Sorry to hear that, Oli,

I agree with Daniel, it sounds very much like a case of carpal tunnel problems, and you're quite right, it won't go away unless you take some action.
First thing, if you haven't already, is to get to your GP. If it's hurting all the time, then the movements of the joint during daily life are probably not giving things a chance to heal - I had to wear a wrist brace for quite a while when I got it bad, and stop playing my beloved bass guitar etc., but my wrists sure seemed glad of the rest even after just a day or two.

From what I was told at the time, the problem is not so much with moving the mouse, but due to having the thumb and pinky/ring finger constantly locked in the same position to grasp the thing - the force required may be very small, but our joints are designed for movement, and just don't like being jammed in the same position for too long!

I've had a much better time since I started using a track ball rather than a mouse for much of my PC work. I'll refrain from plugging any particular model, as it will depend very much what you can get comfortable with. But I would recommend something that you can sit on your lap, rather than with your arm laid on the desk top, so that you have a choice of postures.

A track ball is also more "brace friendly" too, so I found it easier to still be productive even when I needed the extra support - and while the 'track ball on lap' posture slows things down a bit, I always felt that the extra movement needed to reach to the keyboard seemed to help keeping the joints nice and 'oiled'. Having a mouse too, will still be very handy, and do take care that any track-ball can emulate middle mouse and wheel actions, otherwise you'll be cursing when you want to orbit your models!

Long term, it's just a matter of awareness - some simple exercises, and knowing the tell-tale signs that a rest or change of posture is needed have managed to keep the worst at bay for many years for me. I've only needed the brace again to wear during "down-time" when I know I've been overdoing it a bit - tucking my wrist up nice and cosy in bed so it's rested for the next day, so to speak.

All the best,
Trog.

@spookychick1013 said:

.Thanks awfully much, Trogluddite. THis does exactly everything I have wanted a lathe plugin to do without any major identifiable problems

You're welcome - and thankyou for "Beta testing" in SU7; I never used any of the older versions, but the guys are right, it should be made clear whether it is back-compatible (and Mac compatible for that matter - something else I haven't been able to test).

Just to let everyone know - the new version with snazzy user interface and proper "arc push-pull" feature is still in the pipeline; but certain personal circumstances have left me without much time for Rubying for a few weeks - but it is not "abandon-ware"!

@unknownuser said:

You can select the face after the fonction and Scale or move it(with Alt)!

He he!
Wow, Pilou, you discovered a function that I didn't even know was there!

This is a side effect of the "keep the hoops intact" function - if you show hidden edges, and try selecting once of the "ribs", you will see that they are all 'welded' - proper arc's with centre and radius.
For a 360deg turned shape (e.g. chair leg), you can use this to play with the diameters of the hoops for easy re-shaping...

...but it never occurred to me that it would do this "tapering" effect, I had never even tested it to see what scale would do for an 'extrusion'.

I must, of course, now check all the new code I'm working on for the next version - to make sure that I haven't broken this, because those shapes you're making are great!

Hopefully will have the next update ready in a week or two - learning to make a decent GUI has been harder than the geometry, and more lines of code too!!
I already have several of your suggestions working. For 'loose geometry' it will work much more like an 'arc push/pull', with no internal faces, and respecting the soft/smooth of the geometry that it joins on to - and with the 'pushed' face selected for easy 'follow on'.

@unknownuser said:

Works fine except unexpected oriente face

Hmm, I'll have to have another look at that - seems that the shapes in Charly's pictures also show some 'inside out'.
First, I will check my 'testing' schematic - somehow the shapes I'm using are not showing this problem when I test, so I need to identify some definite problem ones.

'Face moving' should come soon - this will be part of a new feature I am making to allow holes in the faces - for making pipes etc.

@smicha said:

I find it similar to TIG's "extrude edges by lathe"

Aha, I wondered when someone would discover my 'inspiration' for my plugin! Indeed, TIG's tools are an indispensable part of my toolbox - in fact, used so often that I made this plugin just to save a few seconds every day doing curve selections...
...and for some practice using Ruby - it will be a long time before I could ever get as good as TIG, ThomThom, Fredo, Dan etc., but I hope to extend this tool for many other types of automatic 'shape creation' eventually.

