Nope, I haven't seen that sort of icon!

Check out Liquid (available in the app store). If you select something and click command+@ it pops up a little dialog that lets you do things such as search the web, send to various destinations, copy in nice ways. For a small price, the full version will also look up the selection in various dictionaries, translate between languages, and convert units. Very slick!

Steve

@tompendergrass said:

Greetings, users!

I'm trying to find the point where a photo was taken in relation to a sketchup scene. The scene has been geolocated and has buildings constructed in their proper locations. I have the EXIF data of the photo: lat long, altitude, etc. Is there a way to plug this information into a ruby script and find the point?

My approach was to get the lat long of the scene's origin and finding the point by calculating distance and direction between the two locations.

Thank you ahead of time for any insight into my predicament!

This snippet example from the API documentation creates a construction point at the specified lat, lon:

 # Draw a point in Boulder, Colorado (40.0170N, 105.2830W)
 lnglat_array = [-105.28300, 40.01700]
 model = Sketchup.active_model
 point = model.latlong_to_point lnglat_array
 model.entities.add_cpoint(point)

presumably you could set the z (blue) component of the point to your altitude.

Steve

@dave r said:

No. I haven't. I did look at the website for the optimization program but since I have almost no need of that sort of application, I didn't download it. I get more than enough info out of the CutList and Layout plugin to satisfy my needs.

I agree! One of the most important aspects of cutting out stock for fine work is deciding how to work around defects in the wood, such as checks, knots, stains, and so on. No automated layout program will ever do that for you! It does no good to save on wood from an optimized layout if a loose knot ends up right in the middle of a drawer front.

Steve

@garry k said:

This link makes references to it

Getting output of system() calls in Ruby

If I call a command using Kernel#system in Ruby, how do I get its output? system("ls")

Stack Overflow (stackoverflow.com)

That link discusses the various ways to capture the output of a system command and security issues that arise from issuing a system command from Ruby. Nowhere does it say that the backtick syntax does not work on Mac OS X!

@garry k said:

I'm reading that back ticks ` won't work in OSX

Where are you reading that? They work fine for me (of course, SU may "beachball" while Ruby blocks waiting for output from a slow command).

Steve

@arklandesign said:

@slbaumgartner said:

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I've often wondered why Trimble doesn't introduce a mid-price version, for example SketchUp pro without Layout and Style Builder. If even a small fraction of the free/Make users chose to upgrade to this product, it would be a substantial amount of income.

I doubt that many more licenses would convert to pro, simply for a lower price by losing Layout. Sketchup is already cheap at $600. Yes, I know in some parts of the world that is a huge amount of money but layout is a HUGE part of SketchUp and a part that I really hope continues to evolve.

I respectfully disagree. I very much doubt that many current users of free/Make will spring for the current price, even if it is a bargain compared to other similar products. They wouldn't buy any of those other products either! But I believe that a significant portion of them would pay a modest amount to get the features that are disabled to create free/Make out of Pro (I would). You have to keep in mind that most of these people are non-professionals who don't need to make formal, architectural-grade documents for clients using Layout, nor are they artists who want to do esthetic presentations by creating their own styles. So, Layout or Style Builder may be huge to you, but it is largely irrelevant to these people. And one way to provide a middle-priced product would be to unbundle these items, which are effectively separate applications in the first place. Even if a small fraction of the free/Make users buy in, something is always greater than nothing; it would be a source of new revenue for Trimble.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I've often wondered why Trimble doesn't introduce a mid-price version, for example SketchUp pro without Layout and Style Builder. If even a small fraction of the free/Make users chose to upgrade to this product, it would be a substantial amount of income.

Aha! Yes, it is reasonably easy to cause a string to appear at the right hand end of the menu bar. It's an option on the login settings. Also, your system definitely indicates Mountain Lion (10.8.5). Nothing seems excessively obsolete on your reported hardware, so it seems likely to me that you are right: the issue is with Podium not liking your graphics card or perhaps simply needing more hardware resources for a model as complex as you are trying to render. I am not a Podium user, so I can't offer any insight about that but perhaps another sketchUcation member will chime in...

@eppyart said:

I am still however a little confused about the Mac's OS. I'm aware that this is apparently a Mountain Lion OS but when I click on the name of the Mac (top left corner) in the round circle it is DEFINITELY a picture of a regular lion roaring…is this right?

