@hsjzyangbin said:

does not get the results I wanted

hi you posted while I was uploading, so I'll add my 2 pennies, adding surfaces to the rails holds everything in place better for some reason and even adding these surfaces after exploding the group altered the finished surface in some cases, but not all.

Hi Tig,

I've been busy with your script trying to see what it can do and how it works.

in the process I've made every permutation of rail choice order and discovered a few things that might make the learning cur(v/s)e easier for some of us mere mortals.

To show things like the difference of going end to end or top to bottom, etc I used a horizontal reference grid on my last 'Jeffs Ramp' effort and made a new vert as well. these don't represent an ideal outcome or anything, but are simply static reference made using different tools so that none of the new ones match perfectly.

I then put all new mesh's on there own layer with a code so I could keep track and then made 30-40 different versions, which I compared to each other using scene tabs. After weaning out mostly identical ones, I'm left with 8 possible reliable outcomes.

So, I decided to tidy it up a bit a post it here for yourself and the curious.

the code for the layer name is- L = Long Arc end; S = Short Arc end ; B = Bottom profile; T = Top profile; rest are bad English

camera's not locked so you can rotate etc during the animation, if you stop and over lap two or more you can clearly see what's different

Comment... I think the differences are a bonus for things like ramps because it's so easy to just run an extra from top to bottom if you want it steeper etc...

BTW. I retrospectively added surface to my earlier post's drawing and it pulled the lifted edges back into place except for one point, the missing triangle on this file.
This one point also misaligned itself in a couple of other sweeps that had profiles attached, but not in others, odd?,
if the cleanup is pushing one point back into line , I'm happy...

the files to big so it's on a cloud if you want to download from there, let me know if there's a problem.

http://sn.im/twta2-ama

Hi Tig,

couple of oddities on the mac, when trying to do something I need, however just had a go at one of my manually manipulated splines versions of Jeffs ramp, and 80% of the new skin line up perfectly with the previous splines and the 10% are probably out due to manual error (someone else must have done those)

But there is lifting of 2nd rail along the whole length? Pic attached.

main difference- it's an hour or two quicker just on this.

fantastic, I'll try and have another play later on and report back

john

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That looks great Tig,

eager to try EEbyR [v2] it on the Mac and report back, can the melding profile need equal segments to the profile or could it be a be a 2 segment point?

john

actually, I can report there's some sort of issue if I've used blend before trying to use this,

it's as if blend hold's on to a required file or path or something

if I quit and retry it works fine, only seems to be blend, but it may of been the problem the other day after I'd used CLF_SimpleLoft and 2Faces+path

I wasn't looking for a clash, but this is repeatable... nothing shows up in ruby or mac console, and I can't read the SU logs although I do have them.

cheers

john

Hi All,

had another go (several), I need something similar and working on Jeff's model seems less like work. (go figure)

I think this takes Jeff's model off the SU impossible list... and with a few tweaks to the rubies I used, it can be quite fast for it's accuracy.

I think I've got a reliable workflow to produce accurate skateboard-ramps, although this one no longer fits Jeff's template, that could easily be remedied

I remembered to grab some pics so here they are.

Observations for the RubyMasters...

Rick- it would be really handy to have a WELD Button

TIG- this version EEbyR is very good, but when using it like I have, you need it to ask if you want to continue, have a last setting's box, and skip all the standard dialogs if so chosen, I know your busy on the next, but these couple of things would help allot. oh, and could it have a button, please

Chris- ComponentStringer was the missing link for any hope of accuracy and I figure you've already figured I like buttons, so could you do a ruby tutorial on how to add them myself to other people scripts?

Fredo- I'm glad someone posted about BzRoundEdge, it reminded me I had it for the lettering and it works much better on the mac then the new one.

cheers to all and the skp with lot's of test is there for the curious

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Smooth_Ramp_Bit's.skp

@mike60 said:

were i can find the download???

this one, top of page one, at the end of Fredo's 1st entry, most people leave the latest versions in that spot on the plugin page.

@kirill2008 said:

torus surface that is most close one to the text was grouped

Kirill
Exactly, on the mac I also re-surfaced the mesh and added detail with sandbox first, my model torus is 128 segments x 32 sides, so making a small patch is essential, experimenting with tube intersections now, had a couple of crashes, but I'm just playing around between domestic chores today, so maybe I'll have more luck later on.

john

Fredo,

I had to zero out smoothing on the recipient mesh first, and on some of the SU shapes, I also found using 'add-detail' from sandbox seemed to make a difference.

don't know why it worked, but I've been trying to apply 3D text to curved tubes for ages and kept at it till it worked.

Oh, I also grouped a much smaller patch, just bigger than the text footprint. as the recipient and that speeds it all up.

on the mac with 7.1 it was slower than the video implies and I don't seem to get as much shown on screen, but the end result is great.

I need this to be 'watertight' for STL export and I had very little internal clean-up to do.

cheers again Kirill

Any chance of utilising this method in a booleen tool, I can't get as clean an intersection with anything I've tried on a mac

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Merry Xmas, New Year, etc...

