Gaieus --

are you sure it reloaded with EXACTLY the same positioning. If so, it's a fluke.
IF you pull the terrain from Google Earth, take a color snapshot from google earth and load the color image into the texture...the texture size (tiling is wrong) as it shifts from a 1:1 to the aspect ration of the incoming image.

It only takes a few seconds, but one MUST reset the texture size.

If you are doing this for 50 pieces of a large terrain loaded from GE, tile by tile, then ruby saves a LOT of effort.

s,

"visually right" = it looks good in sketchup..the texture is applied as it should be.

"physically wrong" = the size of the terrain is 4090' x 3250'. the texture size is 1"x1". The texture size has the wrong size and aspect ratio...but somehow sketchup knows how to transform this. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it since it's "visually right" - but it would be great for the physics to match the visual.

Best way of seeing this, if you have google earth, is to fire it up. click the Getr Current View in Sketchup and see the texture properties of the material that represents the ground terrain. it will say 1"x1", even though it's really not!

I'm guessing the trick is to use face.position_material -- and someshow pass in xyz and uv pairs -- but containing what is beyond me.

s.
Thanks again.

awesome! thanks so much -- you have no idea how many hours I spent - bloody manual!

Anyway - one more, last part of the puzzle.

Loading the image and then setting a new mat.texture.size = [1,1] works fine.
The only thing is that the image isn't really a square aspect ratio and its applied size isn't really 1" x 1". It's actually a 4800x3600 image and an applied size of 4913' 5 1/4" and 3137' 8 1/2"!!! While the above 1x1 at aspect of 1 works...do you have any tips for how I then adjust the image so that its physically "right" even though its already visually "right"!

Thanks.

s.

thomthom,

ok - I'm sure I'm being very dense...but a couple of points/questions:

1. How does one set the width and height of the texture in code? One can read texture.height and texture.width but not set them..and one only gets to SET texture.size....but that assumes the aspect ratio is the same as before. In this example, it's not...so the question is how does one set the width and height independently --- isn't it in the apply material position function?

2. by way of explanation, google earth in injects the terrain with a 1" square texture size that is then stretched as needed EVEN though the image is say, 1600x1200. As soon as one reloads/loads an image, this aspect is changed to match the incming image and the "ASPECT LOCK" is lost. So when one reapplies the texture.size =1", what happens is width becomes 1" and height becomes 5/8" to maintain aspect ratio. Manually, it's easy - click OFF the aspect lock button in the texture window and enter the 1" value in the width...but how to do that in code?

Thanks,

s.

Gaieus,

Thanks for the comments. As you'll see from the code, I'm not re-creating the useless steps in the video - however simply loading an image DOES NOT work as the aspect ratio gets reset. Therefore, positioning and sizingthe map IS required. Hence the code. As for the terrain bit (where I'm stuck), yes - it can be done manually-but since I want to repeat this exercise 50+ times (I'm cutting a range of terrain from GE).

So - how can one do your steps 3 and 4 programattically? I can't figure it out for the life of me!

s.

Hi all,

I'm trying to Ruby-ize the excellent tutorial found here:
http://www.go-2-school.com/media/view/1

This tutorial shows how to manually replace the B&W terrain images that are pulled from google earth with color ones.

I was hoping to eliminate the manual material "line-up" process with an automatic one.

I have it working with the 2D plane...but can't for the life of me figureout how to do it with the 3D terrain...and am hoping someone more talented than I can kick me in the right direction.

So, my steps for the 2D piece of the puzzle are in the attached code..to see it in action, fire up Google Earth, zoom into the required terrain. Switch to sketchup and "Get Current View" to import the google terrain. Go back into Google Earth and SAVE IMAGE (for the higher res color image). Edit the script to the image file you just saved and let it rip. You will see the 2D terrain is perfect. The 3d terrain needs resizing - but I can't figure out how to do it (and alter the aspect ratio!). HELP!

` # Grab a handle to the currently active model (aka the one the user is looking at in SketchUp.)
model = Sketchup.active_model

def flattenUVQ(uvq)
uvq.x = uvq.x / uvq.z
uvq.y = uvq.y / uvq.z
uvq.z = 1.0
return uvq
end

Grab other handles to commonly used collections inside the model.

entities = model.entities
layers = model.layers
materials = model.materials
component_definitions = model.definitions
selection = model.selection

Now that we have our handles, we can start pulling objects and making

method calls that are useful.

ge_entity = entities[0]
ge_snapshot = entities[0]
ge_terrain = entities[0]

UI.messagebox("First thing in your model is a " + first_entity.typename)

number_objects = entities.length
puts "\nnumber entities:" + number_objects.to_s
puts "=================\n"

for k in 1..number_objects
if entities[k-1].typename.to_s == "Group"
ge_entity = entities[k-1]
if ge_entity.name == "Google Earth Snapshot"
ge_snapshot = ge_entity
elsif ge_entity.name == "Google Earth Terrain"
ge_terrain = ge_entity
end
end
end

bounds = ge_snapshot.local_bounds #get the bounds of the image
puts "processing google earth snapshot..."
puts "---bounds [height:" + bounds.height.to_s + "] width:" + bounds.width.to_s
puts "---sub-entities:" + ge_snapshot.entities.length.to_s + " found. looking for face."

ge_snapshot.locked=false #unlock the entity
ge_terrain.locked = false

for h in 1..ge_snapshot.entities.length
face_entity = ge_snapshot.entities[h-1]
if face_entity.typename.to_s == "Face" # we've found our face
break
end
end

mat = face_entity.material # grab the material
texture = mat.texture #Assign the texture

puts "---face found. processing face."
puts "------[material:" + mat.display_name + "]\n------[texture:" + texture.filename + "]"
puts " height: " + texture.height.to_s
puts " width: " + texture.width.to_s
puts " image_height: " + texture.image_height.to_s
puts " image_width: " + texture.image_width.to_s

tw = Sketchup.create_texture_writer
uv_helper = face_entity.get_UVHelper true, false, tw

samples = [] #Create a set of samples
samples << face_entity.vertices[0].position # 0,0 | Origin
samples << samples[0].offset(face_entity.normal.axes.x) # 1,0 | Offset Origin in X
samples << samples[0].offset(face_entity.normal.axes.y) # 0,1 | Offset Origin in Y
samples << samples[1].offset(face_entity.normal.axes.y) # 1,1 | Offset X in Y

Arrays containing 3D and UV points.

xyz = []
uv = []

samples.each { |position|
# XYZ 3D coordinates
xyz << position
# UV 2D coordinates
uvq = uv_helper.get_front_UVQ(position)
uv << self.flattenUVQ(uvq)
}
print "\nxyz: " + xyz.to_s
print "\nuv : " + uv.to_s
print "\n"

Position texture.

pts = []
(0..3).each { |i|
pts << xyz[i]
pts << uv[i]
}

puts "------Setting size to " + bounds.width.to_s

mat.texture = "G:\Test Image 01.JPG" # Grab our hi-res image
mat.texture.size = bounds.width # Resize the thing
face_entity.position_material mat, pts, true # Apply the coordinates

puts "------Reapplying co-ordinates"

puts "=================\nend of run"`