So i have upgraded and am busy moving plugins across to skp 8 a few at a time to check for any incompatability.

One of the new features in skp8 is the ability to restore a saved toolbar layout right?

Then why can it not restore the toolbar positions (saved from a previous instance of the program) which have been scrambled after moving a few more plugins across and reopening?

Does this feature actually work?

Thanks for your input... I think I will take the plunge then....

I'll keep my version of 7 alive as well just in case... and will keep an eye on the bug thread in case anything goes wrong...

Next stop... sketchup 8...

Dave

So i'm still using version 7 of skp but thinking of upgrading over the upcoming Christmas holidays and transferring all my plugins and third party add-on software (vray etc) across too...

I just wanted to get a general feeling on whether or not you guys think that its a good time to do so?

I'm also a bit concerned that some of the fantastic plugins created here will not work properly in v8 and because I rely heavily on skp for work, the decision to upgrade could prove to be a bad one...

On this note, has anyone compiled a 'safe list' of what plugins work in v8 and which don't?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Otherwise I hope you all have a great festive season!

Thanks

Dave

TIG

I have replaced an archaic version of the Mirror tool with your new one and see that the right mouse context choice is now gone and only the icon in the toolbar is there. Could you please re-intoduce the necessary lines in the code to enable it to appear in the context menu....

Sorry but i am a creature of habit and the use of the icon interrupts my usual workflow...

Thanks in advance.

Dave

Working great but i see that is no layer functionality on the line only option

Please can you put it in so that one could have control over the generated entities for easy selection, visibility switches and deletion etc etc...

Otherwise great work.... as always

Dave

Its working on my side (via the console)... I had to change the cline to a line so that i could 'trace' them into structural entities... profile builder didn't recognise the cline...

Is either cline or line an option that can be built in?

Dave

Hi TIG

Could you please turn this into a proper plugin file that would appear in the plugins menu.
I have saved the code to an .rb file in notepad but i can't find it in sketchup or load it from the console...

This could help a lot with urban analysis but also in creating a series of guidelines from say a column head out to a series of points on a roof to create a wireframe of a roof structure which could then be converted into actual stuctural elements using say profile builder or otherwise. An option to leave the text off in the latter case would be good too!

Thanks

Dave

That's the one... just register and create a profile...then you can download all sorts of stuff from the downlaod area for nothing! there are also tutorials available... enjoy!

Aha!... solved it on my own...

This glass texture was downloaded off the ASGVIS website and there is a little switch in the texture details to 'reflect on backside' if you tick this... it all works irrespective of which face is pointing outward...

See pic attached.

So no bug then... just me not looking deep enough...

Hope this is what you were experiencing...

Dave

Its happening in this file!
Try for yourself...

I have reversed the central pane in the window component to show you how i fixed this problem....
But I am battling to replicate it from scratch so i don't know how i got here...

Hope materials come through okay if you open my file...

Thomtom... Is this a recognised bug? I know you have the latest beta for vray at your fingertips and it may have already been identified and addressed.

Oh by the way i'm using the latest release of Vray and skethcup 7.16860

Thanks

Dave

reflection glitch.skp

Something similar has happened to me when the back face (blue) of the surface is facing the camera. Then even if you have both sides of the surface 'painted' with the reflective glass material, the surface seems to dissapear and the dark shading you're refering to is actually a view into the unlit part of your model....

So try orientating all the windows with the glass surfaces, with front faces (white) facing outwards towards the camera and see if this solves your problem. It did so for me...

This last happened to me in a Vray version between 1.05 and the recent release 1.48.83... things seem to work now so maybe the bug has been fixed in the latest release... I seem to remember a 'vray golden rule' somewhere about having all your surfaces orientated 'outwards' (white side out) to make sure effects render properly... there is even a plugin out there somewhere which will sort this out for you globally in you model...

Hope this helps. Good luck

Dave

Thanks TIG...

working just fine so far...
I have added the bit at the end, a menu option is much better for me....

to take things a little further, it would be good to make the text 'sticky' and live so if the line were rotated or vertices altered, so too would the gradient info change accordingly.

But that's just me being cheeky...
I appreciate your help.

Cheers
Dave

Please could someone whip up a script that will query the gradient of an inclined line / surface and post the result as a numeric text label when clicking on the line.

This would really help me in what I'm working on right now... basically analysing the falls across a site for drainage and driveway design purposes.

