Dan,

Yes I been talking w/Dana about his Cutlister. I'm hoping that I can use his plugin for extracting parts list for summarizing cost.

See if these drawings help clarify.

As you can see in classroom_w_DC, the drawing drives the dimension of the cabinet. Rather than having to scale the cabinet dimensions, I can drop DC cabinet and line it up with the drawing.

This is a mockup of how imported drawings will be inspected for relevancy and annotated. I think this would be an improvement over current plan viewer software as SU can animate and can be folded into 3D room space.

John

Good evening Dan,

I haven't looked @ Layout other than the intro video. My understanding is that Layout links to Sketchup which allows dynamic printing of the model especially when the model change in between printing.

I'm trying to use architectural drawings as background image for DC cabinets which I have yet to develop (or copy existing? ). Currently, I use an image viewer to view these plans electronically for estimating. I do a quantity takeoff and input them into separate parametric estimating software for an accurate material and labor count.

If and when a proposal becomes a contract, we use Autocad to prepare shop drawings for the architect's approval. We then use yet another industry software to program CNC equipment for production. If you think about it, we are essentially modeling/drawing the same set of cabinets shown on the original bidding plans; using 3 separate software involving 3 different dept. Talk about inefficiency not to mention potential for mistakes.

My hope is to provide 1 platform (ie Sketchup) so that each dept do not start anew, but rather add to prior process as needs arise. Estimating process will provide quantity and type of cabinets, the drafting dept only needs to verify field dimensions and tweak models as needed and print detail drawings using Layout. Furthermore, if DC components is embedded with engineering attributes, it may be possible to export individual cabinet parts in dxf format for CNC equipment to machine these parts.

Little that I read and tooled around in Sketchup, I think it can be done in Sketchup. This is the reason for my asking some basic questions. I thank you in advance for your help.

John

TIG

Once again, I thank you for your generous assistance

With 1 minor correction, this is working as intended.

@unknownuser said:

sub=UI.menu('Tools').%(#FF0000)add_item

Changed add_item to add_submenu

This is the only line of code I did not fully understand

@unknownuser said:

unless file_loaded?(File.basename(FILE))

I know this is to make sure the plugin load once, but can you explain 'basename(FILE)'?

Moving onto to my next challenge, what method do I need to look at in order to display an area of image whose vertices are known (sort of like zoom window without maually selecting zoom area)

John

TIG,

It works great and I actually understood your program steps. Now I need to dig into reference material to create tool bars.

Thanks for your help

John

I need to import a large number of tif files (architectural plans) whose dimensions can reach 9072x6480 or beyond. Images will be imported and assigned to it's own layer so that only 1 image is visible at a time. After reviewing the images, typically only 50 or so images will be used to annotate, place architectural components, and hot link between these images.

Thus far I been able to import 160+ files using TIG's "Import ALL from Folder" plugin, thanks TIG (Although it will import 20 or so file @ a time and I had to restart Sketchup to continue w/next 20). Other than the size of project file. I don't see any negative impact on the program. Is there a way to calculate the limit?

Also would it be better to load and unload each image as needed? Would be interested in hearing different approaches.

John

@dan rathbun said:

There is a "hard to find" link on each message "POST A REPLY" page, in the right column, beneath the "Smilies" list.

Now I'm enlightened Thanks Dan

@tig said:

I hope this is not ALL of the code...

No this is an output of individual Ruby Console execution. This is my attempt to debug each line of your sample code to check each variable's current value. Programming is my hobby and I just picked up Sketchup and Ruby couple of months ago so I have a lot to learn.

Back to pickray method - All screen postions (ie p0, p1, p2, and p3) return different value yet pickray method of these points return identical 3D point as camera eye position but with different vector. How come?

John

Just finished reading up on view.pickray method and ran TIG's sample code. At first glance it should have worked but does not. In executing each line, I find that p0 and p1 return same value as camera eye position. See Ruby Console responses below:

p0=view.pickray(0,0)[0] Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 8761.61) p1=view.pickray(view.vpwidth,0)[0] Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 8761.61) p2=view.pickray(0,view.vpheight)[0] Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 8761.61) p3=view.pickray(view.vpwidth,view.vpheight)[0] Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 8761.61) cam=Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera #<Sketchup::Camera:0x7ce5de0> cam.eye Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 8761.61) cam.target Point3d(3255.11, 1479.16, 127.281) cam.up Vector3d(0, 1, 0)

How could this be? I thought I understood pickray method but NOT

Off the topic note: where can I find instruction on how to annotate posting w/ codes, images, smiles, etc ...

John

TIG and thomthom,

Do you guys ever sleep!!??
You gave me a plenty of assignment for the weekend; to digest all that you posted.

For your info, I am attempting to model a 'plan viewer' for blueprints which will become framework for architectural components

Thanks guys

John

How do you get 3-dimensional points @ each view.corners? Like an opposite method of view.screen_coords.

I am trying to automatically pan one screen at a time in x or y direction while in top view of a model (sort of like microfiche machine used to read newspaper articles in olden days!!!).

I figure adjusting camera eye and target position by model width/height displayed on screen should accomplish this; but I can't seemed to find the method to do this. Is this possible?

Sincerely,

John

A few years ago there was an excellent reply by Fredo6 regarding rotating a face into XY plane. See http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=13866&start=0

While I do not fully understand the code, I was able to make it work. Now, I need to do the same for a 3d component (board).

Does anyone have a sample code to share or a link to study?

Sincerely,

John