@daredevil said:

@eric_j said:

Hello

Apologies if this has been asked and answered elsewhere....

Is it possible to embed a fixed offset function - or variable offset, for that matter - in a dynamic component?

For example, I'd like to be able to have a complex curve in 2D with a similar curve offset so that when X or Y is scaled on the main curve, the perpendicular distance on the offset curve stays the same.

Can this be done? Does it need scripting?

Thanks for any thoughts...

EJ

With DC, you can copy, move, rotate and scale a shape but you can't make an offset.
If you need to do this dynamically, I think you must script in Ruby.

Didier

Thanks; that's what I suspected....

Hello

Apologies if this has been asked and answered elsewhere....

Is it possible to embed a fixed offset function - or variable offset, for that matter - in a dynamic component?

For example, I'd like to be able to have a complex curve in 2D with a similar curve offset so that when X or Y is scaled on the main curve, the perpendicular distance on the offset curve stays the same.

Can this be done? Does it need scripting?

Thanks for any thoughts...

EJ

Hi Kate

The "Submit" button on the page where I'm supposed to enter my machine ID to get a license code doesn't seem to work?

http://www.activateshaderlight.com/

Do I need to enter a 16 digit code number first? How do I get that?

Thanks for any clarification.

Eric_J

Thank you for all the helpful answers.

I ended up working in LO. Used the pencil tool to draw over the section and filled it in. It's also possible to duplicate the page, render it with vectors then explode the rendering. After that, it's a matter of deleting lines, joining lines and adding fill. A little awkward, but ~~doable, more or less. But if you decide to alter the view...

For some reason, moving the filled section away from the plane in SU didn't work when I tried it the first time, but maybe my tinfoil cap needs a new battery. Or antenna.

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

I'm not a newbie, but I am a moron - and the forum doesn't seem to have a "Moron's Corner" -

I've tried to start one. It keeps getting pulled. Mostly cuz I was the only one posting.

Well, maybe it's better this way. Morons and genuises can learn from each other. Or something.

@pmiller said:

Or, if you are careful about consistent inside face orientation (as you should be), just make a style in SU where the inside faces are black. Voila, your section cuts will appear solid black, not hollow.

OK, so that's brilliant. Waaaay, waaaaay too simple.

@jean lemire said:

Hi folks.
Another possibility is to use a real cutting surface.

Yes, that works, but again, locating the section plane is critical.

Anyway, these are good suggestions for future work. Thank you all again!

EJE

I'm not a newbie, but I am a moron - and the forum doesn't seem to have a "Moron's Corner" - so I'm going to post here...

I'm trying to figure out how to get a section in LayOut to have a filled-in section cut. That is, I want to have:

1. A simple black-and-white line drawing that shows visible elements in elevation
2. A grey or black fill in the walls, floors, roofs and other elements that are cut through.
3. Parallel projected and drawn to scale

Like what you can do with a pencil and poche in 1/10th the time.

I've already tried grouping the section cut and using the lines to make a mask, but that doesn't seem to work.

Alternately, I suppose I could replace all textures with a solid white material and make the mask grey or black. Then I could display "with textures" and maybe the mask would display as dark.

That means I'd need to have two separate models. One textured for perspectives and rendered images and one white-textured for line drawings in LayOut.

Or composite the mask with the LayOut View and try to get the fill to exactly line up with the linework. Could waste a lot of time trying that one before giving up. So I thought I'd ask if anyone has done this?

Hopefully I'm missing something simple?

Thanks in advance.

@gaieus said:

Hi guys,

Section plane visibility is a style attribute and without updating the used style in your scene, it will not be "sticky".
.....
If you want to turn off section planes globally, simply update the used style (that would be the second choice). Here I rather chose to save as a new style so that you can see the difference (coming below). So in this case, my Scene 1 still displays the section plane while my Scene 2 does not (as I first turned visibility off and then saved it as a new style).

