hey all

i have reached the end of what i can do in ruby, and need to code in c.

i am new to c

The thing i need is basically to convert skp to dae. I am sick of having to export manually from inside sketchup, since i do allot of work with webgl and collada.

so any tips on starting to write using the sketchup c sdk?
ide to use ? Prefer none. No heavy visual studio.
will the c exe be able to run without sketchup open?

There is a skp2dae.dll in the normal program files installation of sketchup. I assume i cant use that because it needs sketchup loaded, i assume ?

ok thanks for your help. response a bit late ...

G

Hey all,

I fixed it ith the elp of the support guys at SU.

I turned OFF the hardware acceleration and it fixed it immediately.
I have an old computer with a crappy integrated GPU that i know does not support openGL fully.

Its amazing how fast the CAD model is without GPU !

how do you turn OFF a sketchy style ?

Can any SU staff please get some eyeballs on this BUG, IF it is a bug

Regards

ged

I attach the screenshot.
Its SU version 8.0.3117, Windows XP.

Its an Isometric projection.
The Sections behavior is checked.
But whats happening is i am getting these stray lines. Thats NOT be design

It happens with all Section styled views where the view is not fully orthagonal. ( ie.e not a plan or section).

I DONT have a GPU in this computer, so tis doing software rendering. Yeah its slow but not too bad.

Please any experts, it might be something i am doing wrong ?

Regards

ged

i knwo what you mean but thats not what i mean.

I just tried exporting to PDF with the 3 different view-port settings.
The view-port set to "Raster" looks terrible because its static to resolution.
The view-port set to "Vector" looks much better. About 5 times better because its resolution independent.
The view-port set to "Hybrid" looks about the same as the "Vector".

All are set to "High" when exporting of course.

So moral of the story is to use Vector when Printing. Pretty simple. But takes allot longer i believe.

Ged

For example if you put this into a browser you will see the actual Schema definition for Pages in Layout:

view-source:http://sketchup.google.com/schemas/layout/1.0/page.xsd

From this you can generate Code in Java or c# to interact with the Data.

Maybe this is the easiest way to explain it to you.

Regard

ged

thanks - yes i can see the RTF elements int the xml doc.
But the whole complete description of Font, lines, everything is of course there.
Thats much more interesting to me.

The way the Layout Schema is structured is a very standard software pattern these days. Its the same way that MS Word 2010 docs are structured when you un-zip those too. With The WOrd Automation API's you can load a word code and alter it in code. Its very powerful.
SO what i am saying is that you can do exactly the same with Google Layout.
I am kind of surprised Google did no Obfuscate the xml structure in some way; but that would be EVIL of course

Anyway serialise and de-serialsie means to take that XML and inject it into a memory structure in software. This is very easy. You can go both ways. Forward engineering and backwards engineer.

Anyway, the end result is that you can then generate Layout documents from any Meta data !

So if there is a formal Specification of the Schema Or a Java or C# object library that understands the schema my job would be 90% done.

This is the schema for the Document Properties xml file for example:
http://sketchup.google.com/schemas/layout/1.0/documentproperties

It would make it very very simple to represent Layouts in a normal Web Browser using HTML5 and Canvas for example.
You could also very easily make them editable in a web browser. SVG and Canvas libraries can do all this client side using just JavaScript. There are already other implementations out there for doing this with other Layout Schemas.

But just saying its very very easy and well you would not need Google Layout anymore. Opps did i say that

Also now that i see that the PaperSpace viewports to the 3D world are just image instances, I can see why the PDF outputs are so crappy with Google Layout.

I will stop ranting now.
I wonder if there are other people here interested in this ?

Regards

Ged

Gaieus ,

The schema looks like most packing techniques.
Are there any tools to serialise and de-serialise this schema ?
Will help my worflow allot.

Regards

ged

Oh my god. I just tried it on my model here and your right.
Layout is a self describing string based file format with the sketchup file encoded inside it.
I never realized.

Feel like such a dummy.
Interesting possibilities.

thanks again

ged

Hey Jim,

thanks, but i need skp and layout together.
This is the only way to see the best technical approach to how i design with Sketchup.

Ged

Hey,

i am a self builder and trying to learn sketchup and Layout.

is there anyone that can give finished example house projects (model and layout).
There seems to be a few tricks to getting decent drawings out of Sketchup and i think i would learn allot by seeing a finished project.

i think this would be helpful for alot of other people too.

Kind Regards

Ged

Check out my PDF of the construction drawings from Layout.
Maybe it helps others.
I will post more tips on my web site and some Sketchup and Layout files to help others.
http://www.ubuntudesign.com

I am an architect and have used many CAD packages over the last 15 years.
Auto-cad, Micro-station, others
I actually think Sketch-up & Layout is better then all of them for my work anyway. BUT, you have to use it in the right way is what i say. It takes some "Best Practices" to get the best out of the software, like any software.

I agree that its a bit messy. Layout and Sketch-up is designed to be workable for many different vertical industries.
So, you have to modify your workflow and best practices to match what your trying to achieve.
i guess thats why so many plugin have come out to match vertical industries

Some tips:

1. Have a layer for each Scene view, where you can put your dimensions on. You need this because then you can control on what scene (page) the dimensions are visible on.
   For example, look at the following layer names: 0_Plan_dims, 2_Section_Dims
   The "0" relates to the level in the building.
   The "Plan" relates to what type of view it is.
   The "Dims" relates to what is on that layer.

2. Also get the "Add hidden Layer" plugin; cant remember where i got it This allows you to add a layer WITHOUT it being turned on for ALL your scenes, which is what you actually want. Google should simply change the default Layer ADD functionality to do it this way in my opinion.

3. Draw everything on layer zero. Weird advice i know.
   By this, i mean that you draw all lines and faces on layer zero, with no material or anything applied.
   Then, you group it, and apply the material and the layer tag at the group level.
   Doing this gives you maximum control over things and allows for speedy changes.

4. Use Components to model things that are the same.
   Sure, you would do this for little things, but also for big things this is really useful.
   For example, i have 6 apartments, and they are a mirror image of each other.
   So, i just make then a component, copy it and flip it and i am done.

Sometimes, one apartment must have some special thing in it different from the other.
For example, say the staircase has to be different in each one because of site level conditions.
You break the staircase out of the Component then. Its still on the "Staircase" layer, just not part of the component now.
Simple.

Ged

Drawings ArchitecturalSample.pdf