@charly2008 said:

but it is fun to experiment with it

Thanks - and apologies for those inside out sections; they really shouldn't be like that, as Pilou already spotted.

The reactions so far to my first proper 'geometry' Ruby has been amazing - that people can see so much to do with what began life as a tool for knobs and table legs really inspires me to see how far I can push the code...

...but first, I really must get that 'inside out' problem dealt with once and for all!!

Well, I've now been thoroughly immersed in my latest Ruby projects for the last couple of weekends, and a plugin or two for work too, and...

...I now wouldn't be without this plugin - it has become truly indispensable.

I'm still running Notepad++ for the bulk of 'big' coding, but when it comes to testing and de-bugging, this is the bee's knees. The 'undo last coding cock-up' button alone is a godsend, it just makes it so fast to restore a test rig, tweak a line of code, and try again. It's also great for trying out new API methods and generally poking around inside a model.

A couple of observations and suggestions...

• The cursor can become a tad hard to spot if next to a highlighted bracket, just needs a slightly more subtle highlight.
• Typing can get a bit slow with code of 100's of lines, but I guess that is down to CodeMirror, I've seen other editors based around it that behave similarly.
• It would be really nice if it could have the "file on disk has changed - update?" feature similar to Notepad++; that would save a lot of cutting and pasting when using an external editor in parallel - and as a reminder to be very careful when editing the same file in two different places!

Thankyou again for sharing this with us - as well as getting the routine coding jobs done, the 'live interaction' with SU is really helping me to learn Ruby and the API so much faster.

v1.2.0 now available in the top post.
New Stuff...

• Negative angles now supported, so you don't need to keep reversing faces.
• Faces don't need to be co-planar - though take care, it means the faces must be triangulated, so much more geometry!
• Face orientation improved - 'inside out' forms should happen much less often.

@unknownuser said:

version number in the rb file should be the same.

Oops, yes, that was a bit naughty. v1.1.1 was a bit of a rush job after I realised that I broke the previous upload by leaving in some de-bugging code.

@Pilou
Your funny shapes are very inspiring! May have to re-name the tool though - it's some funny kind of lathe that could do those shapes!

This will probably be the last v1.x update - I'm now working on a whole new user interface to make the settings more visual and easier to work with, and enable a few of the other cool features that people have requested.
Here's a little sneak preview of where I'm at so far...

Features which will almost certainly be included...

• Ability to select faces from other contexts (e.g. inside multiple groups/components)
• Axis and angle setting by drawing them with inferences from other geometry.
• On screen direction arrows and colour coding, so you can visualise the settings more easily.
• Quick VCB input of values, and help/hints in the status bar.

Dammit, this Ruby thing is addictive...

Yes, I could find the same thing very useful too - for mockup's of articulated mechanical parts etc. I also find it often frustrating that the 'quick tools' always lock to the bounding box centre, as it rarely has any practical 'meaning' except for the simplest symmetrical parts.

I tried using SketchyPhysics, which handles jointed geometry in a very nice way - but it's much more complicated than I need, and is buggy as hell, so I gave up on it after waiting for an age to see if an update was coming. (it causes other plugins to mis-behave, so is not something I would really recommend - big shame, as it has so much potential).

It seems to me that the geometric points/axes we need may already be there - every component/group already has its own local origin and axes, which for components, can be changed by the user at any time.
If the little rotate protractors and scale 'centre' could be made to use those as a reference, that might be sufficient for most cases - and they are easy to get at via Ruby, so such a plugin certainly seems possible.

Very nice plugin
I think, this will save me much time messing around with construction lines and the protactor tools.

Many Thanks.

He he - well, it must be said, your render is much better looking than the usual amateur, badly-lit, grainy, over-sharpened, mobile phone photo's that usually get used on e-bay!

Thanks for the reports and kind words - good to know that it is (mostly!) working!

