I look at ae_wiretool

This Plugin allows to draw physically accurate wires and ropes (catenary curves) between two points with only two clicks.

and chrises Component Stringer to replace line with rope...

I did a design for one after seeing it and estimated it to be about 6k in cost of materials I think. I'd have to go find it to be sure. And I considered the same thing. VERY heavy. I bid mine using 4x8 sheets though. And if someone was smart enough to design wisely and to use a CNC to optimize the cutting, you might be able to trim some cost in reusing scraps.

I've changed my method, now using the Bitmap to Mesh plugin from ThomThom.
One word. Amazing.

Saves me a lot of hassle in illustrator, live tracing etc... or installing Maya for displacement map.
Case Closed 😄

Sure.

I messed about in terminal but couldn't get it to work so I downloaded this tiny service app:

1 - Download SymbolicLinker: http://seiryu.home.comcast.net/~seiryu/symboliclinker.html

2 - Mount the dmg file and copy the .services file into your (Mac HD)/Library/Services (if its not there add it)

3 - Open the SymbolicLinker.services file from the folder you just copied it into

4 - Navigate to your server or dropbox or second hard drive - wherever you store your materials collection

5 - right click on your materials folder and at the bottom there will be a new option saying "create symbolic link"

6 - now select the new symbolic link it just made and copy it

7 - Navigate into your sketchup folders ~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2015/SketchUp/
if you can't see it use; finder->go->go to folder and copy that in and press enter

8 - delete the sketchup materials folder (OR RENAME IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THE DEFAULT MATERIALS) - I've already collected these into my custom folder anyway so I just deleted them.

9 - paste (your symbolic link) and rename to "Materials"

All Done!

Can do the same for style and components, you can also use these instructions to store other folders on a second drive if you use an SSD.

Perfect Thanks! Needed this so many times as there are a lot of idiots that scale oddly in AutoCAD

Cheers TIG!

Using Sketchup 2015 for exporting an "animation set", I have encountered a pixel resolution limitation of 3840x2160. In previous versions of Sketchup, I was able to export animation sets with the same parameters available for exporting a 2D Graphic, which would be 9999x5653.

When doing a finished animation, I routinely render at 3 or 4 times the desired resolution and then size the images down to a usable size such as 1920 x 1080. This process is essentially a poor man's anti aliasing.

It would be great to have the full resolution capacity back in the Export> Animation> Image set routine!!!

@lersince1991 said:

I need the outer bounding edges rather than the inner.

I think everyone understands you want the bounding edges. Are they on the same plane? If so, retracing any edge will create the face which will then allow for the identification of the edges that form the boundary.

If you can share a sample model, it will help us help you.

There are several topo plugins, none of which I have used, Toposhaper for one.

But off the top of my head I would say have you tried Tig's Slicer.
It will create multiple slices and even lay them out flat as individual contours.

I did a quick test. Unfortunately, it seems to me the image quality is pretty bad in exporting at high resolution. Here's a small crop of a larger render. I exported the full image at 5000px (both originals are PNG, saved as jpg in another program for upload here.) It appears any time SU has to compress or enlarge the image, the image quality suffers.

You might have better luck using a rendering engine, most can handle rendering large textures with much better results.

render crop

export from SU

@lersince1991 said:

Hi,

I am trying to use this but all the textures are out of scale completely (254mm x 254mm) and lose their aspect ratio.

Is there any way (I dont know ruby script) that someone could modify this rb script and give it a prompt for material scale and for it to maintain the aspect ratio?

Old discussion: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180%26amp;t=17857
Original rb download link: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=241

Much appreciated!

You can specify a size, width and height, but not a scale. If you are interested I can PM you a copy which allows size input for each texture.

Hi Guys,

m trying to create a hull from my imagination, means not from given contours.
Boat contour plans are actually a projection to the standard orthogonal planes,
, these are sections through the hull, which would not be applicable for this intuitive process.
I have a certain spatial curve in the mind, which I´d like to draw in SU.

So I created contour lines f.e. as a bezier curve.
But, the curves are always related to a plane. It is anyway difficult to intuitively draw a spatial curve.
Now m looking for a way how to create a spatial contour from two related planar contours.

I guess it sounds a bit confusing. Does anybody have a solution for this ?

Thanks for responding !

Processed all the people last night and works REALLY WELL.
Thanks again TIG!

I would do what Glenn suggests. If the styles are already established, and you only need to make them once, it would take no time at all to make three scenes with the three different styles. As for the export, you could also use the animation export option with no scene transitions.

@lersince1991 said:

Ok so I've attached another image which I have edited to show the right angle that the view forms in the bottom right.
Also I've mocked up whats missing at the top.

and you're saying if you zoom out with the scroll wheel, that angle changes?

fwiw, the sketchup camera doesn't function exactly the same as a normal camera but you should definitely be able to get any view you desire..

fwiw pt2.. I personally wouldnt be concerned with trying to get a pano out of sketchup itself..
zoom out, get the fov & perspective to your liking. export the image much larger than necessary at the viewport ratio then crop & resize in another app.

(preview.app can do both easily.. window select then cmmd-K for crop.. tools -> adjust size to resize.. not only will this give you more flexibility when getting the proper view, you'll also get a higher quality image upon downsizing it post.

lol well I didn't think it was possible to model myself into a corner lol.
Thanks,

So you recommend doing the angled walls manually?
I don't get why non of the plugin worked for it

you can use BezierSpline by Fredo..

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=13563

(and it has a whole lot of functions besides doing things like this so it might be confusing at first.. post if you have any questions about using it)

untitled.jpg

👍

That's a good solution. It seems I am getting old and cannot remember every post on the forums any more 😒

There's also the Unfold Tool by Jim.

I did this in N-scale:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5047/5356417176_1c6b05956e_z.jpg

From:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5087/5355804283_aaf9ed2243_z.jpg

If you set the component axis to the center of the square and run Chris' scale and rotate multiple script, it works fine for me. Scale and Rotate randomly about the Comp. Base. Or leave the axis on a corner and scale and rotate about Center works for me too.

Check out ThomThom's 'Cleanup' and 'Plan Tools' plugins. I think they would help for this.