Thanks Fredo
I absolutely understand thank you. Any frustration relates to a lack of solution out there. Absolutely no criticism or frustration with Animator (it's amazing). Given how good it is my comentary was more about a wish for the feature exporting 3d models with animation. Something that doesn't seem to exist for sketchup and you seem to be nearly there.
Anyway thanks again for your prompt feedback and comments which I appreciate.
Cheers
David
Dear Fredo
Thank you for your follow up comments which I appreciate.
So some final comments for you.
I have used sketchup for more than 12 years. I have used a number of approaches for animation within a model. Yours by far is the most powerful. It's really very clever and beyond my ability to learn and use fully.
However whilst it has always been helpful to animate within sketchup, having built a 3d model using one the most powerful and easiest 3d modelling tools, invariabley the model is to be exported for use in some other application. Sharing / presenting a video or animated gif is helpful but nothing compared to beimg able to export an animated model.
So Kronos have already built a plugin to export gltfs for Sketchup. What is missing is the ability to export a model that is animated to a standard that can be used across different platforms. It seams there is a disconnect -
You have a really powerful animation tool but don't see yourself writing a method add this to export options for gltf or other formats any time soon. Kronos have built an exporter for gltf but are unlikely to build a tool like yours for doing sophisticated animations.
Being able to add your animation procedures to the gltf exporter would empower sketchup users to be able to export animated 3d models using a software interchange format that is endeavouring to provide a standard way of exchanging static and animated models.
Even if you don't think this is worth your while maybe you could clarify upfront in your explanation for your plug in that you don't support any form of export of your animations. This clarity would have saved hours of wasted effort and frustration and this correspondence with you.
In my case I searched the internet widely for options to animate 3d models from sketchup. Blender seemed the best option. However I then had such problems in blender with importing 3d models created in sketchup because of the interchange issues. With parts of models missing, poor structure etc it was a struggle to even get to the point of using Blenders powerful animation functionality.
This journey and roadblock led me to investigate whether there were any new animated plug-ins that allow export of the animation in any of sketchup export formats. I found Animator. It looked great. I spent hours looking at videos and blogs and building test models and training myself how to use Animator but I now know was looking for something that wasn't there. Ie no you can't export the animation to anything other than a video or animated gif.
So could I encourage you to clarify this upfront with your plugin description. Even better could I encourage you to look at extending your plugin for this purpose. Alternatively liaise with Kronos Group to achieve this functionality which would be of benefit to so many.
Good luck.
David
NB for any other frustrated sketchup users wanting to export models from Sketchup tp blender for any reason try the 3ds export. It has worked best for me.
Hi Fredo thanks for your prompt reply and explanation regarding repeating a rotation / spinning blades rather than stopping at ths end of 2 seconds. My use of infinity was in reference to your infinity symbol.
Regarding the gltf, this is 3d model format which is being pushed as a standard for interchange between different 3d software platforms http://www.khronos.org/gltf/
I should have added is it possible to export the animated model to a range of animated 3d file formats such as collada / dae, OBJ and others. Most formats can then be converted to gltf.
As animation in many software programs is not straight forward and your sketchup plugin is so powerful, the ability to export the animation from sketchup to a 3d animated model format rather than just saving as a video / gif would be highly desirable.
If I have not done enough reading or watching your videos and it is possible to export an animated 3d model from sketchup using your plugin can you please point me to those tutorials / help files?
Thanks again.
Regards David
Hi Fredo, your Animator in Sketchup is very powerful. I have two questions.
Is it possible to export an animation sequence of sketchup models to an animated file format. My end format is gltf. I have been unable to find anything that works. Exporting and importing sketchup models in blended for animation has top many problems with missing parts. Animator is hugely powerful within sketchup and creating videos but I am just wanting to animate and export some simple models.
I wish to use endless rotation / animation. However when I select this option in your dialogue it doesn't seem to do anything. All I want to do is animate rotating blades. With a rotation of 360 and 180 speed over 2 seconds and infinite spinning or rotation it still stops after the resulting two minutes.
Your advice would be most welcome.
Regards
David
Your kml import works so well.
Would you now consider creating a kmz import to import a geo located ongoing image.
It would in part be a matter of extracting the doc.kml file from the kmz zip file read the coordinates in the same way as you do now and then import the png file to that location.
Would be great functionality.
Could send you an example file
Cheers
David
Hi Aerilius,
Billiant thank you.
Just to let you know that I could import both kml files into the one session, both geolocted correctly.
Regards
David
Thanks very much Aerilius I will give it a try.
Regards
David
Also a question
When one kml file (that imports ok) has been imported it is not possible to import another. A new instance of sketchup has to be opened to use the tool again.
Is this how it is or should I be able to import multiple kml files, one after another?
Thanks
[quote="dawrightau"]Thanks for getting back to me Aerilius,
I am using 1.4.9 being the version you updated to fix the part loading issue of mine in a previous post.
Thanks for getting back to me Aerilius,
I am using 1.4.9 being the version you updated to fix the part loading issue of mine in a previous post.
