components that are designed to glue to surfaces. If there's no surface, they'll lay on the ground plane.

See link: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/plugins_list_az.php

@unknownuser said: It looks like that plugin works pretty well, albeit with some caveats. As I've said before, converting models from one native 3D model format to another is kind of like performing a machine translation from one language to another. Sometimes it works well (for example, translating from spanish to french). Sometimes it works less well (for example, translating chinese to hungarian) Think of COLLADA as your "esperanto", with all the possibilities and limitations that that implies. john .

Viz, you may have a point about the perspective. I consternated an awful lot over it, having started with a much broader scheme and having to find a way to widdle it down so I could be sure and finish the project in the time I had. I know I played with the idea of a more eye level view, but I honestly can't recall why I ended up changing it to what I did. I believe originally it was because I'd considered having a car in the image and didn't want it to block the view of any of the buildings. It may also have had something to do with how much distortion it caused on the cantilevered element if I did an eye level view in 2 point perspective so the verticals were all parallel. This was done with Maxwell Render, but I finished quite early which, along with the extended deadline, gave me a lot of time to work it over in Photoshop which is why it ended up with a slightly stylized look to it. Look forward to seeing your completed image when you're able to finish it -Brodie

@unknownuser said: I'm still not aware of any programs on the market today that do exactly what SketchUp does faster by leveraging multiprocessing or 64-bit technologies, though there are certainly other kinds of tools (specifically rendering apps) that can use those technologies to improve performance. I think you make a really important point, though. Learning how to use a tool properly and effectively is the key to using it well. And ultimately, to being able to push its boundaries. john . haha, John, you must be a masochist. If SketchUp is only competing with companies who do "exactly what SketchUp does" then I don't think you have any competition at all, depending on how you define "what SketchUp does." And I'm not sure that he was necessarily talking about "faster," there are other aspects to performance and workflow. But instead of drudging up the old argument, let me see if I've learned anything. Moving SU 64 bit would allow it to hold more polygons (presumably this is why 3ds Max has both 32 and 64 bit versions) and may help in a SU to Rendering workflow. However it takes a lot of polygons to reach the 3+ gig limit of 32 bit and long before you hit that, you'll run into other bottlenecks (am I on the right track here?). As for Multiprocessing support, it just doesn't work with OpenGL so someone will need to invent a new OpenGLmulticore before it does anything at all for SU. How's that? Just to derail things a bit, realtime rendering is all the rage right now. What if the SU viewport was seen as a VERY simply realtime rendering which used the CPU to actually render the scene as you moved around? Meh, probably a dumb idea. Maybe every time you moved around there would be a bit of lag as it had to rerender, I don't know. -Brodie

I haven't had a chance to try some of those but the multi-offset is a great start. What would be awesome is a ruby that would group my selected faces, then select all the faces in that group, run multi-offset ruby, then then run the select inverse ruby. That would get me all set to move the faces out. If it could also move the faces out 1" that would be even better. I took a look at a couple of the scripts to see if I might be able to mash them together but I simply can't figure out ruby enough to even do what seems like a simple task of combining a couple scripts. -brodie

Hello Brodie, Hope you don't mind, rendered a sky (3 different variations achieved with post-pro) and used that sky for your current picture.. Oh well.. I was bored Edit: anybody feel free to use the sky for whatever purpose [image: KrOy_house20and20site20pp.jpg] [image: lRP6_Picture16.jpg] [image: bYnD_Picture16_1.jpg] [image: mPHJ_Picture16_2.jpg]

Brodes mate I bought quite a few sets of the axyz collection and they are great! Got 3d has quite a good lower priced option as well.