OK, I played with SAT for a few hours today, and my response here to my experiences will be split in 2 parts.

Part 1; (today) is what problems I encountered as a newbie to SAT and my climb up the learning curve.
It will be largely what problems I encountered with the documentation, examples, the APP itself and some suggestions for improvement. I will define as best I can what I was doing and what happened, that in my opinion, was wrong, inconsistent or incomplete as an example of "how to".

Part 2: (starting tomorrow) will be a sort of tutorial based on my climb up the curve, without comments regarding stuff in part 1. The 1st one will cover installation, the documentation, and initial exercises with the KeyFrame Editor.
Later if the SimFonIA team wish to incorporate into their own tutorial any that I have written, they are welcome to do so.

I got interested in SAT because for years I have been seeking a good animation plugin for SU. I have certain needs that may not apply to others, but I love to design stuff (aerospace mostly) having a background in that area, and SU gave me the tools to draw in 3D that Autocad could not. I have a mountain of paper drawings for concepts that I have just scratched the top of the heap putting into SU. What I needed most was an articulation function that would allow me to link moving parts and see what happens as bits move. I don't just design the "outsides" I design the structures and mechanics as well to prove to myself the concepts will work.

I found SketchyPhysics and it seemed to give me much of what I needed. Others did magic with it, proving it could be done. But for me, it was near impossible to learn to the extent I needed.
Other animation plugins were nowhere near what I needed.

Then last week I discovered SAT in another thread. I went through their website, and although disappointed it was not free, at least it was somewhat inexpensive and had a free trial download.

So I downloaded the trial version.
It seemed to install as instructed, but the toolbar failed to expand. I reinstalled, same. Then I closed/opened SU and the TB was there, as suggested by SimFonIA_Team (back up this thread).
As noted before, there is NO SAT tutorial or how-to manuals. I went through several of the PDF's but as a newbie, they were a bit opaque. The Documentation webpage says: must keep the "User Guide" at your side. but I printed the UG and found it to be lacking as a User Guide. It does explain the features of SAT, but not how to use them, nor even where to start as a newbie. It gets into technical details before you know whats what. Read it once and put it aside.
The "General Introduction" is a better first read. Print it. But it is still not anywhere near a tutorial or "how-to" guide.
From what I had seen so far I figured the "Keyframe Editor" [KFE] was a good place to start.
PRINT THIS PDF This is where to start.
Read it first. Then start on PAGE 9 EXAMPLE 3. If you try stuff before that, nothing works, because there are a few quirks to SAT that are not obvious, primarily the need to use the "Transformation Processor" [TP] when defining a keyframe sequence. The TP part that is linked from the KFE (the transformation name), should be part of the KFE dialog box. In fact the whole Keyframe Editor Dialog box needs an overhaul. It is a bit confusing, disjointed and takes up way too much screenspace.

The dinnerbell just rang, so I'll continue 1st thing Tues am with the rest of the story and a suggested new KFE layout.

In this vid, the CC button was red, and it worked.

In your SimFonIA vid it was white and did not work in English, but did in Korean, which is less than useful to me.

Thanks for trying.

Sorry Pilou, it did not work for me. The "Translate" was beta, and is non selectable.
I use Firefox, but I tried IE, same result.
C'est la vie.

@unknownuser said:

Postby Pilou on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 1:09 pm
Sorry it's in French
That was a sort of Sketchup French Basecamp

Yes we had "Mr Subra" the Trimble senior with us!

Here the Simfonia part
Maybe you can use the beta caption translator
(launch the video then "red CC" button) but not sure that is a very good translation...

Sorry I took so long to thank you both for the initial SAT reference, and the boot camp video.
However my very long time unused Quebec French (lack thereof) language "skills" was not up to understanding any of the video.
And I have no idea of the "Red CC Button" you refer to.

Thank you SimFonIA_team for your quick and informative response.

I have not had time the last few days to play more, but I want to respond to a few things you said in that post.