If you have a look at my Styles dialog > In model, you can see that I indeed have two styles now (one with section plane visibility on, the other with off).
....
Since it does not seem to be a bug, I took the liberty to move the topic under the main LO forum. If anyone still finds bugs, please, let me know and I will move it back.

Hi Gaieus

This may not be a 'bug', but it's driven me crazy (not a long commute). Practically, it means that one ends up with Styles named Floor Plan 1, Floor Plan 2, North Elevation, South Elevation, Perspective 1, Perspective 2, etc. It seems that the whole idea of Scenes is that ALL attributes that are set in a scene would be imported into LO. Now, when a Scene is selected in LO, one has to also apply the Style saved with the Scene.

This means going back to SU to 'fix' something that wasn't broken until it went to LO.

Hopefully I am missing something?

EJ

OK, I got it.

It seems to work in relation to the handle that was just dragged. So if you pull a handle on an edge, you can only enter one value, for either the width or height. In order to enter horizontal and vertical dimensions, you have to drag from the corner first.

Not obvious, but it does make sense.

Thanks EJE for the fast reply....

EJE

Does anyone know if there a way to accurately size the viewports? The information bar at the bottom says, "Type values for precise manipulation," when I type in dimensions, it returns, "Invalid string." Sometimes it will let me enter a scale value, but never a dimension...

What's the deal on this? I'm using Layout 2.1.5803 .....

TIA

EJE

@xrok1 said:

i think someones thats seems to try to burn everyone that tries to help should NOT be helped. so do everyone here a favor, throw your Sketchup disk in the garbarge and shove your pencil up your... ear!

@Gaieus

Thank you for your apology. It's easy to personalize a discussion when the issues shouldn't be personal, and certainly your English is much better than my .. well .. anything other language. When one designs a building, certain stuff has to be intuitively obvious to everyone, so most of us understand user interface stuff. But it looks like I didn't communicate well, either, so my apologies. And I'm not blaming anyone but myself for my printer hardware situation. My fault there.

@pbacot

Thanks for your comments. In fact, I think that drawing over a print is a good way to go. SU is great when it comes to tweaking the perspective and field of view and casting shadows. Hopefully I'll be back when I'm not quite so tense and I'll be more personable.

@xrok1

Is that is your favorite thing to do with a pencil? Perhaps you could demonstrate with a video tutorial. Thanks for the suggestion, but maybe another time.

@ All

Actually, what StyleBuild could do is allow the user to generate architectural styles. Insert generic doors and windows. Click on "Colonial Style, and the windows are divided light double-hung numbers. "Mediterranean" and they're casements. "Ranchburger" gives you aluminum sliders with no casings.

Etc.

If it did that, it would be more than a dust collector, I think.

Later.

@gaieus said:

Eric,

I don't know what you are ranting about with Chris and his valid statement that you don't need to use style builder to model whatever you need to meet the deadline. To tell the truth, I may only have opened it like about 3 or 4 times altogether during those (almost) three years it's been out.

If you have a deadline to meet, model it in SU and use any of the default or pre-made sketchy styles and don't bother with an "addon" that you cannot make use of at this very tight moment. People survived without StyleBuilder much before it was available and could build great models without these fancy effects.

As for declaring that the app shouldn't have got out of the door based on the mere fact that youcannot grasp it within 15 minutes, is so to say a bit bravery.

I agree with the first two paragraphs.

But for you to imply that I am somehow stupid because I did not grasp the non-obvious in 15 minutes is another part of the software equation. "The customer is always an idiot and needs training and we're always right" attitude is arrogant and infuriating. Given what it does, SketchUp is a great program and it makes very complex tasks quite simple. I've had few problems learning how to use it. It is very good, but it didn't get that way by assuming the customer needs training for the simplest of things - that's Autodesk's approach, apparently. Unless the real intent is to get the customer over to UTube, which is another possibility.

But no, it is not "bravery." Stating the obvious is common sense, because the "experts" rarely do.

Obviously, I don't run Google, so what I think - or what you think - is irrelevant, really.

