I recently had lunch in a Moroccan flat-bread café here in the UK and they served bottles of 'Cannabia' - a beer made from 'Hemp' - which was to say the least, 'unusual' ...
http://cannabia.com/flasmenu.htm

IF 1 gallon (US) = 3.78541178 litres...

The UK petrol[eum] ('gas[oline]') prices fluctuate by location and also week by week; but they seem to do nothing but go up since the start of the year. Currently it's just over £1 per litre - that makes a US gallon about £4. Since there's currently about $2 in £1 that means that in the UK we are paying the equivalent to someone in the US paying $8 per gallon... plus/minus 15 cents???

Thirty-plus years ago in the UK when fuel rocketed in price within a matter of weeks and it rose up to ~40p per gallon(Imp), everyone said that there'd be riots in the street when petrol eventually hit £5 per gallon. We're not quite there yet, although we're 90% of the way with it at about £4.70 per gallon(Imp), BUT in terms of disposable income I guess that we're earning about 10 times more, so fuel is 'pro rata' only ~20% MORE expensive than it was back then...

In the same time frame beer has about doubled in price - 'pro rata' on your earnings !!!! What was three/four/five beers for one pound is now one beer for two/three/four pounds - depending on the beer and how 'posh' the bar is !!!!

I have been testing out Demeter the UK 'energy-use' tool (current beta) since late November.

Since an intervening SUp update [that I think has changed the Ruby version (?)] I've noticed a clash between Demeter and at least two other scripts [I haven't checked exhaustively].

One is my somewhat esoteric Grow.rb and the other is my Mirror.rb which is quite widely used. They have both started to BugSplat. Getting to know why was difficult as any errors evaporate with the instantly closed window. However, I did find the cause eventually and with Mirror at least it does flash up an error message about "...Demeter .../blankslate ... instance_methods defaulting to true... from 1.8.1" ??? Whatever that means.
Both of my scripts use a method of temporarily grouping the selected geometry and then copying it etc... and finally exploding them and/or erasing the original etc which is where it was splatting. So this common theme seems to be the link with 'blankslate'?

Stopping Demeter from loading does stop these BugSplats so there must be a clash - I've no idea where it is in the Demeter script(s) - it seems to be changing the way something with SUp methods for groups works (group explode and erase are affected)... which have been flaky at the best of times... Mirror did sometimes BugSplat for a few users a while back but we couldn't figure out why as the same models never splatted for others with exactly the same SUp PC versions etc... BUT maybe there was another third-party script clash like this one that went undetected ?
I've reported all of this to Demeter, but if any of you are getting similar problems whilst having 'blankslate' loading then try disabling Demeter temporarily and see if that fixes the problem. Report it here and/or to Demeter too so they can figure out what to do...

This error occurs on lines 47, 48, 95 and 96. It's because there's a method that has a variable sent to it and there's a white-space gap between them, thus [I've put a ' ^ ' where the gap is as a single space isn't too clear in the text used for 'code' here...]:

do_something ^ (with_this)

rather than the faultless:

do_something(with_this)

The lines read:

47  d1=(pt1.position.distance (ext1[0])).to_f if ext1 != nil
48  d2=(pt2.position.distance (ext2[0])).to_f if ext2 != nil
95  d1=(pt1.position.distance (ext1[0])).to_f if ext1 != nil
96  d2=(pt2.position.distance (ext2[0])).to_f if ext2 != nil

The lines should read:

47  d1=(pt1.position.distance(ext1[0])).to_f if ext1 != nil
48  d2=(pt2.position.distance(ext2[0])).to_f if ext2 != nil
95  d1=(pt1.position.distance(ext1[0])).to_f if ext1 != nil
96  d2=(pt2.position.distance(ext2[0])).to_f if ext2 != nil

It relatively easy to change them using Notepad.exe to edit the text... Make each of the four 'distance (' into 'distance('

As daiku says the accuracy of the volumes for curved surfaces is only as accurcate as the number of facets you give those faces - number of swegments in the arc etc...

