Pilou's Exploded View is in the ExtensionStore

Hi JC,

The units will always appear in decimal, but you can enter them in fractional.

See this post: https://forums.sketchup.com/t/how-to-use-inch-fractions-in-dynamic-components/15949

Did you get yourself a copy? If you do I would be interested to know how it goes, what works well, what doesn't, if you don't mind sharing that information.

I'm always concerned about the workflow and user interface issues from the perspective of a developer who is trying to understand the perspective of the user.

It is always nice when a tool you are using is actually a joy to use (physical or software), and of course either a major time saver or it somehow allows you to do something that you could not do otherwise.

I've noticed, mostly from models from the 3D warehouse or from folks new to SU, that there seems to have been unintended edge-coloring. Normally, I wouldn't have noticed, except when doing more "artzy" modeling or when emphasizing functional elements in the model such as process equipment and I turn on Edge Style > Color by Material.

I know that I have often been in a hurry, triple-clicked surfaces or done a Select All and applied a material to edges mistakenly.

So the script is handy for reviewing a model and doing a quick cleanup.

Thanks, Rich.

How do you propose to determine the 'material' to be used for the [selected front-faces?]
I think the simplest way is for the user to be required to pre-select the color they want to use by choosing a color in the Materials windows.

Then run the script.

A. The script would use the color chosen by the user and create new color by copying it and adding a custom suffix or prefix to the name so it could later be identified to assist in reverting all surfaces with that color, if desired, back to the default front face color.

B. I would be happy to manually turn on monochrome style before running the script to assure the front faces are oriented properly, but I suppose if you want to build that in as feature when the script is run that would be up to you.

C. Perhaps the Paint Bucket cursor would appear and the user could paint the selection
or the script would just automatically apply the color to the pre-selection

Is this tool used on a selection of components/groups, or more globally on all such 'containers ?
The user would have to do a pre-selection of geometry (if there was nothing selected a message would occur to notify the user to make a selection and run the script again). The script would disregard components/sub-components found in a pre-selection. If inside an entity which contains subgroups, then a pre-selection of objects would still be required and pertain only to that pre-selection and its subgroups.

D. Hopefully, the user could use Ctrl-Z to undo the changes immediately after the script has run.

What about badly modeled geometry with textured back-faces etc ?
They would not be considered. Note: Trimble Connect currently can not render texture or patterns with transparency either.

As far as the logic for nested components goes I see why it would be very tricky.
I'm thinking that I could get by with only the un-painted front faces within nested groups being affected. I not sure, now that I have read your posting, that we want to include the faces of nested components as it could have unexpected results. Perhaps that is something that could wait for later on and add in if really needed.

For reverting the painted front faces back to the default front face color, could a script then search recursively for any geometry with the custom color name (mentioned above in Step "A.") and replace them with the default front face color? The user could then manually purge the custom color.

I believe he lives in Chappell Hill, Texas now.

According to his posts on FaceBook, he did get some damage but all seems fine.

In his words:

@unknownuser said:

We've had some driven rain come into the house and had to rip some carpet out. Will have to open the wall to remediate at some point. Otherwise, we're ok! Thanks!

This is great!
Thanks TIG!
You always seem to have a small - yet powerful - plugin to solve all sorts of issues we may have... 😄

I don't have any direct experience with the new gen MacBook Pros, but from a reply I gave to a similar query on the other forum:

I have a late 2014 13" MacBook Pro with the following specs:
2.6 GHz Core i5 (4th Gen / Haswell)
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
Intel Iris 5100 integrated graphics

It runs SketchUp well and drives a Dell U3415W external monitor without any problems or latency. Given that the Touchbar model is two generations newer for both CPU and GPU, (with associated increases in speed/power) it should work well. The 13" model can drive a 5K monitor with a single TB3 cable, the 15" can drive two.

I wouldn't worry about Intel integrated graphics compatibility — there have been associated issues reported with Windows PC's but never heard any from recent MacBooks. Maybe because they use the higher spec'd Iris graphics (vs the lower-end HD graphics often found on PC ultrabooks)— plus you don't have wonky driver issues on the Mac, which support the latest OpenGL spec.

Sorry for the cut & paste, but hope the info is marginally useful.

I also wonder how it handles terrain. If the area being captured is hilly, is that shown/handled by the plugin?

@SDmitch
Excellent. Thank you!

I would use Curviloft in this case...

click to animate

As I said in the linked post...
On a PC, if SketchUp.exe is set to 'Always Run as Admin' or you have chosen to 'Run as Admin', then you cannot drag-and-drop files onto it, because Windows Explorer always runs at the lowest permissions level, and Windows does not allow an application running at a lower permissions level to affect an application running at a higher permissions level [i.e. your elevated SketchUp.exe].
Run SketchUp at the default permissions level - BUT you need to install SketchUp as an Admin [NOT as yourself - even if you have admin-powers - it's different!]

SketchUp does not have an Edit>Paste option, unless the object already in the Clipboard from Edit>Copy is a SketchUp object or objects - it doesn't work with other objects like images.

The nearest you can get to this is to use the SnippingTool [or similar exe] and save the image to your desktop as say CAPTURE.PNG... and then drag-and-drop that image file into your SketchUp window - then it'll work - because, assuming the permissions are set low enough you can drag-and-drop SKP files, images etc...

Thank you, one and all!