@bruce watt said:

TommyK; Sorry to hyjak the thread.

No problem! This sounds like a good place for your query.

@marcdurant said:

We still have a list of features that we'd like to add to the tool, so feel free to share any ideas you have after you've had some time to get familiar with LO 2015.
-m

Well, if you insist!

1. Not really a feature request, but cleaning up what is existing. I notice that fundamentally, you add <autotext> into the label string, and LO just replaces that autotext with the relevant information from the model. This is fundamentally sound. It provides you the flexibility to add custom suffixes and prefixes within the label text and string several pieces of information together. There seems to be a limitation on getting attributes from only one nesting level per label - i.e. when you select the <ComponentDefinition> of a toilet, you cannot add information from its parent (Bathroom, for example) within the same label - only other attributes of the toilet.

2. Make the asterisk * that allows you to add further <autotext> bigger or more prominent! I keep missing it! Or better still, replace it with a plus (+) sign. It was not immediately obvious that you could add further attributes by clicking on this tiny button.

3. You can get attributes of geometry, but what about the Scene? Again, it would add that flexibility without complicating things.

4. Model Info. Attributes at the model level are not included. If you are doing a schedule of products, you could have a table with a list of Sketchup components (as downloaded from 3D warehouse, for example). As much of the important information is stored at the model level, this information is not accessible via autolabel. I can imagine making a table with the label arrows being set to invisible (0% opacity). Adding this level of information would add further flexibility without adding complexity, I think.

5. Units - I use millimetres for lengths, square metres for area, cubic metres for volume. The ability to use autolabel to show volumes and areas is great, but I don't show floor areas in square millimetres! Choice of units will be great. Perhaps The Sketchup model info dialog should have options for "Area Units" and "Volume Units".

6. Moving the label pointer to a new object. Now I am getting picky, but I like those moments when I think - "I wonder if it could do that?" and the answer comes back "Yes!". I think when you move the pointer of the autolabel to a new object, it should update with information from the new object. If you are thinking "what nesting level?", then I would say the same level as the original pointed object (if that object has the attribute you originally pointed at). I hope that makes sense. What I can imagine doing is when labelling up a wall build up, I use autolabel to get info from the outer skin of brickwork, copy array down that autolabel, then simply amend the pointer of each copied label to each layer of the wall. It would save me from selecting the information type I want from an object. It would make annotations SO fast.

7. There needs to be a way of resizing the label text box without resizing the label pointer. Actually, this is a bit of a bug, I think, and should be fixed this version....

8. Open it up to developers! I use Skalp, for instance, which creates fantastic graphical sections in LO. When I use autolabel on the section cut faces, though, I can't get the information from the components from which they are cut - just face information. If their section cuts could simply reference the objects they cut through for autolabel to work its magic, Skalp and LO could work much better together. See http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=58685%26amp;start=60#p543147

All in all, the design of what you have done so far makes the implementation of the above seem quite simple and intuitive from where I am standing. I'm looking forward to using it for a real project.

@skalp said:

Tommy,

We need to look into that. Can you give us some feedback about the info you like to get from the sectioncut?

regards,

The Skalp Team

The thing is, I want the information that I can get to be ANY attribute that the Skalp-cut component has. I think it is important to have that flexibility built in. Some examples that I might use:

• Component Name
• Component Definition (I often specify a product name here eg. - "90mm Celotex GA4000 PIR Insulation")
• Group Name
• IFC class / attributes
• From dynamic components - any number of useful attributes. (for a window, it could be width/height).

I am concerned that providing this feature would make your Skalp sections slow to cut (imagine copying all attributes from a component to a Skalp section face, which is then grouped, and doing it for each cut component/group).

You may come to the conclusion that the feature is not practical without the Sketchup team putting together an API for their Autolabel tool, which allows a Skalp section cut to reference the object it made the cut from within Layout.

It really must happen at some point, though! I can see Skalp being a serious tool for construction drawings within a Sketchup BIM model.

All I can say is good luck!

The new autolabel feature is awesome. Now it needs to be opened up to developers to create their own scripts that produce text in Layout! (for example, it doesn't work very well with Skalp)

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13%26amp;t=57534

I am loving Skalp. I have a suggestion though with Sketchup 2015...

