Hey Mike.

How are you doing with those tutorials on your Sketchup method for making a Sketchup model from my 2-D plans?

I haven't heard back and was wondering what you've come up with. Post whenever you get the chance.

Thanks again for helping me with this.

Marc

@mike lucey said:

Hi Mark,

I got the files okay. I see they are in imperial! It's been years and years since I worked (drawing) in feet and inches even though I still think in both metric and imperial.

I will make a start tomorrow and post screen shots of the process I use. BTW, its a nicely designed house

Mike

Sorry Mike, but we still, unfortunately, use the imperial system over here in the US. I wish we did use metric.

Any ways, I am excited to see your technique for drawing such plans in Sketchup.

To be honest, though, I am not so fond of this home design. The ceilings are too low and the entry way and staircase are too confining. I am hoping to try and remodel these aspects with Sketchup and show them to an architect to see if it can be remodeled fairly economically.

Mike,

I sent you an email of my plans and a Sketchup file I made thus far. I hope you can follow this.

Thanks so much for helping. Please let me know what your shortcuts are for drawing plans with Sketchup.

Marc

Gai,

Very interesting! I like how the different levels of building are separated by different tabs using the scenes feature.

So I've implemented this feature to make two scenes, one is the footprint and one is the plan view. Now I wish to use the offset feature as an easy way to draw the 2-D walls. Do you agree?

But how to I capture only the outside walls to make them 4" thickness measured from the outside of footprint but make the inside walls 4" thickness from center?

Here's my Sketchup file as a starting point. I was going to make "PlanView2" my true 2-D walls with thickness. Then push-pull to make 3-D walls.

lemon_hts_walls_pv.skp

Here's some additional information which may help in understanding what I am doing.

1. My home was built in 1967 and I have the original blue prints. I do NOT have any CAD files of the home.

2. I tried drawing over an image of the home, but to be honest, I think it's really better to simply take the dimensions off the original plans. Overdrawing the image does NOT give exact dimensions to the rooms (they can be off by some fractions of an inch). I want to maintain the EXACT dimensions as it makes a remodel more exact.

Thanks for any suggestions you may give.

Marc

@gaieus said:

Well, I would most definitely not approach it like this but draw the whole floor plan with the outside and inside walls THEN raise everything together then ad openings and only finally add the roof.

Is there any special reason you work in a different workflow? There could be some workaround to accommodate the above workflow outlined by me but understanding the reasons may help.

Actually, there is a good reason why I choose to do it this way. I am considering doing an "inside" remodel of my home, by reconfiguring the inside a bit. {I don't want to have to change the footings or the footprint of the home if I don't have to.) Thus, I wish to stage my designs in two stages. One is to consider some outside "cosmetic" changes. Later, we wish to rearrange the kitchen and a few bedrooms for a better flow.

So even if I draw all the walls in plan view at once and raise it to 3-dimensions, I still want to go back to plan view and redraw new or different walls. I figured I could practice this technique by drawing the original plans this way too.

I am not sure where to post this question or how to search to see that it has already been addressed so I apologize if I'm making experts answer a old problem for Sketchup users.

I have the original plan views of my home which I would like to model in Sketchup. I would like to create the outside walls and roof lines first (i.e. make the shell) and then go to plan view to draw the inside walls, stairs, etc. What's the easiest way to do this?

I tried drawing the insides walls as simple lines on the floor of my model and then convert them to raised walls, but this is a time consuming process using the pencil and push-up tools. I also tried such plug-ins as 1001 bit tools to draw vertical walls, but I don't see an easy way to create these walls from top-view or bottom view and get the walls to draw the walls inside the house. Instead they draw on top of the home. What's the easiest way to do this?

@thomthom said:

@mgianzero said:

But how do I convert these x, y coordinates into something useful, like RGB (or true x,y,z) cartesian coordinates? I know is has something to do with the InputPoint method.

Yes - you create in InputPoint object and call the .pick method with the x and y arguments given from the Tool's mouse events. After the pick you can extract the various data you want. For X,Y,Z use inputpoint.position.

Thanks for the comments. But could you please show exactly what you mean by example? Perhaps using my code above and modify it.

Sorry but I find that I can follow these suggestions better when I have a piece of code I can work off of.

Okay. Yes, I've programmed quite a bit in C++ and it would make more sense to define your classes first and then put the main code afterwards.

But how do I convert these x, y coordinates into something useful, like RGB (or true x,y,z) cartesian coordinates? I know is has something to do with the InputPoint method.

My next step would be to change the cursor to something different so the user knows he's got my tool. Isn't this an option most people like to have?

Well, if you play around with Sketchup enough, you can answer your own questions. I think I did it. I just put my Sketchup.active_model.select_tool() command with a UI.menu. Did I do this right?

**UI.menu("Tool").add_item("my tool") {
Sketchup.send_action "showRubyPanel:"
Sketchup.active_model.select_tool(My_Tool.new)
}

class My_Tool
def activate
puts "My tool has been activated"
end

def deactivate(view)
puts "My tool has been deactivated."
view.invalidate if @drawn
end

def onMouseMove(flags, x, y, view)
puts "onMouseMove: flags = " + flags.to_s
puts " x = " + x.to_s
puts " y = " + y.to_s
puts " view = " + view.to_s
end

def onLButtonDown(flags, x, y, view)
puts "left mouse button clicked."
end

def onLButtonUp(flags, x, y, view)
puts "left mouse button released."
end

end #end of class My_Tool

~**