If you right click the sectioncut you can create a "slice-group" where the section cut is. Normaly it's hidden in the cut when you create it but you can move it or rather the cut just a fraction in the right direction. Then use dimensioning on that.
I think that should work in Layout.
Or use TIG's section cut face. Wich does just that + many things more and better.

I saw you rotated the plan view a little. Be careful of step-artifacts when using raster or hybrid mode..

Looks good anyway

I've updated the dialog so it doesen't take up that much space(CSS hell )

Deccided to hard code the list of components(hatches) in the HTML code.
It's easy to change or add components. Thataway won't have to worry about sending many strings back and fourth?

Component names and pics are the same exept for the extension(.gif) for pic.src.

This step is to update the picture preview:

The main idea is to get the name from selected component in the list.
Use that names.text + "img/" and ".gif" to change the image source in javascript.

Any JS expert that can help me with the following code?
(been googling JS code for 2 days now..)

The main thing is that I DON'T want to preload the pictures, like everyone else seams to like. There could be hundreds of them and it's not a slideshow ..

html

<select id="selskp" name="components" size=15 onChange="setImage(this)" >
									
									
<optgroup label="Line Hatches">
	<option>Line solid fast</option>
	<option>Line dotted</option>
	<option>Line dashed</option>
              etc........

JS;

var imgSource = document.getElementById("imag").src="";

function setImage(imageSelect) {
 theImageIndex = imageSelect.options[imageSelect.selectedIndex];
 if (var imgSource)
     var imgSource = eval("img/" + theImageIndex.text + ".gif");
  }

Yeah, that would help.

BUT, I came to think of some unlogic in my ideas. And that is if you for ex set an attribute that says the group is locked. And then you unlock the group by setting group=unlocked. How to tell the state before? There might be methods dealing with this but I can't give an answer to that unless digging more deeply.
Someone more experienced with classes and attributes might pitch in.
Sorry, bout that.

Well, you have access to Group and component locks in the API. Where you can set lock, and read lock. However to "remember" each groups(or comp.) a quick guess, you could probably set an attribute for that purpose. Not 100% sure about that feature though.

IF SO, one would probably want to be able to update the attributes if grouping get's changed or deleted. And delete the attribute in an easy fashion as well.

Got my hands busy learning Javascript, otherwise I could test it for you.

Good luck! Think it would be a useful plugin.

Don't forget to try Octaine as well..

I like it for it's speed.

Maybe you won't find everything you want in 1 sole renderer? It's good to have multiple renderers...

At the very first post? It's a tradition..

I have been thinking in a similar way, but since I know very little about JS and what it can do it's kinda difficult to structure things. Your advice here helps a lot. Now I know more what to look for.

@unknownuser said:

This could be a premade list hard-coded into the html, but more flexibly we can populate the list with entries as the webdialog opens using js from the Ruby side [as my example].

I was thinking about that. And I think using JS for more flexibility is the way to go. A bit overoptimistic maybe since I've got a long way to go yet But that way newly created "user" components will pop up in the list as well.

Thanks again.

Oh and. Phheuh. I'm glad I did not have to make any classes in the script and redo everything.
I totaly missread you advice there.

BTW, @@class variables? I have not created any classes in Hatchfaces. So that's required then?

Anyway, will investigate further. Think I need more basic understanding about this before I dig into your snippets.

Have been looking a little at your Octaine exporter, but it's tooooo complex to be to any help for me. Quite a lot of work on that one, TIG? Big script..

Thanks for helping me, TIG. This will get me something to go on.

@unknownuser said:

You will have initially populated the list from with Ruby using some js - do you have code successfully doing that?

I have nothing yet. I'm still reading up on JS, so need some basic before getting my hands dirty. I was thinking that I don't have to become a JS expert, but focus on what's primary required for webdialogs + some basics off course. But maybe more is required..

I will digest your advice and try some snippets.

Think I'm choking here Trying to figure out "best" strategy for getting data from webdialog to ruby.

In short, the idea is to populate the webdialog's scrollist with skp.components from file. And GIF preview in webdialog as well.

Sounds easy? Don't even know where to start. Info is sparse, and so are plugins with webdialogs (to see how it's done).

So question is. Do I load the files and populate webdialog (scrollist, image preview.GIF and label) from the dialog directly with JS, or do I load files in Ruby and send them to webdialog?

And using "default values" must be passed from Ruby to JS in case user switch units(cm to inches etc)?

Any tip on this would be great. Or if direction could be given for any plugin to look at.

@unknownuser said:

Sketchup uses PC's IE [older version] and Safari for the MAC - irrespective of your default browser...

Aha, good to know. That explains some things..

@unknownuser said:

Some strange hatch-pattern names

Ha ha! Yes, since I had no JS going yet I had to fill the list with something to see that the scrolling work.

Hmm, ok. Got some webdialog going, with HTML and some css. Ugly son of a gun. HUGE! Doesent do anything yet..

