Was gonna post a snippet this morning but you guys did the work for me

So I see John, you got an error "is a Pro only feature."
That pretty much sums it up. Like Tig also suspected.

Dan said.

@unknownuser said:

Makes sense.. otherwise we'd be able to write Pro feature custom tools for Free

Yeah, thats why I posted the question. Being a PRO user I momentarily took this method for granted when I did not receive an error message in my code.

Thanks everyone involved for clearing this up.

Maybe Google should put PRO label for methods like this after the 8+ in the API.

Hi John. Thanks for replying.

Thought I would get a quick yes or no on this one.

I'm using the solid subtract method for some tests in "Hatchfaces" development.
So it's kinda burried in the code.. Kinda difficult to post a test snippet for that purpose from my code just yet.
Maybe later when or if it's a more definitive solution.

Hi!

Is for ex: group1.subtract(group2),available to free version users of Sketchup?

It says version 8+ in the API, but I got unsecure it will work for everyone when I was adding it to my code.

Intersect_with is faster, but it's not trivial to heal the intersections afterwards..

Thanks.

IRC channel... Yeah, heh I did not read your post thoroughly.

Gotta link?

Ok, nuff said..
I reckon there are a fair amount of components in your model Bmike
Beauty BTW

Interresting topic.

I noticed something perculiar last week.
I got the impression LO is slow when number of objects increase, regardless of meshdensity.

Had this model of a rock-climbingwall. When I added climbinggrips(many instances of them), update was dramaticaly slower in LO.
Off course if you add stuff, you will pay the price. But the grips where instances and not "very" dense. At least I don't think they where. No noted lag in SU.

@unknownuser said:

They do use the same algorithms - I wrote both of them

Yeah I know. And if I may add, Octaine render export works very well.
At least for my needs. Used it all week without any issues.

@unknownuser said:

For compatibility with zbrush, use these parameters under import palette.

Thanks! I haven't had any need to use Z-brush for a while but this will come in handy.

@unknownuser said:

weld vertices

Sketchup API is a bit restrictive regarding handling of vertices. There is no weld-option of what I can think of. Which means one would have to restructure the whole code to fix a thing like that. I think there was a weld-plugin at smustard if I'm not misstaken.
I would not mind having some code for welding vertices myself

My guess is that the vertices are not welded.

Which means that the faces are not attached to each other(big problem in Z-brush).. It is probably not a bug (like having doublettes of vertices), but rather that each face need it's own vertices.
For ex 2 faces on a cube will share vertexpositions, but not being welded.

Haven't used this OBJ.exporter. But, I am using Octaine-exporter and havent seen any issues regarding that. Wonder if thoose 2 plugins use the same alogaritm?

Cool idea, TIG!

@unknownuser said:

Do you need to_f.to_l ?

Hmm, yes the way I did it. I got an error "cannot convert to float" at first.
But now I see you mentionString.to_l. Doh! Totally overlooked that . It should do the trick. (The value is coming as a string from webdialog)
Think there was some problems in values coming from dialog at that time.

@unknownuser said:

SU's Ruby API has methods built in so you really do not need to do much work yourself. If you find yourself doing conversion methods, you might be reinventing the wheel.

That's why I brought the subject up here(again), since some users has requested metrics and I got the impression d_e_x was gonna try invent some new method. I could be wrong of course, but just tried to help

Thanks for the feedback D_e_x. Yeah, know about "families"..

Unclex. Unit conversion should be trivial for D_e_x to fix?
Like Thomthom suggested.
OR heres a version that works in "my plugin" code. I think I saw something similar in one of
JIM's plugins.

def unitconverter(value) 
   conv_val = [1.0, 12.0, 25.4, 2.54, 0.0254]
   unit_mode = Sketchup.active_model.options["UnitsOptions"]["LengthUnit"] # 0=inch 1=ft 2=mm 3=cm 4=m
   value = value / conv_val[unit_mode]    
   return value
end

However I will switch to Thomthoms suggestion later on. It's more logical and simpler.
If I understood him right it should be something like.

(value.to_f).to_l

Edit: Confirmed it works for me anyway. Thanks ThomThom! A bunch less code.

D_e_x.

It's very nice thing to see your enthusiasm and willing to share your plugin. Thanks
Haven't tried it yet. Little time, no play. But sure looks tasty.

Something like pbacot wrote, one would expect parametric blocks as a result.
But that's a different subject. Dynamic Comps are little sketchy to code. Possible to do, but buggy with units if I recall.

Keep up the good work!
PS. I wish I could see the code man.. On the other hand I understand why scrambling code.
It might be the trend to follow.

Hatchfaces will create edges you can explode on a face. I'm working on the next version, which hopefully will cope with this sort of thing. Pattern based tiling.

Meanwhile you could also use Sdmitch component array and do some tiling with premade patterns there.

Looks interesting. Will try later.

Why scramble if free plugin, btw?

Yeah, what you say is correct Gaeius.

My advice goes for "flat" 2d objects only. Which I got the impression by the picture we where talking about.

By "height" I meant position in Z-axis.

You can group a face and a group, no prob.
If the road is a flat face for ex, there is nothing stopping you from grouping it with the symbols. From there you can glue groups/comps to the face.
Either by dragging premade 2d symbols from comp.browser(with glueing behavior) or using a plugin to reglue..

If it's Z-fighting you are experiencing and you DO NOT want to change the height of the group. You could always get the component or group to glue to the face underneath.

There are several plugins for that. I can recommend 2dboolean . Only caveat is that the group have to lie on a face for this to work. Not another group, then you'll loose the colors.
You could always manage grouping to adjust for that..

I've created the plugin for this kind of usage. SU -> Layout..

In the same forum thread as the plugin, there is an unofficial update(not by me) which have additional features(havent tried it yet). Just mention that, since I fear it's much better than mine.

@unknownuser said:

I don't use any line of your code

Ok. If you say so.

@unknownuser said:

I taked your one icon, feel free of use my icons

That's ok. I don't mind that. 2 min PS for me.

@unknownuser said:

Sorry, but actually I prefer the code scrambled

Ok, about that. I find it somewhat strange to post stuff for free, scrambled. thats not very helpful for other programmers.. Personally I rather tell to much then nothing at all.

Nice update.

But! If you are gonna further developp this tool, and display it in this thread with my icons included. Please don't scramble the code, so other can benefit from your code like you did on mine and Tig's.

Besides your plugin will be lost in this thread posting it here.

Best regards.

Yeah, get a Mac

You are stuck on IE on windows, unless someone has found some convoluted way to make dialog speak to "others"