I've also had a look to see what the LATEST version of Mac is and it's called Mavericks. Bit confused as the app store on here says there are no updates yet this came out a few months ago? Is there a possibility downloading this version will fix the problem?

What you write confuses me a bit...you see the name of the Mac at the top left corner? Presumably you mean in the main menu bar? What I see there is an Apple logo. I don't know how to change that to the computer's name, but it sounds like someone clever may have been fiddling with this machine, and that may be related to your problems - who knows what else they did?

If you click this logo, the menu should have an item "About this Mac". When you click that, you should get a dialog with summary info about the system, including the OS X version, the processor, memory, and startup disk. There is a button labeled "More info...". If you click this, you will get a window with more details including the specific model of your Mac, the graphics card, and more. There are tabs for other system details, but it seems likely they are not relevant to your SU crashes. If you post an image of this window it might help us to understand what you have got.

Does the Processor show an Intel, or something else? If the Mac is old, it may be the pre-Intel CPU, and that could tie in with why you are seeing these errors but those of us with newer machines are not.

If you are seeing a roaring African lion instead of a somewhat sly-looking mountain lion, but these dialogs show OS X 10.8.x, something is messed up in your operating system installation! Lion was 10.7.x! I don't know whether that is causing your SU crashes, but the Mac is confused! Again, maybe someone clever was using it before you and fiddled with things?

It would be worth doing a reinstall of the OS or upgrading to 10.9 to see if that helps. To do an upgrade, you have to log onto the Apple store and download the new OS from there (it is free). "Software updates" are only for minor version numbers of the same release - e.g. for 10.8.4 to 10.8.5. If you see nothing on software update, it just means you are on the latest minor version within your major version.

I agree with Dave - plenty of people, including me, are running 2013 on Mac without any crashes. Unfortunately, this means that the problem is something specific to the conditions on your Mac, which is the hardest kind of issue to diagnose! One thing to try is disabling or uninstalling all of your plugins and extensions and then re-enabling them one at a time. Tedious, but sometimes necessary - conflicts among plugins are a frequent cause of crashes!

As you probably know, the standard IT group solution is to completely uninstall (often need not merely to delete the Application, but also to track down auxiliary files in places such as ~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2013) and start over.

@mel0123 said:

I'm trying to render a 2 story building. I have grouped my first floor foundation, but when I try to continue to build on top of it, SketchUp only allows me to edit the group. ??

Please clarify what you mean by "continue to build on top of it".

Did you close the group edit first (by clicking outside it or via menu - you can tell because the dotted bounding box disappears)?
What action are you taking when you try to build?

@artmusicstudio said:

hi,
after a research i could point out this function:

> @var  = @var.round.to_f 
> 

this works for me, but it seems , that the skp-ruby cannot use

round (x)

is that right?

if so, is there another "simple" syntax for rounding to 2 after comma - position ( or any other, of course) ?

thanx stan

Not clear what you attempted, but round is an instance method of Float. That is, you can do flt.round, but not round(flt). This is straight Ruby, not an SU issue.

You could define your own round function, such as (straight out of the Pickaxe book)

def round(val)
  return floor(self+0.5) if self >0.0
  return ceil(self-0.5) if self<0.0
  return 0.0
end

To get a specific number of decimal places, you could multiply by 10.0**2 before rounding and divide afterward. Note, however, that this will suffer the usual floating point imprecision because not all decimal fractions have exact binary representations. If you need exact two-place results you would be better off using a fixed point class.

steve

@tt_su said:

@tig said:

Always add the inner face, and then add the outer face.
Then the inner face should erase as you hope.

Tried that, didn't work for me.

I also tried to intersect; group & explode; nuffin' worked. The dark force is string with this geometry.

Works when you draw on the GUI in the order TIG suggests, but I also can't get it to work via Ruby. Where are the Jedi when we need them?

@artmusicstudio said:

hi,
is there an equivalent for the skp-function "offset" in ruby for simple forms like square or circle ?
thanx stan

Were you looking to move objects, per Dan's replies, or for a Ruby equivalent to the offset tool (i.e. to create a "parallel" shape inside or outside the original)?

@artmusicstudio said:

hi all,
when the ruby is for all over the world, how can i programm the ruby to know, in which units the user works and makes the input ( = user's skp-preferences-setting)?

or is it ok fo "force" the user to use metric system (in my case) ?? that would not be user friendly, i think.

thanx for a tip.

stan

I believe you can find these settings in the OptionsProvider named "UnitsOptions" in the model's OptionsManager. The names in that OP are pretty clear, but you may have to do some experimentation to figure out what the numeric values mean for the key "LengthUnit".