There is an error in the ruby console. This is the ruby console messages for the harack boundary file :
fetching elevation from url: http://api.geonames.org/astergdemJSON?formatted=true&lat=-30.4077328499&lng=152.0265933208&username=aerilius&style=full&callback=returnJson
kmlImport.rb: geonames returned 1098
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method remove' for #<Sketchup::Materials:0xbfba0e4>> C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:740:in color_to_su'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:738:in each' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:738:in color_to_su'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:607:in style' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:170:in run2'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:655:in eachp' (eval):48:in each_with_index'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in each' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in each_with_index'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in eachp' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:170:in run2'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:151:in fetch_alt' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/enjshape/shapes.rb:48:in call'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/enjshape/shapes.rb:48
This is the ruby console message for the other file :
fetching elevation from url: http://api.geonames.org/astergdemJSON?formatted=true&lat=-30.40773285&lng=152.026593321&username=aerilius&style=full&callback=returnJson
kmlImport.rb: geonames returned 1098
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method remove' for #<Sketchup::Materials:0xc11d030>> C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:740:in color_to_su'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:738:in each' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:738:in color_to_su'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:607:in style' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:170:in run2'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:655:in eachp' (eval):740:in each_with_index'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in each' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in each_with_index'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:653:in eachp' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:170:in run2'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:151:in fetch_alt' C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:740:in call'
C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:740
Hope this helps nut it out.
Regards
David
@aerilius said:
@dawrightau said:
The plugin is working fine for some kml files but for some reason inst working with others.
Hi David,
I tried both files in a non-geolocated model and in a geolocated model (with terrain) and they both work for me (plugin version 1.4.6). I have no idea what could go wrong. When you open the Ruby Console before running th plugin, do there appear some error messages?
Hi Again Aerilus
The plugin is working fine for some kml files but for some reason inst working with others.
The ones that work have elevation data generated when they are created.
I tried importing a simple kml file with no elevation data and I get a white dialog box progress and no progress (please see hayrack boundary.kml)
I added 10 m vertices to the polygon and added elevation data to them and now get a dialog box with 50% progress where it stops (please see hayrack boundary with elevation.kml)
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Regards
David
@dawrightau said:
Thanks Aerilus,
The update worked perfectly and immediately (essentially no delay).
For some reason I thought the official site was http://extendsketchup.com/plugins/kml-tools/
The logical spot as you say was at the beginning of this forum.
Thanks again.
Kind regards
David Wright
Hi
Any tips and suggestions on how to do this are still welcome.
However as many members are no doubt aware there is a great resource on writing scripts for Sketchup in the 13 Chapter 400+ pages on Automating Sketchup "by Matthew Scarpino at :
http://www.autosketchup.com/downloads/Automatic_SketchUp.pdf
This looks like it covers all of the things I set out in this post so here goes.
Hi
I need to find or write a script that
loops through all group names that match a alphanumeric string combinations that include a type and distance value,
store that group name in an array
Read the group type value and distance value from the group names that meet a string pattern (ie mid(string,start char,finish char)
Move the matching group by the relevant distance * a factor (ie 1000 mm * 1.5) in the relevant direction according to the group type value
Loop to the next matching group name and repeat until done
I am v familiar with Sketchup and have some simple vb6 programming experience. I have looked the syntax of some ruby scripts doing move tasks but I cant seem to get past the starting point in writing my own. I would be most grateful for some tips on writing my first script incorporating these steps so I can learn how to write scripts for other automation tasks as well.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Regards David
Thanks Aerilus,
The update worked perfectly and immediately (essentially no delay).
For some reason I thought the official site was http://extendsketchup.com/plugins/kml-tools/
The logical spot as you say was at the beginning of this forum.
Thanks again.
Kind regards
David Wright
Hi Aerilius,
Thanks for getting back to me.
Glad you were able to fix it but how do I get access to the fix?
I checked the plugin download site and the date of the download plugin file is
3/07/2011 7:05 PM
Be grateful to get this working.
Thanks again.
Cheers
David
TIG Thanks for your PM reply :
I know of no size limit.
Are you sure Sketchup has hung and not just slowed down?
What does the Task Manager show ??
TIG
Re your questions :
Sketchup doesnt seem to have "Stopped responding" according to the task manager.
The first third of the contours come in quickly. After trying a couple of times I left it sit for a couple of hours but no further activity other than a blue progress bar sitting at 100%.
I did find a suggested size kml file limit of not much more than 200KB, otherwise Sketchup will go very slowly.
I have attached the file in question.
For other forum members interest, I also found another tool to import shapefiles into sketchup at the following URL :
[http://www.strategis.nl/StrateGisSoftware/SGGISShapeImporterForSketchup.zip](http://www.strategis.nl/StrateGisSoftware/SGGISShapeImporterForSketchup.zip)
This imports all the contours from a shapefile into sketchup in instant (which suggests to me the KML file shouldn't be too big for sketchup).
However unlike KML Import, GIS Shape Importer does not georeference the contours or group individual contours with the elevation height as the group name. GIS Shape Importer as the name suggests also cannot export to shapefiles whereas KML Import can export as well. These features in KML Import are nice features which allows automation of height adjustment of the contours to create a tin file and export the elevated contours as well.
Unfortunately because of the import problem I cant use KML import for this at the moment so am doing it all painfully / manually. However at least with GIS Shape importer I am able to progress in the meantime.
If anyone can test my file and see if they are getting the same problem and suggest a solution that would be much appreciated.
Regards
David
Hi
This is a great tool thank you. I am using it to import contour lines but am having an issue with failing to import all data with more detailed contours (ie 1 metre contours for a small area).
The KML file containing contours is only 152 k but when using the plug in fetches elevation data and then imports about 1/3 of the contour lines but then it hangs on a dialog title "Progess" importing linestrings which is all in blue and no further data is imported.
Is this a size / number of entities / memory limitation? Even though detailed it is not huge.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks regards
David