About your technical questions, be sure they will be answered by a technical interlocutor; especially if you use our dedicated email (hotline and bug report).
The principal reason I opened this topic, rather than address my questions to you via your web site email, is the education of SU users interested in SimFonIA. Using your email alone; that transparency is gone, unless I go through the added steps of copying all my queries and your responses back to this thread, and that I am not prepared to do on a regular basis. I doubt if other SU/SAT users would bother. Here all can see and respond to any question I or any other SU/SAT users may have as well as your replies. I am well aware that SAT is relatively new (it's all Ver 1.0) so this is a good platform for you to evaluate ideas and concerns for Ver 2. And after just a few hours playing with SAT, I have several already.

We are about to create an official topic for SAT on Monday.
If that is the case, I am open to transferring this thread to yours.

I invite you to refer to the documentation relative to the “transformation processor”
I will for sure. I am just starting to wrap my head around the TP, having spent my time so far on just moving a block around the screen, and then attempting (but not fully successfully) simulating an airplane door opening with stairs extending. I know it can be done using linkage or Bullet, as I did the same thing in SP during my learning of it, but I want to master Keyframes first as a lot of my animations will use this feature.

External data sets are way beyond my SAT comprehension at this time, but I do see a use for them in at least 3 of my working models.

I took a look for skp examples of Keyframe manual, they seem relevant.
Again, my foot being in my mouth blocked my vision. I looked again in the KFE manual and there in section 3 was the SKP files reference right at the beginning, which obviously I missed on first reading.

I expect to post here on late Monday or Tuesday with my initial experiences learning to use the Keyframe Editor.

This is the email I sent to SimFonia, regarding setting up this thread.

I am evaluating SAT for my personal use. I used to (almost) use SketchyPhysics, but found it too difficult to master. SAT is far more capable and complex, but suffers from any real "How To" tutorial. YOUTUBE videos are not a solution for a new user. The examples in the PDF docs are too simplistic and there seems to be no relation (as seen so far) to any of the SKP files provided.

I am going to open a topic on SketchUcation devoted to SAT, with a link to your HOME page.

I intend to post my experiences learning SAT. As I have a background in software testing, I will note what I see as shortcomings, inconsistencies and suggest specific improvements as I go along.

I would strongly recommend you assign someone technical (not marketing) to monitor that topic and reply to it on a regular basis.

I have opend a SimFonIA thread - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=46496&p=415716#p415716

My experience with SAT will be posted there.

Re: The only draw back to sketchup

Copy of my first post looking at SAT.

Postby jgb on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:26 pm

@unknownuser said:

Pilou wrote:you can take a look this system of animation for Sketchup :wink:

My Bad
Did not explore the whole site before I put my foot in my mouth...

Looks very promising.
I downloaded SimFonia (trial) and will report back here in a few days about it.

A few comments about the SimFonia website....
Nicely laid out.

There is a mix of English & French in the demos, but not to the extent it gets confusing.

Nowhere does it say how long the trial lasts.
Found out it is not time limited as much as results limited. It seems to infer animations can only TOTAL as long as 10 seconds, for EVERYTHING, or 10 animations total.
Goto http://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/index.php?page=compare for more info and product restrictions.

Nowhere does it say how much it costs, until you register and attempt to d/l the full app. Yeah, it does, in the Sat Products Versions.

You need to enter your PC MAC address in order to register, as it is a 1 PC install only.

Price is in Euros. About E60 plus E180 for the Character Animator.

Documentation (looks extensive) is a separate download. Go for the all in 1 ZIP file.

As some of you may know, I have been looking for a good animation plugin for SU for some time. I played with SketchyPhysics (SP)for a while, but while it was a very capable app, it lacked a good tutorial and was a difficult learning curve (for me anyway). I never could master it. Then the creator dropped out of sight, and SP is as good as dead now.

I looked at a few others (briefly) but for me and what I need in an animation plugin, none delivered. In another thread The only draw back to sketchup ( http://www.forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=46365&p=415294&hilit=simfonia#p415294 ) Simfonia came up as a suggested solution to a posters request to animate. Thanks to Pilou.

The link to Simfonia's home page is http://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/index.php

It is NOT free, but has a free trial with limitations. (This is where I am at this time.) It is not cheap, and has several levels of capability at varying prices.