@chin925 said:

quick lathe sir i installed the plugin but did not appear in tools menu thks

Hi there - there was a damaged file for the download - I replaced this very quickly, but saw that one person downloaded the bad file. Maybe this person was you?
Please try with the newest file (v1.1.1) in the top post - if this one is also broken for you, then let me know, and I will see if I can find the problem.

@unknownuser said:

Does it possible to have the End caps as a new selection ?
And a negative angle (or similar) for have a continuous second form etc...!

Hi Pilou - yes, negative angles can be made possible. I avoided negative angles before because it made shapes with a mixture of front/back faces - but with the new code, I will be a able to make this work with a simple transformation.
Selecting "follow-on faces" is difficult at the moment because the end faces can be in different groups - but maybe by moving the original selection it could be done.

I think first, I will work on the user interface - already the options are becoming untidy, so I think it needs a proper tool (e.g. rotation arrows for the selection, like in your picture) to make the tool operation more clear.

@jolran said:

A quick question LOCAL_X. Cant You just use X_AXIS ?

He he, a "Doh!" moment! I didn't see the 'X_AXIS' etc. constants before - thanks for the tip, that will be very useful.

Ooops' apologies to whoever just uploaded - that wasn't the right Ruby file. Re-upped!

Version 1.1.0 now available in the Top Post.

New features...

• Co-planar faces can now be merged.
• When doing arcs, you can choose capped or uncapped ends (or hidden ends for 'seamless' component arrays)
• Can now make components as well as groups.
• New features added for making arrayed component 'segments' which will join seamlessly, including perpendicular end-caps (as per Dave R's examples in above posts).
• First draft of .pdf user guide (very rough - needs many pictures adding!!)
• Re-factored code should be a little faster and more robust (and maintainable!!)

Still to do...

• Face orientation correction only works 100% for closed solids ("capped" arcs and 360deg lathes). Sure this is fixable.
• Extrudable end caps - losing co-planar edges makes push/pull possible now, but still working on making them 'smooth aware' for when circles and arcs are extruded.

@gilles said:

You made a very good one here, be proud of you.

Thankyou Gilles, it's been very satisfying to make something useful - and of course, we must not forget all the other kind and generous people here who made it possible for me to learn all these things.

@box said:

Perhaps a choice of one way or the other is possible

Yes, it looks like it will have to be done that way - I made a little test rig to try putting the welded curves the other way, and bar a few minor bugs, that works OK. But whatever I do, SU won't let there be welded curves in both directions at once - I tried it using some of the other welding and recurving plugins, and it seems that the geometry just isn't allowed to work that way.
So it will have to be an either/or thing.

@dave r said:

first and last segments in the extrusion to be perpendicular to the ends of the extrusion

Hmm, i hadn't considered that, but i know what you mean, it does kind of spoil the appearance when you get those unsmoothed joins.
I'll have tinker and see how likely it is once I've tidied up a few other things - the code is getting a little unmanageable with all this "feature creep" going on, so I need to get everything nice and structured so I can see the wood for the trees.

PS) Just about there with the co-planar faces thing, so maybe a minor update coming soon just to get the low hanging fruit picked off.

Wow, so much interest, I am very flattered.

@Dave - ah yes, didn't see your pic's before. That's just what I had in mind when getting rid of the follow-me "end mess". Might be an idea also to have an option to remove the "end planes" of the extrusion too, as they would just become useless internal faces when duplicating the segments.

@Ken - definitely add that to the 'to do' list For my own intended application I left the 'facets' on co-planar faces as I often want to modify the face later - but I can see how that would not be expected for other applications.

@Box - interesting; again I think probably a case of me being a little blinkered by my own intended use (kind of more like Dave's wood turning examples). The circles/arcs that go around the lathe axis stay 'welded', which was my intention, but I hadn't considered the case of the initial 'profile' face being an arc or curve.
I'll look into that - getting the loops to stay in one piece proved to be rather tricky, so it may depend on how SU handles having welded curves that cross over each other

@dave r said:

Steve, now the requests are going to start.

He he, yes, I've seen the outrageous way you all treat TIG, ThomThom, Dan etc., you greedy blighters!

@dave r said:

create components instead of or in addition to groups?