Funny, it doesent look like that either in firefox or IExplorer. I've got Opera installed as well, but IE should is default browser. Does Sketchup load from default browser?

Anyway.. Now the fun part starts, with javascript and callbacks.. Maybe Jquery? Suggestions, please..

Should load files and select the in the list, and then there should pop up a GIF as preview.
Will manually create gifs for each component cause the skp.jpg are so small and zaggy and don't always show up!
For MAC people (in case pic won't show up), there should be text displaying what hatch is selected.

They say, html and css should be the easy part, but heck! It's difficult to line up form elements horisontaly, thats why the dialog is so tall. Coulden't get it to work otherwise. Had to rearrange everything from scratch at least 3 times.
It takes longer to make the dialog then the plugin Off course, I'm new to html so a more experienced user would probably be swifter.

@unknownuser said:

BUT probably a standard size SKP 1m x 1m or maybe 10" x 10" to mimic the texture default... that you place down in a repeating patterns and then explode all followed by the intersect_with and trimming is the best way...

Yeah, that's what I think to, and doing right now. Shoulden't overcomplicate things at this stage, perhaps.

@unknownuser said:

they draw 'infinitely' unless a second point is given

This is what complicates things in Sketchup, I believe.

@unknownuser said:

More complicated patterns spread over several lines and include a 'fixed length' line thus...

That I did not know. Hmm, this may be possible after all. I'll have to be careful though not to start new projects and ideas that never get's finished.

Seeing the wood grain patter you provided code for makes me wonder if its viable as an additional feature I reckon it would just slow the plugin down even more creating all that geomtry, compared to importing an already created Sketchup component? Or maybe creation of edges are swift.

Other alternative is as a converter maybe? Import PAT >> convert to component and save in pattern directory. Batch would be nice..

Anyway, good info you show there. It almost sounds like you already have tried/done this before

@unknownuser said:

The '..extras' folder contains mostly 'non-standard' hatches

Ah, ok. That make sence.

Have been looking at the PAT format though.
http://docs.autodesk.com/ACD/2010/ENU/AutoCAD%202010%20User%20Documentation/index.html?url=WS73099cc142f4875513fb5cd10c4aa30d6b-7e57.htm,topicNumber=d0e368209

Hmm, wonder if it would be possible with an importer of autcocad-patterns.. Major project perhaps.

Got my hands busy with learning html, css, js and jquery anyway

Yeah, you are right. The standard patterns are not that dense. The ones in "Hatchingextra" folder is quite dense, but not extreme.
Think I'll drop the "performance hysteria" for a moment, and continue with the rest of the job

Been trying more realistic sizes of patterns. Noticed I was testing on a face 30 meters long
Times are a little better now, unless using circles with plenty of geometry..
This is on a pole 3m high. Remember time will be aprox the same if the pole would be 3 m wide...

Now, still haven't found ISO standards for patterns so I'm eyeballing size here.. If someone find info regarding that please mention it here.

Colors on edges added.

@unknownuser said:

I was speaking about 'line-hatch' - I thought you were looking at speeding everything...

Ahh, ok. I understand.

@unknownuser said:

Then you explode the instances in the group and proceed with the intersect_with() etc as with line-hatch........

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Will try to get things rolling..

Thanks.

Hmm.. reading my post again I think I wasent clear about how the plugin works at the moment, so here is a more illustrated explanation.
It looks like you where giving advice about linehatches, before TIG? I think we have that one working already.
Now it's pattern-time.

Been looking at sin and cos for calculating rotations and how relations of borders behave when tiling rotated geometry. To be able to copy less geometry.
Not an easy task. Also can't figure out a way to get length and width of face anyway so I will know how many copies to be made.

Bounds.diagonal and center is good and consistent mesures. But NOT bounds.width or height, even if it's a face=2d bounds! It will still mesure from a 3d boundingbox compared to axes. So if the face is tilted youre scr@w@d..

Here's how it works at the moment anyway. Just the tiling. After tilings done. One can use proper method of intersecting and
remowing unwanted edges. Have tried different methods of those..

@unknownuser said:

UI.openpanel(title,folder,type) simply opens a file-browser, starting in the given folder and returns the selected file [if any] - so you could access whatever file-type[s] you want. The API example is simply showing one method..,

Thats good to know when dealing with dialogs later on.

Regarding your idea, I will have a look at that, TIG. I'm not sure I'm quite following what you mean. I am using skp.component patterns loaded from file and place them on the face and do the tiling on required up/down vectors. Based on face diagonal length.

Anyway I will reread you idea to see more clearly what you mean. Thanks TIG.

Max. Thanks for giving feedback

I'm not going the texture way, so don't worry about that. The oportunity to be able to export the line geometry is what I had in mind as well. But mostly, it gives better and more predictable results when printing.
Also I won't experiment with performance(I hope)for to long. We are dealing with creating 2d-3d-geometry and not vectorgraphics, so that has to be taken in consideration for this plugin.