Ensure that all of the faces are in the same orientation (use context-menu orient faces) and every part of the object has a face so that the volume doesn't rty to 'leak out' ! In fact v2.0 orients all of the faces in the volume it makes for you... BUT better safe that sorry...
To ensure there are no other complications (at the moment) I recommend that you keep discrete volumes as separate groups - otherwise there can be confusing - imagine several touching 3D shapes atht are otherwise separate volumes - sometimes the calcualtion process can get muddle as to which face belons to what...

There are fixes in the pipeline to trap these, but...

Perhaps it's 'too' white... try a muted white instead ?

@masta squidge said:

@tig said:

There never was a menu. Select a some things (groups/compos) and right-click context-menu to get Volume option and it runs...
Does it have to be a group or component? Thats about the only thing I havent tried thus far. And i realize it is a context menu (meaning right click) I guess so. Damn, thanks much and now that it works its rather nice lol.
EDIT**
Ok it might be a stupid question but how accurate is this plugin on oddly shaped/curved enclosures?
I'm hoping it is VERY close because if it is that means that what I designed is perfectly the right size to a tenth of a cubic foot on the first try.

The earler version has % accuracy options - this was because accuracy=time-taken-to-work-it-out... However the current version is as accuraate as SUp/Ruby can be... BUT it is more unforgiving if shapes aren't 'manifold' - I am working on an update, BUT for now to be 100% sure that the returned result is 'accurate' you should make sure that the object(s) in question has/have all sides 'faced' and it is/they are 'manifold' - i.e. there are no loose face planes hanging about...
To compare them find and downlaod v1 and v2 and then try both... v1 might take ages to calculate BUT it has confirmed 'accuracy': v2 is as accuracte as it can be BUT it can fail if geometry is not as expected...

There never was a menu. Select a some things (groups/compos) and right-click context-menu to get Volume option and it runs...

If it's all one 'big lump' of geometry 'align faces' might work off the context-menu (pick one 'good' face first). I have also written an 'align_faces.rb' [that on Didier's site] that mimics this in Ruby scripts...

@unknownuser said:

Hey lapx and TIG,

My model has a lot of text in it. So I opened the Model Info dialog box > text > Select all Leader text (button), then clicked on the paint chip selected a new color and clicked on Update Selected Text. That changed the color of the text in my model. Is that what you say is not working?
Please let me know.
Thank you.

v 6.4.112 PC: Change the global text colour doesn't work like it used to...
You can select 'all' text, AND you can change the colour setting BUT it don't 'stick'. The only way with this latest version is to select all of the text then use the material paint-bucket to re-colour the selection...

It needs fixing.

@lapx said:

I haven't used text update in awhile, and recently attempted to use select all leaders and screen text. Then update. Is there a bug? This used to work for me. Is there a new way of changing color of text globally?

This obvious way isn't working (BUT it should - 'hint to SUp guys')...
However, IF you select all of the text in question, then you can 'paint' it with the desired color using the material-filler-bucket tool, and it WILL take that material...

Al

Your interesting idea could apply to Section Planes and Dimensions etc that can't (currently) be made wholly inside Ruby, BUT which can be called in via a pre-made Component containing the item you want and then exploded. However you might need to add some actual geometry to the compo and erase it early on so as to leave the section plane behind ? I expect there'll be some BugSplatting before you get it up and running !!!

Here's a variant to divide/array the cube along an edge at aknow total distance.

Howard's version is best for setting the cube copies at given centres - e.g. 1+ 3 at every 4' = 12' total; whereas this way puts a cube at the start and end, and then spaces the intermediate copies equally in between - e.g. 11'7" total = 1+ 3 at 3'??" each.

Divide Array along Edge.skp

@gaieus said:

Mike,

Note that 3D text is not an editable text entity but simply geometry (grouped) like anything else in your model. "Editing" it is only possible like any other geometry; deleting faces, adding lines etc.

...BUT if you use my "TextTag" script it makes 2D-like text using 3D text, so that it behaves differently to ordinary-text (snaps to a face, remains 'flat' etc, AND it's editable later). Right-click a previuosly placed and now selected TextTag and then pick "Edit TextTag" in the contect menu - you can change all settings (like font, color etc) and the typed in text itself...

To edit what 'plain 2D text' says you just double-click it and enter new your text in the box.

@daiku said:

One issue you may run into is wanting to color two instances of the same component with different colors. I've wanted to do that in my scripts, and haven't been able to find a way. If someone knows differently, I'd love to hear about it. CB.