BTW, Gaieus, what is the best style of architecture?

@chris fullmer said:

Hey Eric, sorry to hear all your woes.

So I posted the first 2 posts, the rest are from other members of the forum. So I think you meant to respond to them, not me.

As for learning so much software? Yes, its a pain. But it comes with the territory of designing these days. So you're going to have to get used to it I'm afraid. Or, decide to not give in to software and just stick to pencils. Either way, just be good at what you do.

As for style builder, you really do not need to use it. It is not terribly important. Use Sketchup to make your model and LayOut to present it if you want. Or make a video, or still images and put them together however you would like. But style builder is not a necessary step in the SketchUp process.

Anyhow, feel free to come here to rant or learn or whatever. But somtimes it can be offputting when someone comes in with a question, and just rants even when valid help is offered.

And for what its worth, I like the way style builder currently works. I would not like it to work the way you described. I prefer it to start without any line work in place. Otherwise I would have to go through and delete all the placeholder linework. And that would be frustrating.

Chris

Thanks for your patience, and sorry to rant. You're right, this is not the right place for some things.

It is difficult to "... just be good at what you do." This is the problem, because it there is so much to have to know. I like learning software, usually, it is interesting and a lot of it is really cool and great. But being good at A through Z doesn't matter at all if you don't have the right driver for your printer or if it doesn't do PostScript or whatever, or if there is some obscure setting buried somewhere that is time-consuming to find. So having to know the vagaries of eight different software - and constantly upgrade them, just to keep them functioning, and just to do what used to be done with a pencil - is quite aggravating.

Currently, for example, I have a pretty good model that I've been working on for some time, but it looks like I will be using a pencil for some things because it will be faster.

As for StyleBuilder, it appears that it opens with the "Foggy Mess" style already applied. How do you get the "No Style" style applied? You have to apply straight lines to the "Foggy Mess" style.

I agree that it is not worth bothering with.

Thanks again.

The SU manual suggests that CAD files be prepared before importing, but it doesn't say why. I discovered that some models were getting quite large and that deleting polygons didn't help much.

What made a HUGE difference in the file size was going to Window>Model Info>Statistics and using Purge Unused to clear out unused layers and empty components that seem to have come along with .dwg files - files which had already been edited and pared down before importing. The difference was dramatic, as I got several ~2.5 MB component files dropped to 500 K, and a resulting 9MB file down to 2MB.

Question: Does this affect performance all that much? I't seems to have helped, but I was wondering how much it affects speed and stability compared to a similar sized file that is full of polygons and materials....

EJ

Chris

I'm sure StyleBuilder does work OK eventually.

But read your previous posts. Architects design buildings. But we have to learn AutoCad, SketchUp, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Revit, & Rhino, for starters, and they take months to get good at, before the vendor changes something.

We're supposed to be making sure that the building works, that it functions properly. That the customers can find the front door and that the bathrooms are accessible and the adjacencies work and that it won't cost too much and that there is enough parking and that it meets code. So what do we spend our time doing? Trying to figure out why our software program keeps crashing when we zoom in, and why this point won't connect with that one. Or why our renders have zaggies, our shaders don't shade or why our topo map doesn't drape. We spend a month modeling a building and then can't output the results properly, due to some obscure behavior by some software that hasn't been updated because the vendor isn't in business anymore or doesn't support the hardware. Patience? I have a lot, but it's not infinite, and this is crazy, it really is.

And does having these skills help you gain employment? No. The AIA can decide who works and who doesn't work, and for any reason at all. Discrimination is blatant - obvious - and the AIA has gone to court to defend the right of its professional member architects to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, age & sexual orientation, which many firms do quite openly. I took the AIA to small claims court to challenge this practice, and they sued me back in superior court to show their appreciation and thanks. What a great bunch, huh? Really makes one proud to be an American architect these days.

Meanwhile, the software companies keep promising how wonderful their stuff is and how much more productive you'll be with the next upgrade, as long as you have patience until the upgrade after that.

