@danbig said:

I'm not complaining, but I'm not sure I understand the business model.

Buy my book, or download it for free?

Having been a co-author, I also understand this reasoning - get the information out to as many people as possible. Then, if you find it intriguing, go and buy the book. More exposure = more sales.

Personally, I would rather have a book in front of me to scribble into. And since I only have a single monitor, online pdfs make it difficult to follow along in a semi-organized manner.

I'm speaking for myself - others might love the online book thing, but I haven't caught that vision.

Rick

@alan fraser said:

Okay, now I DO have a legitimate question for TIG on this.

Is there any way I can take the 2D Tools Line that I grouped and have it drape onto a surface while keeping its thickness and linetype?

I have a weird request that the client wants their property line shown on the model. Right now I have it hovering just above the surface, but since the surface has a good amount of slope, at one end the line is hugging just above the surface, while at the other end it is perhaps 50 off the surface. It looks dumb like that anyways.

So, I tried to use the sandbox tools drape and it didn't do anything.

Thanks TIG for yet another steller plugin. And I happened upon this AFTER I bought the dashed lines from smustard Oh well, I'll find a use for that one too.

Rick

Hi all,

I was wondering if there is a way that I can take a model that I have done with stepped contours and turn it into a smooth contour model (see pic).

If not, I'm wondering if this might make a good ruby for some adventurous soul? Here is the workflow I would imagine:

1. I have a model with all kinds of sharp corners
2. the script would start by letting the user draw a rectangle for the area that needs converted.
3. the script would prompt the user to see what kind of tolerance they need (maybe precision is a better word).
4. The rectangle would drape over the model and form fit within the tolerance specified.

So, in my case I have stepped contours and they are are 1' intervals. If I specify a tolerance of 2' it would start to smooth those areas that have the 1' vertical. So 5' would really start to smooth things out, perhaps too much. 3' might be a better compromise.

It would be similar to decorating a cake with fondant (so fondant, might be an interesting name The cake is the model, and the fondant is the rectangle that goes over the cake. Depending on how much you play with it is the amount of precision it does/does not have.

I hope I explained this and if there is a ruby already out there that does this, in the words of the church lady from an earlier era of Saturday Night Live - - - - nevermind!

Rick

TIG,

I just downloaded your 2D Tools v4.6 and am looking at the help file. Does this plugin work on Macs? I don't get any icons and some of the commands don't seem to work form the Draw pulldown. I'll keep on searching, but I wanted to ask.

Rick

Edit: Nevermind - I'm an idiot!

Hi all,

I should know this, but I don't

I imported an AutoCAD surface and flattened it. I then, put a boundary around the edges so they would turn into faces.

When they did turn into faces, some of the faces were reversed while some weren't. Can someone explain this behavior why it happens and how to fix it.

Of course, I can reverse the faces as I go along but was wondering if there is something that I can do to avoid this altogether? Is it how the original lines were drawn, I'm wondering out loud.

Thanks!

Rick

You never cease to amaze me with your plugins. Thank-you!

Rick

@gaieus said:

Hi René,

I fully understand. I also have jobs with GIS data as Rick says and we always need to find out workarounds. What I usually do is to add a dummy box or something to each import and then I align those boxes together after importing. This way I can work with precise although just "relative" co-ordinates instead of absolute ones. If I need to georeference my model, I can use the Location tab in Model info or use GE to quickly put my work in place.

If you really want to keep everything as is imported with keeping the origin, there is another workaround;

1. Right after importing your CAD file, select everything and make a component. The component axis will be placed at the closest possible location next to your building.

1. Right click your component and "Save as..." It will be saved as a simple skp model file (which components actually are).
2. Open the newly saved component (file) and notice that this model has its origin where the component had it in your crooked CAD import.
3. Work on it, develop it (save it but never move it away from its axis) and whatnot then go back to your original file, right click on your component and "Reload..."
4. Navigate to where you saved the building last time and select it to reload - all the changes you made in the separate file will instantly update.

Rick; the problem here is OpenGL and not something SU specific issue. Yes, it would be nice to get rid of this but I am afraid it's not merely up to the SU team.