As you are probably aware, Layout 2015 has a new autolabel feature, which allows information to be extracted directly from the model's geometry. This is potentially awesome for construction drawings for which I use Skalp for. However, as Skalp produces faces, when you point Autolabel to a Skalp section, it gives you only the simple attributes of the face - no information on the component from which it was created. I thin it's safe to say Autolabel and Skalp do not work well together.

To make Skalp absolutely awesome, it would somehow have to pull information from the components and groups that it takes cuts from. Sketchup haven't made this easy by not providing an API for their Autolabel system. The questions are:

• can this situation be fixed by Skalp?
• will this situation be fixed by Skalp soon?

It would make Skalp my perfect construction drawing plugin.

Hurray! This feature has been implemented in Sketchup 2015! It's also been implemented in a much more elegant way than I suggested above.

There's no way to make your own script to output information, but I hope it will come in 2016...

I use Skalp for sections, for example, and I can't use AutoLabel here, as Skalp simply makes faces.

"We should learn from the Japanese - don't put toilets next to the sink."

I have been thinking of this for ages. The Japanese would wonder why we s**t where we wash. I imagine the reason we in the West have toilets in bathrooms is because of plumbing concerns. Historically, the Japanese always had their toilets (until the 80s, long drop toilets were still widely used) separate to the bathroom. In the UK, at least, Water Closets were around for much longer, making it less smelly to have a toilet in the bathroom. It is often a more efficient use of space, however.

When I suggest to clients in the UK that they might want a WC separate to the bathroom, quite often, they don't like it. A bathroom doesn't seem complete without a WC to them. We are wired culturally to s**t where we wash.

My models are becoming more complicated as I get more ambitious with Sketchup and LayOut, so I what was once a small problem is starting to get bigger. It is the fact that while I am re-rendering a model view, I cannot use LayOut at all. It is not a big deal with small models, but I am now doing full construction models and drawings, which take a long time to render - all the time, I just twiddle my fingers. So I think it might be time that the guys at Trimble resolved this.

With most computers now multi-core, I was going to suggest that the rendering of views in LayOut be processed by one processor, while the general editing within LayOut is handled by another. The idea being that you can draw, annotate and navigate in LayOut while a view (or views) is still rendering. From how I understand software to work, this feature would be reasonable to implement. ...or is it?

I'd love to know how practical this is for the developers to implement. It would really smooth out my workflow.

@srx said:

I'm aware of this "movement" all around the World, but I don't see the point? How could we resolve our habitat problem by going back to "stone age". There are much more people walking the Earth thees days. The most expensive living is in "your own house". It is not only how much does it cost to build (by the way, ordinary built house in Serbia - much better quality than this cost around 320-350euro/m2), but how much land you need. Land - you can not produce it more, only use it in a economical way (the other solution is of course "depopulation").
This is narrow way of viewing the problem of habitat. Like in everything else, we think only about ourselves, the World is "atomizing", breaking its social connections..Instead of thinking and planing smart urbanization, we are going into primitive chaos of "finding a cave", or "building a shad". I don't know who planed this, and what is the goal of this chaos (imagine your country being populated by this type of "Gypsy houses"), but it is planned because the story is pushed all around the World.It is shown as "cool and smart", but I don't think it is. Maybe in parts, but not as a whole. As a joke they are using "architects" to dig they own grave.

Though I don't share your pessimism, I completely believe that making do with less land is something most of us need to embrace. I work in London and the South East, and you can imagine the land limitations that we have here.

It's probably an unpopular thing to say at the moment, when space in new builds are being squeezed further and further, but we need to find ways of being content with less. High density (up to 5 storeys), small units are the way to go in many city environments. However, I am against tall tower blocks, which make the streets below into dark social deserts.

The kinds of innovation that I am interested in is how people can live happily with small spaces. Different cultures seem to have very different attitudes to space. Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese - all of these people expect different quantities of space.

Maybe we can learn a few things from Hong Kong :

I've been putting together pins for making better use of limited space here:
http://www.pinterest.com/tommykaneko/small-apartment-design/

I can offer a Japanese perspective on how to 'create' space. It's about flexible spaces, where bedroom are converted into dining rooms with the simple moving of lightweight furniture. The ceilings are low, but feel generous, as you sit and lie on the floor. In my view, the traditional Japanese have a good, efficient relationship to space, which they have nurtured for centuries. We can learn from them.