So forgive me if I'm pissed off, because I am. StyleBuilder is just one symptom of a much bigger problem.

Cheers!

I didn't say that one should be able to have a full overview of a program in 15 minutes or be able to use them masterfully in that time.

StyleBuilder could start with a perfectly clean, simple building as an example. Hidden, straight lines - the "No Style" style. Then, when you start clicking on stuff, style starts building. When you open your own model, it should begin with where you left off or with the No Style style, and it shouldn't automatically apply the "Blurry Fuzzy Style that you need training to fix," because I can make that style easily enough. As is, the first 15 minute experience led me to believe that I have some sort of incompatible graphics chip or that a software glitch occurred. That's all.

Thanks.

@chris fullmer said:

Style builder works pretty well from what I've used of it. Fortunately since its not an integral part of SketchUp, you don't have to use it. So it won't get in the way of your deadline.

But if you really want to use it, what you do is drag and drop a line from the left pane over to the gray bars on the right. You can see that each line length is set to have 3 possible lines applied to it. So you could drag over 3 different lines for each line length. Once all slots are filled with lines, then you will see that the model displays nicely with the newly built style.

So probably no one needs to get fired

Chris

I don't have to use it? Actually, I don't have to use SketchUp or even meet the deadline. I'm going back to pencil, I think.

I'm so pissed off at the world of architecture and computer drafting and modeling I could scream. Which I already have, several times.

I'm ready to throw SketchUp in the Trash, too. What point is there in spending weeks building a model and then not being able to output the results? Protected memory? SketchUp was the first ever program to lock up my Mac so that I had to hard reboot.

I'll post another question in the other forum, but my patience has run out.

Oh, I take it you have a job? So that's easy for you to say. If it isn't obvious how to use a program or what it's suppose to do after 15 minutes of messing around, the PM needs to get canned. This app shouldn't have gone out the door. Period.

But thanks for the video; this answered my question. The online docs are worthless.

Hi

When I first open a model - or sometimes when I orbit or pan - the preview pane shows some resemblance to model. When I stop, the image turns into a blurry, muddy mess.

I just spent $95 to upgrade and Style Builder came with. When the model first appears, it is recognizable. Then it turns into a fuzzy mess. The more I adjust the settings, the worse it gets.

The narrowest stroke width I can get is 8 pixels.

Is this supposed to be useful, or Google's idea of a bad joke?

In all seriousness, did anyone test this before it shipped? Someone needs to get fired soon. I'm working on a deadline and would like to know whether I'm doing something wrong, or if SB is the waste of time that it appears to be.

Here's a screenshot.

Thanks for any comments.

EJ

@kwistenbiebel said:

I would purchase the upgrade to SU7 just for Layout and use it in a SU6 combo. Is that possible?
Kwistenbiebel

Did this question get answered? Gaius wrote that he didn't think that the combination would work, but the other responses defended SU 7. I tried out the free version of 7, but twitchy, unreliable snapping and inferencing and many more frequent slogs through Molasses-of-Zoom drove me nuts. Fast.

Otoh, the rasterized images from LO keep me from using it at all....

Eric

Thanks Chris

I skewed and cropped and squared up the image in PS, then imported and exploded per Alan's comments. Worked great.

Getting the color to match was a bit tedious, but by messing with the values in the image editor, saving and reloading a few times, the textures on all the components updated instantly throughout.

SU is amazing....

E

Hi Alan (or anyone else)

Is there a way to distort an image in SketchUp so that it will stay that way after tiling?

For example, I have an image of an area of bricks that is distorted from the camera's perspective. It can be scaled, but the perspective remains. Placing as a texture allows you to adjust the texture to a specific area, but it doesn't tile any differently. The image can be scaled X & Y, but not along an edge, no?

Is PhotoShopping the only way to get the original image to look right after tiling?

TIA...

E

OK, it seems to work when put into Library/Application Support.../plugins, and it seems to export properly!

Thanks again!