Actually, I already had just that feature in mind - I work on a lot of mock-ups of control panels etc. so this is to be part of my little toolkit for designing knobs and dials.
In fact, it's partly where that bug came from - trying to get the group axis/origin located consistently so that the components could also glue to a face.
I'm just working on a little addition at the moment that gives a clear indication which way the axis line is pointing, and the option to reverse the direction. I usually use the 'trim template from a rectangle' method to make profiles, and it's 50/50 whether the component ends up upside down when you choose an existing edge - which rather spoils the effect!

Thanks everyone, glad to hear you're liking it!

@dan rathbun said:

Perhaps it directly manipulates an external watermark image file ?

Interesting - just stumbled over this thread as I was wanting to do something similar - a constant tally of faces in the corner, as I'm working on some models where minimal poly count is critical.
I did a text search through the SketchyPhysics .rb files to see how they did it, and found an 'addWatermarkText' method.
Seems it's not a watermark at all, but a 'face-me' text component, loaded from a support folder, and placed using 'pickray' to find it a consistent location on screen.
Presumably this means that it has its position transformed whenever the view is orbited etc., though I didn't have the patience to go looking through all of the files for the method calls.

Oops
Thanks for spotting that so quick and getting back to me.
Version 1.0.1 is now in the top post - hopefully with my X's, Y's, and Z's calculated properly this time!

Been working on lots of round things lately, and found myself getting annoyed with "follow me", and the other similar plugins I have - mostly because they always destroy the arcs and curves that I'm following around, which makes later editing fiddly.
So here's my first attempt a writing something that "turns" forms in what I think is a slightly more user friendly way...
v1.2.0 31mar2013
Draft User Guide
The main advantages are...

• No need to construct a circle to follow - you just need an axis line.
• Multiple faces can be lathed in one pass.
• The arcs/circles of the lathe paths remain intact, for easy editing using the 'cardinal points' etc.
• No nasty 'follow me' end points when you only lathe an arc.
• Re-orients inside out solids (only for "capped" solid forms so far - needs work).
• Makes groups or components with lathe axis alignment (axis -> Z)
• Doesn't destroy the original profile geometry (unless you want it to)
• Automatic sub-division into an array of symmetrical component instances
• Choice of end-capped or open forms for arcs.
• Perpendicular terminated arcs option.
  To Install...
• Download the .rbz file.
• Open Sketchup.
• 'Plugins' menu -> Install -> RBZ Package, and navigate to the file.
• Confirm the popup box.
  To use...
• Too much to include here any more - see the .pdf download (this will be improved, just a draft at the moment).
  Version History.
  V1.0.1 - 24mar2013. Fixed a bug where the lathed form moved from the profile position if the profile was not in contact with the axis line.
  V1.1.0 - 29mar2013. Component creation, end cap options added. Code re-factoring.
  v1.1.1 - 29mar2013. Re-versioned as v1.1.0 was the wrong file with some de-bugging code still in place.
  v1.2.0 - 31mar2013 Negative angles and non-coplanar faces now handled correctly. Improvements to 'front-face' correction.

Licence
Free to use, copy, distribute or modify so long as the author attribution remains in the code.
No warranty! - I've tested everything I can think of on my system, but I can't guarantee that it will behave for you - let me know if you think it's doing anything it shouldn't, and I'll do my best to get any bugs fixed.

Hope you find it useful.
Trog.

Hi ThomThom,

I'm currrently stumbling around the API trying to get comfortable with interacting with the geometry, and I found your .pdf incredibly informative. It would have taken me days of reading doc's and experimenting to gain the same understanding that I could see there in just a few minutes.
My only complaint is that you have thrown the shortcomings of the official documents into sharp relief and it pains me now to return to the API pages! - and that goes for the rest of your blog too, you really have some talent as a technical author.

The only suggestion that I would make is that it might be nice to see an example of how the picker works with "virtual entities" such as curves and polygons - it is not clear whether these would behave like groups/compnents as 'branches' with their individual segments as 'leaves'.
But your explanation makes the principles very clear, so it is now easy for me to go and test that for myself - and maybe it's not a bad thing to leave some details for folks to discover for themselves.