IMHO, forcing metric is entirely between you and your users

Steve

@dcyale said:

@dave r said:

@dcyale said:

I have never been happy with the native move tool for finessing pieces of a model together.

That's odd. I find it much quicker and more precise to use the native Move tool for placing parts.

I should mention (it was late when I posted the last) that I do almost all my work on a laptop with a touchpad. So no middle mouse button or scroll wheel, and less precision. Slows me down, but I can work when my kid is doing her sports practice.

I've found SU to be almost unusable via touchpad. My sympathy!

I posted one approach in this topic

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16015&start=90

[edit]
Hmm. for some reason that link goes to a topic doesn't exist page, despite the fact that I copied the URL from the page while I was viewing the posting...if you type it with http://sketchucation.com/forums prepended it ought to work?

It saves a separate image whenever you save a SketchUp file and causes Finder to use that Image for QuickLook. Not as neat as a technique that wouldn't require the separate image, but it works.

Steve

@cmac14 said:

Greetings,
I'm trying to import my Preferences.dat file from windows into my mac. Anyone know how?

The attached Ruby script should do the job (this is a plain script, not a plugin). WARNING this has been tested some, but could contain bugs! If it makes a mess, you can restore defaults in the SketchUp Preferences->Shortcuts panel.

Also please be aware that this loads your Windows shortcuts to Mac, it does not merge existing Mac shortcuts with the Windows shortcuts. That could presumably be done, but would require a more complicated Ruby.

To use this:

1. Export your shortcuts in Windows SketchUp via the Window->Preferences->Shortcuts panel. Click the Export... button, then on the export dialog that pops up, click Options..., check the Shortcuts box and uncheck the File Locations box (Windows file locations don't make sense on the Mac anyway). Click OK, then select a destination folder and click Export. This will generate a Preferences.dat file in the chosen folder. (The OP clearly already knows how to do this - I described it for the benefit of any other viewers who might not know).

2. Transfer the Preferences.dat file to your home Documents folder (I hard-wired this location)

3. Download the attached ruby to your Downloads folder

4. Run the ruby. You can do this using either a Terminal window or from within SketchUp.
   From a Terminal window type "ruby ~/Downloads/importprefs.rb" (without the quotes)
   From SketchUp, open the Ruby Console window and type 'load "~/Downloads/importprefs.rb"' (omit the single quotes, but include the double quotes). This will create a new file in your Documents folder named Shortcuts.plist

5. Quit from SketchUp (it must not be running when you do this step. SketchUp only reads the Shortcuts.plist as it starts, and overwrites it when it quits. If you copy the file while SU is running, it will be overwritten. That's one reason the script creates it in Documents). Then copy the Shortcuts.plist file from your Documents folder to your SketchUp folder. For SU 2013, this is
   ~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2013/SketchUp
   For older versions it is
   ~/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp (or another digit if you are pre-8)

Note: your Library folder is hidden by default in Finder. To see it you can use the Go->Go to Folder menu item.

6. Restart SketchUp and your shortcuts should have been imported.

Let me know if you encounter issues.

Steve

importprefs.rb

After playing around with this a bit more, I may have answered my own question. On my Mavericks Mac, the skp:callback from TIG.remote fails with the now familiar error message if the call to allow_actions_from_host is omitted or invoked with a bad argument when the WebDialog is set up by Ruby (which is what Chris said before, I just didn't understand).

So, the concern isn't about executing an action on a remote host, it is about preventing skp: callbacks when the WebDialog contents were loaded from a remote host and might be malicious. Restricting the callbacks to pages from only trusted domains registered with this method then makes sense.

Which, of course, doesn't answer the question of why this method is ignored on most OS's and suddenly started working in Mavericks! But that will have to be answered by the Trimble SketchUp engineers, since the rest of us have no insight as to how this part of WebDialog is implemented.

As a note to the Trimble engineers: it would have been a lot easier for us outsiders to track this down if the error message was clearer. The message reports the full URL of the callback that it doesn't like (which is why we see the skp:callback@ part), and calls it an "Invalid URL" whereas it is actually a prohibited callback from a page that wasn't vetted by the Ruby code.