Make the component with the default material - either manually beforehand as a component on a knowable path or better within the script - make a group, add faces etc (they'll have the default material 'by default' !), make that group into a component definition, place instances of that component as desired etc.
For each instance of the component you place, as you place it just set its material to the required colour...

component_instance.material="Red"

etc...
Here's how to make new colors/materials, that aren't the built-in ones like "Red"...

mat_new="My New Material"### or whatever name you like...
extg=nil
Sketchup.active_model.materials.each{|mat|extg=mat if mat.name==mat_new}
if extg ### it is made already
      mat_n=extg
else ### it hasn't been made yet
      mat_n=Sketchup.active_model.materials.add(mat_new)
      mat_n.color=[66,100,200]### adjust RGB colors here as desired.
end ### if
### then give that material to the instance...
component_instance.material=mat_new

...

As RickW said - you'd import the ID and value list and in turn assign each to an instance of something in SUp - that could be a face or perhaps a component that is pre-inserted - with each located as also set out in the list ?

Then once they are all insertd and have had their attributes assigned - say you call them "Marsol's" "ID" and "Value" - your script would then loop through and gives each of them a material [colour] that matches the value it now has as an attribute. You'd need to set up some range rules since I expect you'll only want say 8, 16 or 32 colours, applied to more that that number of values... Say Bright-Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet and Dark-Purple for high to low, with the extra intermediate ones shades in between... You can readily make material/colours and give them names, then assign them to entities.

Once inserted then rerunning with a new list of the same things with that ID, but new values could update the colours to suit...

Well done Didier. A relatively painless way to give any cutting component some attributes so that it will punch a hole of the desired shape through a twin skinned wall - but only if you want it to...

I see that you have ### disabled the observers (CuttingWindowWatch) till you get your head around them. They will need to be convoluted.

To get the observers to work you'll need to attach themselves to each of the component instances as they cut the hole, AND also auto-load them in later sessions at startup to get them to continue to 'report' on those components as they change... Note how you need to add an observer to each instance [NOT the component's definition] for them to be useful later...

You also need to add similar observers to all of the faces forming the reveal of the hole that the instance cuts.

The hole's faces AND the matching instance all need to have a unique random-number attribute ID to tie them together - set at the moment the hole is cut.

Later on, if an observer spots that the instance is moving it reads the transformation (you might need to remember the 'at rest' transformation when these attribs are first set and save that as an attribute too ?) The initial 'at rest' attrib can be read and updated to suit. A dialog could then ask if you want to keep this window and its hole linked together. If 'No' then their linking attributes and observers can be deleted: if 'Yes' then the associated faces with the same ID move by the same amount. Also these faces' transformations are also storable and can be updated to suit. This way you can choose to keep them linked and move together.

You would also need an observer to spot them being copied so that the linking attribute IDs are either eased from the copies OR replaced with new unique IDs. If any one of the linked faces or the window instance are deleted then all of the remaining observers and attributes also need clearing from what's remaining - perhaps with a warning messing ?

Scaling of the window should alos be reflected in rescaled reveal faces when the link is kept ?

If a face of the hole moves then the other faces and the associated window should move with it IF they are to be kept linked...

This linking by attributes and observers is like a weak grouping that lets you change some things that affect others as you work...

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=16882#p16882

This takes you to v1.2

Dialog allows 'stand-off' of tag to be set, default=0.1"/1mm: this allows you to stand text-tags above the surface they snap to for visibility reasons...

Cast/receive shadows can now be set: so if standoff needs to be quite large for visibility reasons and shadows need to be on the text-tag won't cast a shadow onto the face behind it...

A Proto TextTag >>. DXF exporter has been started... BUT I've stripped it out of this release as it's still too flaky - probably see next release for this...

This takes you to v1.3: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=19329#p19329

It fixes a glitch in the TextTag Editing.

You could select any component as if it were a TextTag and edit it !

Now only lets you edit a TextTag...

DXF export still WIP...

Here's v1.3. It fixes a glitch in the TextTag Editing.

You could select any component as if it were a TextTag and edit it !

Now only lets you edit a TextTag...

DXF export still WIP...

TextTag.rb