Kirril, works on OSX10.5.8 + 7.1, however, 3D text needs to be exploded and regrouped, and it seems to prefer, grid patches made with sandbox, or I get issues.

but that's fine because it is so neat (and I don't mean in the corny American way), it is tidy, precision engineering tidy, 3D stainless steel printing tidy, fantastic, I certainly hope Santa bought you something nice.

Anyway heres my test, on a torrus, with a material I made using blend(dot)rb, I'll put a You tube Texture anim up tomorrow. I want to make fire in sketchup... for some reason.

all the best

john

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A quick Lightup test, is there a reason no one seems to use it?

I'm really just testing a material I made in sketchup, and the dragon looked like a fiery candidate. I'll rescale it (the material) at some point, the movies short...

Youtube Video

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First off, had a look at your gallery Jeff, great work.

Ok, so here's a 2nd attempt, using Jeff's floor plan and retaining profile's (i.e. all the matting external faces should line up with whatever)

I wanted to find a way to use EExR and that's mostly what I did, if drawing from scratch, I think it can work on it's own, but I had to sweep the front with FollowMe and did a fillet with DB tool (i've never managed to get later versions to run on Mac). I'd use a lot more line segments from scratch to get it smoother.

I'd be happy to skate this, although I'd do it on a bike these days.

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jb_datdere_1.skp

hi Tig,

just a thought, I and it seems quite a few people use fredo's polyline segmentor before using eebyrails, loft, blend, etc..

so, would it be possible to simply call up that tool from within EER2 if a potential problem is found?

john

@jim said:

"recovery" time needed for the material to return to shape

recovery time is inherent with the material and for the device in my movie, I would have extremely small flexible oil tubes on each stand of wire, which speeds up the return four-fold and multiple units with an over-lap in activation so as the second is pushing the filament thru the first during it's (1st) cooling cycle and the first is pulling the filament thru 2nd during it's cooling cycle, and on and on and on...

If a pair are used end on end, but opposed with centre off, you can achieve zero backlash, high torque, highly positional control.

have a look at http://www.migamotors.com/Downloads.html there are some interesting movies of actual mechanisms.

I've also designed (using SU + a lot of rubies, of course) a few different continuous rotary motors using these, the power to weight ratio is staggering.

john

@kxi system said:

ok, thats just plain cool!

cheers, glad someone likes it,

I posted it on another forum, but they're so tied up with traditional solutions for there mechanisms that they dismissed the concept out of hand, these motors only weigh 12.8 grms and deliver 11N of force at 12VDC and move 9 mm in 50 ms (up to 200 mm/s)

I've just posted the the motor .skp on 3D WareHouse as I had one request, here's the link

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=dc06b10e76c0d28fc4ce39a20f5e38ab

in the meantime if anyone can convert the above mentioned files....

john

hi August,

I've done quite a bit of work utilising MigaMotors, but for some reason I took the YouTubes videos down, I'll resubmit one but here's a link to it on my gallery, the SU is a bit crude, I could probably do a bit better now, I'd only just started to use SU at that stage.

I haven't had a chance to chase up openProsethics yet, but will try this evening, I'm in UK..

john

http://gallery.me.com/johnboundy#100077

hi August,

I think it's a brilliant concept that needs the models sitting in 3D warehouse to reach a wider audience.

I downloaded the Vector Prehensor zip to have a look at doing this, but can't even find a viewer for the .prt files on a mac.

If you or anyone else out there has the software capable of converting the files for sketchup usage that would be fantastic.

I have contacted ResourceCad(.com) to see if they would do it for free, and they are willing to for a credit, but would prefer if the request came from a charitable body so they can write of the man-hours and costs if any.

I'll try and make contact with openprostethics.org and see if they can help out on that front.

In the meantime if we (the forum) could sort the files out ourselves I for one will give it a shot as I've spent a lot of my working life making things like this for films and telly, and have a couple of slightly unconventional ideas that might help.

cheers

john

hi jerrard,

I find skp_to_dxf(dot)rb better then SU export on the mac, I also use tt_cleanup(dot)rb first.

if I still have a problem I export a dae, clean it in Meshlab then save as dxf from there.

john

SketchUp to DXF STL Converter

Last edited: june 30 2009

Authors: Nathan Bromham, Konrad Shroeder

Hi Jeff,

is this what you mean? being a pool skater from long ago I couldn't resist trying this out.

john

Welded Top + Bottom rails then Extrude edges by rail and then follow me for the forward projection.

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Ramp.skp

Youtube Video

I have other links but on my way out just now so will check back and upload later if you want them

cheers john

@thomthom said:

What bells and whistles is that?

the UI, specification ability and progress report/warning.

I found a python script for hypyocoloids that I want to use in SU but have no idea of how to implement.

On seeing this, I thought having a hypyocoloids primitive would be very useful for myself and maybe one other person on the planet.

I haven't got anything on my mac that's been able to even test the py script yet.

I have scratch built one to try in SketchyPyhsics, but they need to be so accurate to work, I haven't succeeded (by using dimensioned geometry) yet.

I don't know if this [py] script uses bezier patches as I don't know what they are. I'll attach a zip so you can to have a look, maybe...

cheers

love the teaset.

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it was zipped on a mac.