I sumbled across this link. Photo may be useful

http://www.arnettslandscaping.com/prairiematerials.html

Thanks, Craig for the reply.

A suggestion. There may be a presentation running concurrently with another that an attendee wants to see. Might there be a chance of it being repeated on Day 3 sometime if requested by popular demand?

In a handout, have a survey where atttendees could submit their 1st and 2nd choices for a "repeat", then collect them at the end of Day 2. The Google staff could then make a judgement for a repeat and announce/post it at Day 3's breakfast.

Speaking of Passwords,

I found this link in one of the major PC magazines recently as a recommended utility:
http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

It is free.

It allows you to put all your user logins and passwards, etc., in an encrypted file. I believe the basic premise is you only need to remember the one passord for the encrypted file (which you can transfer to another PC to use provided you install the program on that PC), you open the file then can cut and paste the info into a login dialog.

The samething that happens if you forget your spouse's birth date.

I am hoping there might be some ad hoc discussion/presentations, perhaps by attendees if not the google staff.

For example, reviews of various rendering products.

I agree, Plot.

There are scripts that can do things like this, but to me it seems it should be incorporated into the basic code ... just like purging layers, components, and materials are.

Plot: I realize there is potential for a slowdown, probably similar to that when you go to Xray mode, but when the model is "finalized for presentation" that could very well warrant having specific Scenes saved with this view mode turned on; it would certainly facilitate the print-output or when there is a need for a closeup which examines specific details.

The surface appearance can change depending upon edge-length and detail, model scale, and the smoothing/softening properties of the intersecting geometry. Part of the idea for the suggestion, aside from doing the actual physical intersecting, was to eliminate tweeking smoothing and softening properties by merely superimposing non-smoothed "virtual-edges" representing the intersection.

Bob: I use a similar method already. But with more "organic" or dense geometry, the method can be time consuming and not conducive to making fast changes at later date; it some cases it might involve reconstructing the original geometry (or retrieving early versions of the model).

Regards, John

Fred06:

This is excerpt of an email from a friend of mine who uses Lightwave extensively.

"Awesome! ...Subdivision modeling is very powerful. That's pretty much the only type of modeling I do in LightWave nowadays. Do you know if this is Catmull-Clark subdivision? The results look like it might be. ....This is definitely a great addition to SketchUp. It would be awesome if you could import LW sub-d meshes into SketchUp and vise-versa."

Regards, John

Fredo, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking of asking you earlier this morning to consider revising SU's Drape tool because it only works on the "vertical" access, but I thought that might be a bit too much to ask for so soon after the time you've been spending on the 3D offset script.

Ahem..... so while you opened the subject a do-over of the SU's Smooth Tool might also be appreciated by this crowd as it has similar limitations as the Drape tool. [SoapSkin&Bubbles could "suck" up a surface without being confined to the vertical axis and also protect the outside edges of a surface from being distorted, but doesn't seem that SoapBubbles will be supported.] Also, there could be further enhancements that would be useful such as:
1- an simple way to input how much "pull" is to be exerted
2- not limiting the shape of smoothing area to a circle. If possible, allow the user to define the bounds from a preselected shape in a manner similar to the Drape tool.

Fredo:

When I look at the context menu, all but "Generate as Group" seem to report just the opposite of what the tool is doing.... the Yes's should be No's and vice versa.

Anyone else seeingthis?

Regards, John

p.s. Excuse me, I should have begun with, 'incredible scripting and support documentation, I am amazed as I watch it work. Thank you' .

try this for Hidden2Layer version 1.2:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=6870

Rick, thanks for the summary.

Here is another idea ... or rather farout/pie-in-sky idea. Be nice if it could be eventually done.

Enable the scene names and their groups (and maybe visible layer names asscociated with them) such that if the model is imported or somehow pasted into another file the scene-groups are maintained, while the current model's scenes are left in tack. That way it would make it easy to build a "final" model with complex page sequencing.

It has also been helpful when using the 3DS export filter (been experimenting with using it for passing my files to a Lightwave user as it will do somethings better than the Lightwave Plugin version 006).

Too bad.

Thanks for the quick reply, Jim.

Do I assume that this has been put on "the wishlist" at one time or another?

I just installed the LightWave (version 6) export plugin.

The ruby originally assigned it to the Tools Menu but I'd like to put in a more logical place for me which would File > Export.

Is there a syntax for doing this?

This is as far as I got:

@unknownuser said:

if !file_loaded?(FILE)
add_separator_to_menu($exStrings.GetString("Tools"))
UI.menu($exStrings.GetString("File")).add_item($exStrings.GetString("Export LWO [lwo_export.rb v006 Alex Young]")){ Shaxam::LwoExporter.menu_entry }
end

Rick:

This sounds like a nice improvement. Will it allow you to do renaming as well (maybe use some of Todd's code )

I think Ruby scripting is a BIG reason for the continued interest in SU.

It is my belief that being able to get statistics back regarding loaded scriptswould be very help in evaluating things such as loading times and occuarances of usage. It would provide a way of weeding out slow or less used scripts and probably help script writers in testing scripts during development stages.

Please see this link for further detail on request:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=8720&p=52543#p52543

Thanks, for the quick reply.

Edison, I think I may a have a workaround for you.

I am certainly not an expert at dealing with contours, but through recent experimentation and the availabilty of newer scripts this could be what you need.

You'll will need to check the accuracy of the "re-segmented" contours, however, to see if they are within the tolerances/lever of accuracy you want.

See the attached .skp for a mini-tutorial. You will need the Weld.rbby Rick Wilson and the BezierSpline script setby Fred06. If you plan to create a terrain from the contours, then I would suggest TIG's Hidden2Layer.rb (version 1.2) script and use it as mentioned here: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=8726 .

In summary, the procedure is this:
A. Import the contours.
B. Triple click on a contour of segments and WELD.
C. Then right click on it and choose the the BZ context option of PolyLine Divider. Do note that for some reason (I think it has to do with the number of segments), the BZ context options may not be available; in that situation then bisect the weld segments into smaller lengths (see the mini-tutorial, Step 2).
D. After completing Step 3, then you may want to weld the "segment-reduced" contour path back together into one continuous polyline.Mini-Tutorial for BZ method of segment reduction

UPDATE: If Weld.rb does not work on all segments of a contour, try a selecting a smaller set of segments. OR, try selecting a few contour elevations (use one of SU's side views to do this), copy and paste them into a new file (or create a component out of them and then do a context menu Save As to create separate .skp), then try to weld, etc., then repeat the process for another set of contours; finally paste these back into one file. Otherwise, have the segments simplified by the surveyor in AutoCad first, or have them subdivide the one DWG file into 4 or more subfiles.

TIG: I wanted to say, "thanks".

I've have a very useful application for your script, one which was probably unintended.

The attached is a close-up of a terrain map produced by applying Sandbox to imported Autocad contour lines. The area is approximately 5,220' x 5,900' and the SketchUp file was 8.5 Meg.

As the Before example demostrates with the red edges, SU will display edges of the terrain map depending upon the camera angle. Once you project an aerial photo and place geometry such as lot boundaries and buildings upon it, those edges interfer significantly with the display of the overall scene.

I adjusted your script so that smooth and soft edges were maintained when moved to a hidden layer. The result is shown in the After example.

Your script automates a process which, when I originally did it manual method, was very slow and frustrating at times.

From the standpoint of what I use SketchUp for, about the only thing that I can think of to make your script more flexible would be to have options to allow the user to: 1) choose to keep the edges smooth and soft or not and 2) whether to hide all hidden edges , **just non-**soft/smooth edges, or just soft/smooth edges.

Regards, John