It does a lot more than SP did, does much of what SP could do as well. It incorporates a Keyframe Editor (which I am exploring as my introductory to SAT) and a ballistics processor, akin to SP. But it also has an external data input derived from an Excel spreadsheet and other sources, plus a reporting function that will plot motion. That and a video exporter as well.

Needless to say it is complex and I expect a steep learning curve. But it does come with documentation (PDF files) and a lot of SKP example files. There are several demo videos on Simfonia and YouTube.
No real tutorial though, a major bummer.

After this post I am copying over my first post exploring SAT from the The only draw back to sketchup thread, and an email I sent to Simfonia regarding this thread.

I am making notes as I delve into SAT and I will report here with them as I go along.

@unknownuser said:

Thanks guys. Zipping doesn't do it, breaking the model into smaller parts doesn't do it so I think those that want my model are going to have to make their own.

Yes you can easily break the model into smaller parts, and be very easy to reassemble.

I do it with my big airplane project, currently at about 16 separate but totally integrated sub drawings, that I can combine as I need for fit and function interfaces. I can do it all in 1 humongous file (about 100mb) but a pan or move will take about 90 seconds to see happen, and a save takes about 3 minutes.

1-Open your model normally in SU.
2-Decide how you need to break it up into manageable files. Say 3 for example.
3-Open 3 more blank SU sessions.
4-In the full model session, select a set of components/groups or entities.
5-Clipboard copy that set.
6-Switch windows to empty SU session 1, and paste-in-place.
7-Save that file with save-as.
8-Repeat 4-7 for the remaining parts in the other 2 files.
You now have 3 smaller separate sub-files, all position and attributes, including materials and layers co-ordinated.
Post the sub-files to the warehouse or SketchUcation with the following reassembly instructions.

To reassemble the model into 1 file,
1-Open all of the files as separate SU sessions.
2-Select one file as the main model.
3-Switch windows to the next file.
4-Select all and clipboard copy.
5-Back to main SU window.
6-Paste-in-place.
7-Repeat 3-6 for the remaining parts.
You now have a totally "cloned" copy of the big file.

Note: I tried using Files-Import but it does not paste-in-place.

@unknownuser said:

you can take a look this system of animation for Sketchup

My Bad
Did not explore the whole site before I put my foot in my mouth...

Looks very promising.
I downloaded SimFonia (trial) and will report back here in a few days about it.

A few comments about the SimFonia website....
Nicely laid out.

There is a mix of English & French in the demos, but not to the extent it gets confusing.

Nowhere does it say how long the trial lasts. Found out it is not time limited as much as results limited. It seems to infer animations can only TOTAL as long as 10 seconds, for EVERYTHING, or 10 animations total.
Gotohttp://www.simfonia.fr/SAT/index.php?page=compare for more info and product restrictions.

Nowhere does it say how much it costs, until you register and attempt to d/l the full app. Yeah, it does, in the Sat Products Versions.

You need to enter your PC MAC address in order to register, as it is a 1 PC install only.

Price is in Euros. About E60 plus E180 for the Character Animator.

Documentation (looks extensive) is a separate download. Go for the all in 1 ZIP file.

@unknownuser said:

but I was thinking it should be something native to Sketch-up itself that would work as well.

Ain't gonna happen.
The SU Dev Team seems reluctant to incorporate great 3rd party pluggins or develop equivalents.
Even Ruby FIXES are ignored.

New bells or whistles, yeah.. for sure, but few real fixes to long standing problems and aggravations.

Maybe Trimble will shake that tree.

A major shortcoming of SketchyPhysics is that you cannot position moving articulated parts at various points along the motion path for further study or edit in native SU. SP is a run-only app. When the run is over or stopped, the components positions revert to original SU position. Catching a moving part interference was iffy, as SP only regarded the envelope, not the actual part shape for complex solids.

SolidWorks animation capability is a real time articulated joint processor, like SP but without the gravity field. You can move a piece manually and the joining/articulated parts will follow suit, and stay put. This is great for determining moving part interferences, and fixing the parts when positioned at the right points.

But then SW costs about $4,000 for a minimal license.

Which is why I use SU and not SW.

Still looking for a decent SU Articulation pluggin.
Keyframe is not quite up to what I want to do.
SP could, to a great extent, but the run-only aspect made it less than useful to me.