I think there is a minor design flaw / bug with the Skalp sections planes. Skalp section planes contain visible edges around the material that it cuts through. This can be a pain in certain situations.

In the example below, each wall on each floor is in its own group (to allow working on separate floors more easily), but the bottom and top faces of each group are hidden. Sketchup's native Section tool ignores hidden faces (doesn't create a thick line denoting a cut), but these hidden faces are picked up as Skalp leaves edges around its patterns.

I would think Skalp would better make all edges in its section planes hidden, and let Sketchup's native section tool create the visible lines.

... although that may cause problems with object snapping in Layout... I'm sure a solution can be found.

Probably not what you mean, but you know if you use the label tool and click on a face of the sketchup viewport, you get the area of that face?

@jql said:

Well, I need something like this...

[attachment=0:2ggeenww]<!-- ia0 -->Alves de Sousa - Desenhos Parciais.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2ggeenww]

You can make something like that with Skalp for sure. You would have a thick outline around each material that is cut through though, instead of the outline around the outer edge of the walls/floor/stairs as shown in your drawing. Also, no clear way of showing cuts of rough sawn timber (the one with the single cross), but you would expect that, I guess.

I haven't experimented with using textures instead of hatches for section cuts yet, but I know it is possible.

Hmmm...

I've been reading through this thread, and I don't share much of the pessimism. The only thing I share common ground is on the question of performance - which can be much improved on large models, as has been said many times.

My use of Sketchup is in Architecture. For small projects, I am even making construction drawings using SU and LO. I am actually very happy with the BIM direction that Sketchup seems to be moving in, as it promises to increase my productivity.

But the big strength about Sketchup is the ecosystem around it. Plugins and the 3D warehouse are the two big ones (although the organisation of the 3D Warehouse leaves much to be desired). I love how instead of moaning how your software doesn't so something you want, you can direct your energy into A. finding an existing plugin or B. making a plugin yourself to do what you want to do.

Can't we trust the Sketchup team to simply concentrate on improving the core in the little ways they can, extend the API, and even provide a different language API if we think that there will be speed improvements?

Are you sure you can't simply make a (big) plugin to fulfil those dreams? Or at least request extra API features from Sketchup?

Instead of sifting through thousands of models to get the ones you want, I found that some people have really great collections that make this job very easy.

I thought that I would start a thread containing some of the most useful components for download for architecture specifically.

Please suggest any additions, and I will add to the list below.

Low Polygon Models

Furniture

• Basic Furniture by HINT

• Tables by HINT

• Chairs by Hint

• Sofas by HINT

Ironmongery

• Handles by HINT

Cabinetry

• METOD Base Cabinets by HINT

• Basic Kitchen Cabinets by HINT

@krisidious said:

If the system only works on solids it will be more cumbersome than helpful.

It works on non-solids, too, but I think you get more reliable results if you stick to the discipline of using solids. If you think about the AddSectionCutFace plugin, it often adds faces over spaces you would rather have blank. I often get this when using AddSectionCutFace on vertical section slices, and I have to edit the resulting section slice. The point of Skalp is that it is all dynamic, and always represents the materiality of objects that it cuts through; nothing more, and nothing less.

It requires a certain degree of discipline, but it happens to work quite reliably with my way of working.

@jql said:

@jql said:

Tommy,

I'm curious about skalp but there's no "test drive" for it. Tell me something hatches seem group separated right?

@tommyk said:

No they are not, actually - each 'skalp' is a group with individual faces. The hatches are really not meant to be edited directly.

That's a shame as that's my aproach to detailing with sketchup...

@jql said:

Is there island detection in groups like a column inside a wall?

@tommyk said:

Not sure if I understand you exactly. If you mean if you have a solid wall, and put another solid, such as a column into it, the two hatches of wall and column will overlap and clip:

That is also a shame as I could see myself using skalp for finding interferences on different models related to engineering projects...

I think the way to look at Skalp is as a section plugin for solids modelling methods. I am not sure it is good to think of it as anything other than a tool that gives you accurate, Construction Drawing-style sections of models of realistically modelled objects.

