Try this DC

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

(sketchup.google.com)

The problem with this one is that I wanted to get it to be able to glue to any surface. For that to work right, the front, or face of the door needs to be laying flat, looking up at the sky (or the blue axis)

Right now, its back is facing the positive side of the X axis. When I set a glue plane for it, it is orientated wrong. Basically, I need to rotate it so the front is facing the positive side of the Green axis, and the front is facing the blue axis.

That would require swapping around just about every formula in the DC. I've got this component, and about a dozen others that I need to do this too..

Thanks for taking a look!

So I have created a really complicated DC, several actually.

After I spent MANY hours creating these DC's, I realized that I need to rotate it on the X axis to get them to glue to a vertical surface in the correct way.

What this means is that I need to take every reference to Y and Z and switch them with each other. This is going to be a real pain, and take FOREVER. Does anyone know of a better way to do this? I have been told that a ruby script could be made for this, but I know just about nothing involving Ruby.

I was thinking that there might be a way that I could export the DC attributes to some sort of text editor, where which I could use "Find and Replace" to switch everything en masse, and then copy the attributes back in.

So far, I haven't been able to open a DC's attributes in any sort of external editor...

@unknownuser said:

Hi Eric

Am I right to say that if you modify the dimension of an element in SU, the related dimension created in Layout will not be updated?

That's correct Bert, you have to go back and manually edit your dimensions. I think this is actually a smart way to dimension. There are a lot of "free form" CAD softwares out there that feature "automatic" dimensioning. They are not foolproof though. Typically, when I use those features, I get mixed results, and I end up switching them all to manual. If I can't trust the program to automatically edit my dimensions, I have to go check them all anyway...

If you want to check out my blog entry, go to the first post in this email. That blog entry was also featured in the Google Sketchup blog a few months ago as well.

Hey guys, sorry to abandon this thread, apparently I am not getting email replies to my posts, I will ad more tonight...

I noticed that Adam was using Sketchup too! What geeks we are!

Nice commercial by that way, that is too cool to be able to work on a project like that...

Sketchup, so easy, a caveman could do it...

Before LayOut had dimensions in it, I used to do all of my layout documents in good old AutoCAD, is that not an option for you? I used to run huge Sketchup files in AutoCad without an issue...

Try hardware acceleration, this will indicate if you are having a driver issue...

Windows 7, in my limited experience, does a pretty decent job at going out and finding drivers automatically.

In the case of my video driver, it did find the correct one, but I actually found a slightly new version when I downloaded it manually. Even though your video appears to be working properly, it may be prudent to manually seek out the driver.

I had the same issue happen with several Dell machines. Dell's a lot of times have that "Control Point" software installed. For some reason, they re-map all the buttons through their app, it overides the default windows settings. I messed around with the dell controlpoint and I couldn't get the pan option to work. I ended up just closing and removing the application, and all was well in Sketchup.

Perhaps you have a dell, or some other mouse software or extension that is running that is overriding your settings....

I like the sound of that!

Now I need to get Photoshop!

Thanks for all the input everyone! I am not the greatest with photo editing software, so its good to hear from people that are actually good at it!

I have one, but the exporter only works for Windows.....

For individual images, that would work great....

But with the web exporter, there can be 30 or so images per object. I am creating a web gallery with a lot of objects, so that will require a lot of time. Is there a program out there that can delete the distinctive colors out of the background automatically on a large group of images?

So I have been using the Sketchup Web Exporter plugin lately...

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

(sketchup.google.com)

While its really cool, I want it to do some different things....

Mainly I want to be able to export PNG's with transparent backgrounds (so when I embed them into my website, they don't have a big block of color around them)

Does anyone know of a plugin that works like this, that could accomplish the PNG feat?

I think I understand what your saying, the downside for me would be creating each component using a ruby script, rather then the built in DC process. I would think that would make life difficult for me, as I would want to add, and change all the components on the website with ease....

I would, if possible, have a nice DC sitting on the server, that I was able to create and test in my local Sketchup. The user would be able to configure it on the website, and then have it inserted as say a "dumb" su6 component...

Ahh, that makes sense....

Would there be a way for this to work with Dynamic Components?

I would like the user to be able to select a DC from a website, configure options that were built into the DC, and then have it delivered to sketchup as a "dumb" component.....

Having every possible iteration of a component available for download is impossible. One of my simpler components would have over 2 million different versions!!

According to the owner of engineering toolbox, he has figured out a way to change these components outside of Sketchup....

You should try the plugin out, perhaps I am missing something...

Would the Sketchup reader and writer SDK allow you to do this? (I know they are meant for writing importers and exporters....)

I did already find that part.....

What I am really after is how to have components residing on a webserver somewhere that can be changed on the server via a web interface, and then after the user has made their selections, they can be loaded into Sketchup...

Me too, however, if I highlight several DC's that have the same attribute, I would like when I change that attribute that they all change on each highlighted DC, without inheriting all the other attributes...

There is a website out there that offered Sketchup components for download via a little ruby plugin they offered.

You installed the plugin, which was just a web window to their site. They allowed users to find components, change their attributes (like dimensions, colors, etc) and then have then downloaded right to their Sketchup model just like the 3D warehouse....

The site is Sketchup.Engineeringtoolbox.com

Is there any documentation out there for how this was achieved? From research, I think I understand the process of components being downloaded from the web, directly into Sketchup.

The part that I am really unclear about is how one would go about using a website to change attributes in a Sketchup component...

Can anyone out there shed some light on this?

It sounds like you are on the right track. I have run into this before too, and unfortunatley, there isn't a workaround right now for it.

I have a component that I use a lot for drawing kitchens, its a dynamic door. You can stretch and shape my door to any size cabinet you want. Naturally, when drawing a kitchen, I have tons of copies of the door all over my kitchen, in tons of different sizes. If I want to change an attribute of the door, say the material, one would think that I would be able to highlight all the doors in the room, and just change that attribute, and ONLY that attribute will change on all the highlight doors. This is NOT the case, as you have discovered. If you highlight all the doors, and you change the attribute on ONE of the highlighted doors, all the other highlighted doors inherit the attributes of the one your editing.

Basically, this is a real pain for me, as all my doors need to be re sized again.

So, you aren't doing anything wrong, you've just run into a limitation of DC's. I would like DC's to be controlled by "mother" attributes as well....

Don't let me stop you if you want to... I was just trying to get a sense of the possibility of all of this. Im going to start researching the Ruby code site and see what I can come up with...