---

Edit; forgot the attachment. Find the two skp files below in the zip archive. "Sample" is your original file, I only made the building a component in it. "Save-Reload" is the building itself that I "saved as..." and after working with it, in your original file you can "Reload"

Gaieus,

Nice workaround. I'll try that next time.

Rick

@gaieus said:

Hi René,

There are a bit more problems here than just doors not opening. You are about 60 kms (or 40 miles) from the origin. I bet you imported some CAD stuff (would tell by the layers, too) but did not uncheck "preserve drawing origin" in the import options.

This causes a bunch of problems so let me handle those first and I will come back later.

I wish Google would fix this because everything CAD is turning into GIS with coordinates. And as the OP said, if you want to bring multiple drawings in, you do want to have the preserve drawing origin checked.

Perhaps if they had a button to let SU reassign the origin and all calculations based off the model

Rick

@richard said:

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

can you give an option for either metric or imperial. Us 'Yanks' still use imperial

So do I, but us Yanks need to get our shit together and conform to the sensible universal system already, it's been far too long with our silly system.

Thoughts of the rest of the world exactly! Just for the life of me (us) cant see why the USA has held out adopting what is pretty much a world standard and a darn simple one! Things are so simple when divided by ten!

Oh, I agree 100%, but it's going to take more than just a few of us to enact that. Heck, I have hard enough time trying to understand why some of the municipalities we work in make decisions like they do.

This might make a good 'Corner Bar' topic to hash over.

Rick

@tak2hata said:

Hi,Aaron and Gaieus!
I will update the title of thread in the next time.!
Thank you for your helps.

If I can make one suggestion for a future version... can you give an option for either metric or imperial. Us 'Yanks' still use imperial (well I do)

Thanks again for a wonderful plug-in.

Rick

@bing said:

i'm new here need some help...

can you help me how i can render this in podium? and how can i make this model to a small file only.

http://www.box.net/shared/gkmdj9qm76

many thanks in advance

I took your skp file and exported it into Thea Render. I didn't make any changes whatsoever, just TR1 and let it burn for 20 minutes.

I'm sure that more experienced Thea renderers can get it even better.

Rick

Nice render.

But I'll like it more when it becomes a reality for Mac users (mega hint).

Rick

@xrok1 said:

i can hear all the script writers now
"Why the fook didn't i think of that? , its so fookin simple too! "

awsome, simply awsome!

This is a banner day for me and SU.

Rick

@rickgraham said:

@tak2hata said:

Hi, Jeff and rick.
I update Fur_en.rb

The WebDialog has problem in Mac OSX.
So I put another menu for the correspondence of this problem.
The menu named "fur!(MAC)".
Using InputBox Dialog.
How in this?

I cannot tell what the intended difference between the 1 - Linear and 2- Arch are. By the way, the Mac only shows 1,2,3,4 - I saw another persons screen shot which showed me what they were for.

Rick

@tak2hata said:

Hi, Jeff and rick.
I update Fur_en.rb

The WebDialog has problem in Mac OSX.
So I put another menu for the correspondence of this problem.
The menu named "fur!(MAC)".
Using InputBox Dialog.
How in this?

Works great now, many thanks!

If I can make one little suggestion - I'm not sure if the PC guys are the same or not, but when the dialog box comes up, it is right in the middle of the screen and I have to move it each time. Is there a way to have come in some place other than center? And I would love to see documentation of what the various controls do.

Again, thanks for the great plugin.

Rick

Nice job! On the 'Almost Done', View of panels', and 'One from the inside' pics, those renders are almost lifelike! What render package? I bet it's DietyRender v1

Seriously, nice model!. Its nice to see something that was modeled in SU come to life.

Rick

@unknownuser said:

@rickgraham said:

Umm my dialog box for furmaker is blank.

Rick

[attachment=0:aem2yrs3]<!-- ia0 -->2010-05-05_11.10.52.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:aem2yrs3]

same here..
no fur for osx

Wonder how hard it would be to make it Mac-friendly? This looks like something that would have great benefit for myself and my line of work.

Rick

Umm my dialog box for furmaker is blank.

Rick