@unknownuser said:

SketchyPhysics perhaps work for you?

Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.

(code.google.com)

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=33128

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewforum.php?f=61&start=0

Regards

SketchyPhysics is all but dead. Chris Phillips has disappeared into the ether.
No response from him in over a year to any posts. Very sad.

@gaieus said:

@alan fraser said:

...A staggering 1 post in every 15 is Csaba's...10x as many as me; and I'm reasonably prolific...

Don't forget that many of my posts are of "technical" nature related to running the forums and such (or do you mean I am too talkative?)

Lately you've been too quiet!

HOLD THE PHONE GUYS

This is NOT the thread for advanced and needed upgrades to SU.

There already exists one or more threads on that topic.
And many of the foregoing valid suggestions have been raised there,
a few by me, even.
A long time ago.
And in Googles Sketchup forum as well.
And John said he reads all of them.
And nothing changed.

Please put that sort of good stuff in its own topic, or this thread will go way offside and become irrelevant to its original discussion, that of Trimble buying Sketchup and its potential ramifications to SU's future.

OK, I'm off my soapbox........

@andybot said:

I found that by holding down the "primary mouse button" while using the rotate (protractor) tool, it will inference to the perpendicular of a line. Simply Brilliant!! I've always wondered how to rotate about an axis without constructing a bunch of lines and faces

Well shiver me boots. I often need to construct a face/shape/line perpendicular to a non-axis aligned line, and went through all sorts of temp construction to do it. even resorted to "Pipe-along-path" for some.

So now, for those who may not see the power in this "duh" moment, is how in just a few mouse clicks, make a face perpendicular to any line orientation.

Put the PROTRACTOR tool somewhere on, or even at the endpoint of the line and hold down the primary mouse button. When the protractor aligns with the perp to that line, release the button, select any angle, click and select any angle away, say 90 deg and click again. Now you have 1 guide line perpendicular to the line at some random angle.

Do this again, but put the protractor ON the intersection of the guide and your line, and set another guide line at some angle away from the first guide line, say 90 deg away.

You now have 2 guide lines perp to your line.

Pencil tool 4 lines from any point on each guide, and a face will form that is perpendicular to the line.

Use that face as your construction canvas. Bonus, the face is NOT intersected to the line so the whole line is still intact, until you intersect them.

Regarding the continuing discussion on "true curves".....

Other than turning on a lathe, or drilling a hole, there is no such thing as a true curve in machining a part.

All manual mills and NC machines go from X1-Y1-Z1 to X2-Y2-Z2 in a discrete straight line.
That line may be very very short, and will look smooth when done. Just like the "smooth" face joins in SU.

Keep the design segment length at or below the machines resolution, and the NC s/w will compensate to provide a smooth looking surface. But it is not smooth, and you can feel the flats, even if they were 1/1000 in. I've sent countless parts back for hand polishing to smooth a machined surface that had to be smooth, such as a mating face or a cam face, when I was in QC at an aircraft manufacturer.

Where a very smooth curve is actually needed, the designers leave excess material on that surface to be polished smooth in an NC grinder operation, which may go through multiple passes and grades of grit to get the end smoothness needed.

@ecuadorian said:

Funny how you trust a company with all your data and suddenly all of that is sold to another company and you must accept it if you want to keep using the product.

I'm not complaining, just pointing out a hard reality that is becoming increasingly common.

Which is a main reason I will NOT use Cloud computing, Facebook, etc. Theys gots U by the short and curlies.

Jeff and Alan, I never said (or even thought of) TAKE OVER SCF.

I implied "Work WITH SCF." No corporate buy-out of SCF. I would not want that either as it would indeed be a conflict of interest for SCF.

Google "worked with" SCF but never took full advantage of the relationship, preferring to maintain its own support site. What if Google had killed their site and SCF continued on unimpeded by that action.

SCF would have become the de-facto SU support site, whether Google provided an internal monitor or not, and whether or not Google, out of the goodness of their hearts, chose to pickup SCF's operating expenses with no strings attached. Maybe even gave us an inside contact or 2 or 3. So why not Trimble?

SketchUcation supports Sketchup, not Google nor Trimble.