If this could be expressed as in the 1: X format, that would be great.
As a step further if this could remain 'live' as one might alter the vertices of the line and return an updated result, that would be even cooler!
As always, if there is something already out there, please point me towards the link... I have done a quick search of the forum and can't seem to find anything but there may already be something buried in a string with a cryptic title.

Thanks

David

Thanks TIG... this is great!

As always you guys deliver... keep up the good work.

Dave

To all the script writers / users out there....

I am working on a model containing a site terrain (modelled from contours) and a building structure sited on the terrain.

Being an archtect, and relying heavily on sketchup modelling in my work, I basically need to generate some level information for a series of slab / beam / column heights and it would be great if there was a 'dimension tool' that would place a label or some other kind of point/object with an associated text reading at selected points that related to a datum point that i could define (and give a base reference (Z) height).... Metric readings would be preferred... i.e m to say 3 decimal points or else mm to zero decimal points...

Alternatively I would be happy to move my terrain model to the correct Z position (to tie into the contour values) but would still need a label to output the Z coordinates with a simple click on a reference point.

Anyone have any ideas of an existing plugin or could anyone knock one up reasonably quickly?

Thanks in advance.
Dave

yup this is strange....

I used to remember this happening once upon a time but then there were bugs with the drape tool in older versions of sketchup... so maybe they changed how things work

One solution for the time being is to extrude the edges you want to drape into a prism, group this and intersect this with the component. If you do this between the group and component the intersection lines generated will be outside either of them...

Forgive me if i'm telling you something you already know.
hope this helps.

Dave

If i may add my two cents worth...

I have been able to produce 'height maps' of terrain studies using a projected texture.
This could basically be used on any 3d object

Method:

1.Basically you create a color/grayscale gradient image in photoshop or otherwise,
2.Import into sketchup as a texture onto a vertical plane (rectangle) that represents the extent of the terrain. The vertical extent of this rectangle is more crucial than the horizontal.
3.Once you have the texture on the rectangle, go to the edit texture context menu and click on 'projected'.
4. Then sample the projected texture off the rectangle... choose all the surfaces of the terrain and apply.

Voila!

additional tips:
A:Do not apply the sampled projected texture to a group, it will not apply properly. You need to assign the material directly to the faces.
B:When making the vertical rectangle to represent the extents of your terrain it helps to overshoot the exact size a bit both top and bottom so that you don't pick up the extreme edge of the color gradient and start of the next tile of the gradient which can sometimes render as a dark colour.

This can obviously be done with a grayscale gradient too which i imagine could be used to generate a displacement map (exported jpg from a top view) similar to what Dave R and jopsa2 have been talking about.

Also in comparison to Chris's Color by Z plugin, although this is not technically a plugin, its avoids a multitude of generated materials, instead this one uses just one... so its Vray friendly too.

Attached is a sample image for reference.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Cody VI

Whichever tool available you might use to unfold, slice, flatten or project the individual faces, once done simply send your model to Layout and set view to scale on whichever page format suits your printer....

Hi Thom

I meant its Vray friendly in the sense that it doesn't generate large quantities (even hundreds) of materials based on the colour graduation as in Color by Z.

The displacement map generated was a spin off from thread and i figured if i had alrady sucessfully used a colour gradient, why not a grayscale and the bonus of the displacement map out of it.

I agree with you about the Vray displacement map thing... I tested it in vray with mixed results.

Got a pretty decent result out of cinema 4d though! see attached
I'm assuming that the CNC machine thingy might be able to use this too...

Dave

Firstly: fantastic script Fredo! This has really helped a desperate architect frustrated by the 'old' manual way of making ramps, curved kerbs on a slope etc etc...

Secondly: Could I make a small request? Basically, it would be great if the top height value could be input driven relative to the context of the model.... a bit like the 'projection' tools which require you to define a vector (lenght) along which to perform the function. I often make use of this tool with a '0' base height as its easy to extrude the base shape later but if you can think of integrating this variable in the same way that would be cool too.

With the current interface things are easy if you're dealing with whole measurements but a little difficult if you're reading dimensions off a complex model in which non whole numbers are displayed relative to one's setting for the decimal places and in my case often shortened by the ~ prefix in which case i don't know what the exact dimension is.

Hopefully you can see the value in this too...

Thanks again.

David