I haven't heard of any plugins that do as you ask, but have you tried the "Walk tool"? That does prevent you from walking into walls.
http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/95030

But I am guessing you are thinking from a productivity stand point, rather than a presentational one? I frequently have the problem of detailing interiors and navigating within. There are work arounds:

• Put the walls (or ceilings) in a separate layer. You can then easily hide them while you are doing details of cornicing, for example. You can then turn them on again when you want to see an object in context
• If you are detailing furniture or fittings, make sure they are components first, then double click to open the component and edit while you have the View>"Hide Rest of Model" option on. I have this as a shortcut as I flip from editing the object, to reviewing the object in context.
• If the above don't satisfy you, for interiors, you can widen the camera angle. Select the Zoom tool, hold down option/alt and click and drag forward/backward. Having a wider angle seems to reduce the temptation to zoom back.

Hope that helps.

@dave r said:

I had a very nice chat at 3D Basecamp with the author of the Solid Tools. I laid out my argument that what these tools do to components is entirely different than what any other tool would do when modifying the same components. He said he could see my point and would look into making the needed changes. I doubt we'll see them changed for SU2014 but maybe for SU2015. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks for representing at the Basecamp, Dave! I'm gonna have to go one of these years - sounds like a blast.

@jql said:

Tommy,

I'm curious about skalp but there's no "test drive" for it. Tell me something hatches seem group separated right?

No they are not, actually - each 'skalp' is a group with individual faces. The hatches are really not meant to be edited directly.

@jql said:

Is there island detection in groups like a column inside a wall?

Not sure if I understand you exactly. If you mean if you have a solid wall, and put another solid, such as a column into it, the two hatches of wall and column will overlap and clip:

If you want to prevent this from happening, you would need to hollow out the larger object (in this case wall) to accommodate the smaller object (column).

I think Skalp is most useful when you are modelling using solids to build your model. It is a slight paradigm shift from the "face modeller" we are used to with Sketchup, but hey, we can evolve

@krism said:

TommyK,
Are you using a Mac? I got the first version on Sunday but there were some serious issues with the Windows version and the roll out was stopped. The Mac version seemed to work properly. Do you have the fixed version? I haven't seen an email from Skalp yet but that may take some time.

KrisM

I do use a Mac indeed. I got an email on Wednesday saying I could download the Beta release.

There are a whole host of advanced features that I haven't got my head around yet, but if I understand them correctly, it looks really very powerful!

I just downloaded and installed Skalp for Sketchup today. It looks really quite amazing. From now on, I will be doing my construction drawings in Sketchup!

It promised a lot, and I think it is delivering. Will let you know how my next project goes. I honestly don't work for them, but it can be bought here:
http://www.skalp4sketchup.com/

I wanted to see how others are getting on with it? I want to understand real use cases for the more advanced functionalities too. Documentation is a bit scant, but I will let them off since they have been putting all their efforts into releasing the damn thing! Hungry to see some YouTube videos showing off techniques.

Previous topic where Skalp was discussed:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=57319

Youtube video of what it can do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI64WOnA0x4

The Skalp "Getting Started" guide gives you some good info on what to expect:
http://download.skalp4sketchup.com/downloads/docs/getting_started.pdf

I like solid tools, but I don't use it nearly as much I would like, because there are a few issues with the design. There are enough issues with it to make a list!

Operations on Solid Components
When you perform any solid operations on solid components, some annoying things happen:

• a new component is created, and copies of the the old component do not change as one would expect. What you get is behaviour you would expect from a Group, not a Component
• the new component(s) that are created have a different name, different layers etc. It retains no attributes from the previous component, except its axes info.

General Operations
When you combine (OuterShell) two solids together, a new solid is created, but its axes are aligned to the World Axes, not the axes within the context you make the operation.

I appreciate that these are not technically bugs, but poor design. It bugs me, because I think the way the tools work goes against the paradigm of Components/Groups, which is a fundamental part of Sketchup-thinking. As it is a core part of Sketchup, I expect something better.

Is it just me?

Workaround
Yes, there is a workaround - it's just not pretty enough for me:

1. Select the subject solid, and open it, so that you can select individual faces/edges.
2. Select all the edge and face geometry, and group them.
3. Get the second solid that is going to perform the operation, and put it next to the new group.
4. Perform solid operations as usual.
5. Explode the resulting solid.
   This should leave you with the original names and layers, attributes etc.etc. in tact.