Hi my name is Jim and I’ve come to the Ruby Sketchup forum before and have been helped so much.
As I’ve said before I’m new to Ruby and only get to work on my project in the winter so I’m back.
I’ve tried the Quantum wave function method were you pound your head on the keyboard until the right combination of keys are intersected. But that hasn’t worked. So much for the wave function!

I’ve printed out and read as much of the Ruby Sketchup API as I can find that applies to 3d text and how to get it to the face of an object but have not progressed very much.
I’ve created a program to generate a geodesic and am at the point that I need to identify each triangle with a number on its face as well as two numbers at each vertices. After failing to place 3d text on the face of the triangle I went ahead and use 2d text at the vertices but that does not do what I really need.
I need a 3d text on the surface that I can push pull and have some depth with. As I want to 3d print the form’s for a triangular block for a pizza oven build and each block needs to have its ID embossed into it. Among other things that I want to do with this.
The way I have approached this is that each triangle is created one at a time in a loop. So that each time the triangle needs to gets the appropriate text placed on its face before going out of the loop and coming back and creating the next triangle.

I am creating a bounding box with my text inside a bounding box and some were near the center but two major problems appear.

1. The feedback on the center and corner numbers on the bounding box are not any wear close to wear they should be and

2. I’ve tried everything I can think of to turn my text variable “m”, the triangle count number into a variable and Ruby won’t allow it.

I’ll place the code I think you will need so you can see what I am doing and hopefully you can find the errors of my way.

It’s either that or I’m back to the wave function.

Thanks again.
Jim.

Here is the code.

polygon_index = pm.add_polygon([pts_xyz_at_n[0] , pts_xyz_at_n[1] , pts_xyz_at_n[2]] )

  #puts" make triangle #{m}"

  try = []
  try[0] = pts_xyz_at_n[0]
  try[1] = pts_xyz_at_n[1]
  try[2] = pts_xyz_at_n[2]

  entities = mod.active_entities  

  group = Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_group   #Add the group to the entities in the model

  entities = group.entities             # Get the entities within the group

  face = entities.add_face try   # Add a face to within the group

  edges = face.edges

  status = face.reverse!

  normal = face.normal

  puts" The normal of triangle face # #{m} is ? #{normal}"
  
  area = face.area

  puts "The area of triangle # #{m} is  #{area}"
  
 Sketchup.active_model.entities

  model = Sketchup.active_model

  entities = mod.active_entities

  ################# adds 3d text on at 0,0,0 ######################

  group = ent.add_group   # Add the group to the entities in the model

  entities = group.entities   # Get the entities within the group

  boundingbox = model.bounds

  model_bb = model.bounds

  ############## adding 3d text to model ###################
  
  success = entities.add_3d_text( "m", TextAlignLeft, "Arial", is_Bold = 0.0 , is_italic = 0.0,letter_height = 0.025, tolerance = 0.0, z = 0.0, is_filled = true, extrusion = 0.0)

puts " success = #{success}"

  first_entity = model.entities[0] 

  first_entity_bb = first_entity.bounds

  fs_b = first_entity_bb

  puts"first_entity = #{fs_b}"

  boundingbox.empty?

  ptb_1 = boundingbox.center

  puts" boundingbox center = #{ptb_1}"

  corner_ = boundingbox.corner(0)

  puts" boundingbox corner(0) = #{corner_}"

  group.to_component
  
  m  =  m  +  1                    #### incrementing  m

Here is the output.

Points and side length for triangle # 9

Point, # 1 is [3, 3] and has the co ordinance of [0.13238464691208032, 0.2812274564551052, 0.9504658978615464]

Point, # 2 is [4, 2] and has the co ordinance of [6.005807236859207e-17, 0.19473874066922284, 0.9808551487771093]

The length of side 1 of triangle # 9 is between point [3, 3], and point [4, 2], for a length of 0.16102639307745903

Point, # 2 is [4, 2] and has the co ordinance of [6.005807236859207e-17, 0.19473874066922284, 0.9808551487771093]

Point, # 3 is [4, 4] and has the co ordinance of [5.719967031754901e-17, 0.3568220897730899, 0.9341723589627158]

The length of side 2 of triangle # 9 is between point [4, 2], and point [4, 4], for a length of 0.16867215218162387

Point, # 3 is [4, 4] and has the co ordinance of [5.719967031754901e-17, 0.3568220897730899, 0.9341723589627158]

Point, # 1 is [3, 3] and has the co ordinance of [0.13238464691208032, 0.2812274564551052, 0.9504658978615464]

The length of side 3 of triangle # 9 is between point [4, 4], and point [3, 3], for a length of 0.1533157615327414

333 The normal of triangle face # 9 is ? (0.039739, 0.276548, 0.960178)

The area of triangle # 9 is 0.01117362776006554

The bounding box output stuff.

success = true

first_entity = #Geom::BoundingBox:0x00000248a3959ac8

boundingbox center = (0", 0", 0.079675")

boundingbox corner(0) (-0.850651", -0.850651", -0.850651")

number of triangles = 10

Frequency = 8

Radius = 1.0

I think I can get the text to the face if I can just get the bounding box right and its cooridnates.

Sketchup Pro 16 crashes when I go to save, every time.
I set my backup time for one minute and then wait for a minute before I attempt save.
so when I go back to work on the file the next time I go and get the last auto save and I recoup my file that way.

Thanks TIG
I’ve have been beating my head against the code and am starting to get it.
I do have one more question about the angle circle code though
what does the "tptr" do in this statement? It looks like it is multiplying the two points together "inst = cents.add_instance(defn, tptr)"

TIG
Thank you very much.
I applied the code and it worked perfectly. I did make a modification to it as I was really looking for arcs in those circles.
But with few modifications I was able to achieve my goal. I had given up on the arcs and thought circles would be easier but still had to ask for help.
Thanks again.
One question about your solution, for me it is very hard to follow all the different group statements and there logical order. Without the logical understanding it is very hard to move forward in writing code.
I am probably not alone, and I was wandering if you could give a more thorough treatment of the grouping statements.
I’ve always been befuddled by the progression of these statements.
Thank you
Jim

This is my attempt at making and rotating the circle.
This is inside a loop so that angle_a changes each time through.
Without the two lines of code to make the transformation rotation, the grouped circle is created.
But when I add the transformation.rotation I get the error message "wrong number of arguments (5 for 3)"
The coke:

centerpoint = Geom::Point3d.new

vector = Geom::Vector3d.new 1,0,0

vector2 = vector.normalize!

model = Sketchup.active_model

entities = model.active_entities

circle = mod.active_entities

group=circle.add_group # Add the group to the entities in the model

edges = entities.add_circle centerpoint, vector2, 1,100 # at this point a circle is made

but when I add the next two line I get the error message.

pt1 = 0,0,0

transformation = Geom::Transformation.rotation pt1, 0,1,0, angle_a.radians

Sorry I should have been more specific.
Using Ruby in Sketchup: how to draw a circle and through the use of a loop to make copies of it rotated around the Y axis incremented by an angle each reiteration.

Thanks for all the responses.
Jim

I need to draw a set of circles with in a loop with the center and 0,0,0 and all having the same radius but having the normal vector increment each time through the loop. So that each circle is sloped at a deferent angle.