3D TEXT... ON SURFACE

a wonderfully lazy way to achieve the same result... and if you apply a bumpmap and render it, it even looks carved into the cone...

@gaieus said:

If you don't mind, I used my national colours...

well Gaieus, now I would really fancy "Caprese" (didn't have lunch today...)

I am not sure - but what do you get, if you choose the ISO view of the SketchUp default views and switch to parallel projection?

you will definitely achieve much more realism - especially with reflective glass and the led lighting (an iluminated image at night would be sensible, for it is a night club )

personally I would advice Indigo

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/

with the SketchUp plugin it is very easy to use - and it is for free. the rendering process will take some time though. and you have to play arround a lot with the right lighting of course...

if you succeed, please post an image of your renders. I am curious how they will look like.

what an easy and simple way to do it, Alan. marvelous!

truly an Egg of Columbus - to figure that one out has surely taken some time.

...

that guy must have started building that model, when I entered primary school!
this is truly amazing!

henceforth I will call myself a SketchUp nube again (even if this model surely wasn't created in SU )

beautyful! Le Corbusier meets Rudolf Steiner

@remus said:

As brilliant as ever, got any interior shots?

remus is right - now you made me really hungry for more!

I see our beloved "on surface" and "jpp" tools came in handy...

thanks, Bob.

really nicely described - now even I should be able to create a helix

as far as I know it is not possible with the follow me tool. perhaps a ruby for that exists.
would be interested to know about it too.

oh my god! didn't know this is possible!!!
(tried it ages ago and it didn't work. dont know why)

Todd, you made my day!

but why does it only work for / but not for *****, + or -? isn't that a bit inconsequent?

dear Fredo6,

when you succeed in adding inference functions (like infering to cordinate axes (or rather coordinate faces)), is it then possible to create a "move on surface" tool? then you could just copy a shape on a curved surface like you now do it on a planar one...

then the idea of one "on surface" button that changes the use of all the standart tools to your on surface tools would become even more reasonable...

Hi Todd,

apropos calculator:

Is it possible to write a Ruby that enables you to do simple type in calculations?

for example, I copy(move) an object and type in the distance (lets say 50), then hit enter. but if I want to move it only one third of the distance I just type in

50 / 3

and the object is moved one third of 50.
the same could work when drawing geometry like a line.

but I guess this is something the SketchUp guys themselve have to do because ruby doesnt give enough freedom to change every keyboard input, am I right?

this is only indirectly related to the topic:

is it possible to "sub-shortcut-keys"?

what I mean is: if you have a lot of rubies and you would like to use shortcut keys for them, you will soon run out of keys on your keyboard. to prevent this it would be great, if you could apply shortcuts to a tool that are only active, when this specific toolset (like the "on surface tools") is in use. if it is inactive the same keys are linked to different (standart) tools.
that would bring the great advantage of script writers being able to set up default shortcuts for their rubies without interfering with user specific ones.

to develope this idea even further you could enter a toolset by pressing a shortcut and then using the toolset specific ones ("sub-shortcuts). press escape to return back to the "home screen" (I recently came around such a way of using key ins in microstation).

by the way, my shortcuts would be:
"Space Bar" (for entering the rubies-collection-window, followed by...) >
"1" for Joint Push Pull
"2" for On Surface Tools (here I use my standart keys again for Line, Offset,...)
"3" for .....

did that make any sense? and is it possible to achieve this without completely rewriting SketchUp?

I think the multi-pin-method should be used throughout the whole texturin process (so that you can apply complicated distortions even to a simple rectangle shape).

I like the idea to select the "2D Mapping" tool from the standart context menu for manipulating textures.

if you simply select the 2D Mapping option and an unfolded copy of the object is shown, on which you can position your texture - when you are done, press enter and the only thing that remains is the perfectly textured 3D model (no manually unfolding and refolding geometry - very fast and easy workflow!)

and if all that doesn't help, you may be in the "wireframe" face style mode. then you just have to change to one of the other modes (shaded for example) and you will see all the faces again.

this sounds far too simple. but it happens quite often...

Cheers, TBD.

i will check that out on a lazy saturday afternoon. I am looking forward to getting my hands of Ruby...

what I truly would love to see is the possibility to add (and delete) pins to get an extended amount of control over the distortion of a texture (should of course work on curved surfaces too).

I think this idea was mentioned already somewhere in the forum.

the workflow of unfolding a shape to texture it could work almost like adjusting a texture today in SketchUp:

you right click the object and choose "Texture > 2D Mapping" - then you get an unfolded version of the shape (while you still see a pale version of the original geometry- like the rest of a model is shown when you edit a component) with the texture projected on it. now you use the pins (or even add some... ) to position the image. then you hit "Enter" to confirm.

now that would be an incredibly easy but nevertheless flexible way of mapping textures!

...and you can change the mouse's balance with a set of weights

I have no idea how to balance it correctly though (just made it as heavy as possible)

did anybody of you try "processing for ruby"?

I downloaded the original processing once (with a java script language) http://processing.org/
(you have to know that I never really programmed anything. but with this little piece of software it was quite easy - good documentary and instant review of your work...)
but the syntax isn't as easy as Ruby seems to be (I wouldn't really know, for I never used it )

but then I read about a ruby version of pocessing - I did download it but wasn't able to find an exe file I could start.
http://www.the-shoebox.org/apps/44
if one of you knows how to use this "ruby processing" I would be very happy to get some advice - I would love to start learning ruby - and processing seems the most enjoyable way

same error message for me...