@snowy said:

well im learning DC myself atm, but if im correct u need place the colors straight into ur DC.
Like the DC car below they solve it with hidden balls, but u can also make some small squares and give those the textures u want.
Place them into ur component on a place where it's out of sight. (like really small squares 1x1 mm)

like i told im learning it myself so might forget some important info but hope this will help.

Thanks, will try that

Hello,

I'm trying to make a component where I can change the color of it by picking a color in a list. It works when I build it (when I have added the colors to the model), but when I have saved it and then imports the component in to another model the colors aren't attached. The component just gets white.

How do I attache the colors to the dynamic component?

Thanks in advance!

/Marcus

@unknownuser said:

What is the number of points accepted by the file inside Sketchup ?

Hm, I don't know the number...

The problem is that we want to snap to point in the cloud, or even better surfaces, and I didn't manage to do that in Pointtools during the evaluation period. In the tutorial videos it looks like they are building approximate models. We want to be more accurate.

The manual says that it is possible to snap to point with the line snap tool included in the Plugin but for me it didn't work at all.

Somebody with experience?

Thanks.

/Marcus

Hello,

I'm searching for a plugin that manages point clouds in SketchUp. I want to use the cloud to model an industrial building.
Tried Pointtools plugin for SketchUp but i thought it worked poorly. And now the trial time is over so I can't continue testing.

I think I will get the point clouds in .fls format. Pointtools POD creator converts the fls-files to .POD and then the .POD file can be imported to SketchUp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G82hzpOORvY&feature=player_embedded
http://www.pointools.com/

Thanks in advance!

/Marcus

Thanks to all of you!

We are an automation company and we use models of robots and other equipment to make 3D layouts of our concepts. So the quality doesn't need to be that good.

Here is the whole robot in this case:

The mirror method was clever. Rich O'Brien, thanks for your work. Can you tell me your method?

TiG, yes that's probably the most efficient way the make the model lighter. This part became 29 MB, but the other parts of the robot have a size of 300 kb - 2 mb.

Thanks again, now I know how I need to handle this.

/Marcus

@thomthom said:

No model is attached. 29MB is too big for the forum. Can you upload to a third party hosting? Maybe a screenshot in the post as well?

Sorry, fixed [attachment] now!

Hi!

I have for a long time searched for a way to simplify models. I have tried some poly reduce plugins but SketchUp just hangs.
I have tried to export as collada, used mesh lab to reduce polygons but with poor results.

We often convert CAD files to skp and sometimes the geometry is very complex.

Is there anyone who has a good method for reducing polygons and make the models lighter?

Below is a download link to the model I have problems with right now. It is a part to a robot.
I would like to reduce the size from 29 to 7-8 MB.

http://www.speedyshare.com/file/D8tRB/IRB760-450-318-Link3a-CAD-00-v2.zip

Thanks in advance!

/Marcus

Hi!

I am wondering if there is some way to ignore attributes.

For example, I have a component that has a Position Z attribute which always places the component at Z=0. This is what I want 95% of the time, but sometimes I want to place it on another height.

Is there some function that I can use for this? I thought that in the component options I choose whether I want the object to be placed at floor level or optional level.

Thanks in advance.

@anssi said:

I think that your problem is that your subcomponents are trying to reference parameters from their siblings. I understand that parameters can be passed only between grandparent, parent and child. In this case I think the culprit is that the Startstolpe and Endstolpe components are trying to read values from the Panel component.

Anssi

Thanks, will look in to that!

Hi!

We have some dynamic components when we make layouts for production plants.

But when the models becomes large with a lot of items they stops working as intended.

I attach one of these DCs. The problem with this one is that the door doesn't change size ("Dörrbredd" and "Höjd" is it called in the component).

Our components just changes dimensions, we don't use any interaction.

Is there more of you who have run into similar problems?

Thanks in advance!

Staketdörr_dynamiskt_v1108.skp

@chris fullmer said:

Seems like it might also be possible if you export it as a video, exporting jpegs and do like 1 frame per second, and set the scen transition time to 1 scene per second. It seems like that way you can specify an aspect ration better? I'm little rusty on that topic though. It might or might not work.

This worked! Awesome! =D Can't thank you enough. And thanks to all of you, found some nice plugins on the way!

Thanks for all answers, I will do some tests and will get back with results!

Hi!

We are working a lot with SketchUp at our company (Teamster, an automation company) when we do layouts and concepts.

Something we want to do is to use the SketchUp models when creating the HMI for our OP panels. We make images that are used as backgrounds and so on. This works good if you have your layout ready. But if there are changes it can be hard to position the camera at the exact position again to get the same picture (size, angle, zoom...). Of course the scenes can be used, but if someone opens the file on another computer with another screen resolution or hasn't the window maximized the position is ruined.

Is there some good camera plugins out there? Or do you have some other advice how to handle this? Please ask if the description of my problem is unclear.

Thanks in advance.

@chris fullmer said:

You asked to "kill dynamic components" - thats what his one line script does.

So what do you REALLY want to do?

In my first post I wrote: "I want to keep the groups of the object that the dynamic component exists of, but clear all settings."

I just want the component attributes to be cleared. But I want to keep the groups in the component.

@tig said:

This one-liner copy+paste+<enter> in the Ruby Console will stop a selected DC from being dynamic

Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].definition.attribute_dictionaries.delete('dynamic_attributes')

use wisely...

Hm, yes it worked. But I want to keep the groups in the component. Now I get the same problem as when exploding the component as many times as possible and then making a new component.
Thanks anyway

@jim said:

I have a plugin that can "strip DC attributes", optionally delete sub-components which are hidden, and reset the scale mask. I wrote it for a business that uses DC's internally but wanted to protect their IP and reduce file size before making their models public. I have been meaning to get it posted.

I'm very interested, could you send it to me in some way?

How do I make a dynamic component non dynamic. Sometimes I want to make some changes in the dynamic component, but the "settings" of the groups make the components unmovable. For example move the legs of a table to another position. I want to keep the groups of the object that the dynamic component exists of, but clear all settings.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks! CleanUp is a great plugin that I have used for a while now. And in combination with MeshLab and Babel online converter the I reduced the size to 4-5MB, but the result isn't that good. But, I think it is hard to get it better. Will try to get the cad files and simplify the model from start.

Hello!

When importing industrial robots in SketchUp some of them becomes very large due to a lot of complex surfaces.
These two are in some way converted from the STEP format.

Is there some way to simplify the geometry of the surfaces in SketchUp? Some plugin or some approach? Or do I have to do it all by hand?

I have attached 2 files, one with a 700 kb robot and one with a 13 mb robot.

It is not that important that the robot looks exactly in detail as the original one, all small screws and details could be removed.

Thanks in advance!