Hi, I'm pretty new to ruby coding in sketchup so i'm just trying to get my head around a few bits of basic code. I'm trying to make a face from two straight edges and a curve.... the edges are drawing fine but i'm getting an error when I try to make a face from the edges??

this is my code atm...

%(#004080)[radius =10
startangle =90.degrees
endangle =0.degrees

centerpoint = Geom::Point3d.new
vector = [0,0,1]
vector2 = [1,0,0]
vector3 = vector.normalize!
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
curve = entities.add_arc centerpoint, vector2, vector3, radius, endangle, startangle

edge1 = entities.add_edges [0,0,0],[0,radius,0]
edge2 = entities.add_edges [0,0,0], [radius,0,0]
face = entities.add_face (edge1,curve,edge2)]

In the API documentation it says I should be able to make a face from a bunch of edges...

%(#0000BF)[entities.add_face(edge1, edge2, edge3, ...)
entities.add_face(edgearray)
entities.add_face(pt1, pt2, pt3, ...)
entities.add_face([pt1, pt2, pt3,...])
entities.add_face(curve)]

Does anyone know why this won't work?

Thanks in advance

Matt

I'm having the same problem here... are there no better solutions to this than scaling up and then back down again (not ideal)? It doesn't really make sense, it's just a scale right? maybe I should just pretend that metres are mm and model like that!

Hi,

I have a component that I have made dynamically and I want to 'outer shell it'. however it has various subcomponents within the components etc etc... so when I click to outer shell on the component, it doesn't like it and tells me it isn't a solid . So at the moment I am exploding the correct parts carefully so that I have a component made up of components that are all on the same level. Then it will shell!

If I use an explode all plugin then this just leaves me with complex intertwined geometry that won't shell nicely (so i get nice clean faces).

So is there an easy way to explode a component so that it explodes all the parts inside it but stops on the last 'layer' so all the geometry is nicely grouped on one layer ready to be shelled.. or does a plugin already exist that does this???

There other way would be to use the explode all component in component plugin and then somehow neatly shell or skin the outside of this? again not really sure if this is doable or not??

If anyones got any ideas or has figured this out before then please let me know...

Thanks in advance
Matt

I still can't see why vray cant make an option like TIG said to enable and disable vray on the fly... Using sketchup to create complex dynamic components isn't unusual so vray should definitely work out how to cater for this. I would fully understand if this were a free plugin, but at £500 I definitely expect better support than "deal with it". Continually having to close and reopen sketchup is far from ideal and I would expect a much neater solution from such a big company.

it would be extremely handy if there was a way of quickly turning it on and off without quitting sketchup - this would enable me to render and then quickly make a change to the component after seeing the render (or realtime view) and then render the changed model again quickly. Rather than my current forced method of, make changes, quit sketchup, reopen with vray, render, close, open, make changes again and so on and so forth...

Why is it necessary for vray to keep a tab on all the components at all times?

thanks TIG your workaround sounds good for opening sketchup quickly but this still doesn't let you close it without quitting sketchup presumably??

I use a lot of dynamic components with sketchup which is normally not an issue however I notice that when I have the Vray plugin running (not rendering, just running!) that using / changing component options (in the component options dialog box) becomes extremely slow. for example if I change an option in my dynamic component and click apply, this would normally take around 4-5 seconds to update. However with vray running this same change now takes about a minute (or longer)...! (onclick functions are also alot slower...)

Is anyone having any similar problems or any ideas as to why this may be? settings etc...?

Thanks
Matt

I am running the latest vray update on sketchup 2015, on a new 15" macbook pro.

thanks, found a couple of work arounds now...

To Rotate Texture
you can change the direction by going into the bottom component holding the actual shape, select it all and make that a component, then in the pop up menu that this creates select 'set axis' and then place the axis on the shape and make sure the x axis is where the z axis is on the parent component (or the direction you want the texture to go in). The texture then turns 90 degrees as to how it was. this doesn't affect any of the rules set for the component above!

To Scale Texture
drill down the components to find the geometry, select all, and then scale (in both directions for an even scaling and just in one direction to stretch/squash) this to show the amount of the texture you want to see on the component. Then come out of the component and 'redraw'. This will then return the component to it's correct size whilst showing the same amount of the texture

Just got to work out how to move the texture now... anyone got any ideas??

I have a dynamic component whereby the materials for the internal components are driven by a selection (drop down menu) in the main component options dialog. for example different options could be... oak, maple ash, beech etc....

when this is done with a wood texture where grain direction is important the texture just goes onto the components in a standard way (relative to the axis direction presumably). So to make it realistic I want to align the grain correctly but when you go into the component to move, scale or re-align the texture you can't. So the only obvious way is to go into the component and re apply the material to the actual faces... then allowing the texture to be rotated, scaled etc, etc...

however if you do this, then when you want to change the material via the component options dialog it no longer works as the material is over ridden by the material applied to the faces... but the only way to change the texture mapping on the faces is to actually apply the material on the faces rather than the component!

This seems rather daft and makes dynamic components very limited in terms of texture mapping... is there a way around this???

Thanks
Matt

what about if it's a dynamic component and the material is selected for the component via the component options box?

for example different options could be... oak, maple ash, beech etc....

I've found that if you go into the component and start messing with the textures on the faces (so i can get the grain lined up for it to look right) then when you want to change the material via the component options dialog it no longer works as the material is over ridden by the material applied to the faces... but the only way to change the texture mapping on the faces is to actually apply the material on the faces rather than the component!

This seems completely daft and makes dynamic components very limited in terms of texture mapping... is there a way around this???

Thanks
Matt

component copies with different materials or mapping

Is it possible to have component copies that have different materials or just simply different texture mapping?

I've made a cabinet as a dynamic component using various components which are copied through the cabinet to keep it as light as possible... I want to apply wood textures to the component faces but want the material to be mapped in different ways for each door rail, stile, panel etc etc.... so as to make the wood texture mapping as realistic as possible. However on the copies the material and texture mapping is identical and when changed on one always changes on the other...

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks in advance, Matt

Is it possible to have component copies that have different materials or just simply different texture mapping?

I've made a cabinet as a dynamic component using various components which are copied through the cabinet to keep it as light as possible... I want to apply wood textures to the component faces but want the material to be mapped in different ways for each door rail, stile, panel etc etc.... so as to make the wood texture mapping as realistic as possible. However on the copies the material and texture mapping is identical and when changed on one always changes on the other...

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks in advance, Matt

multi core processing for complex dynamic component calculations!

Hi, i'm using sketchup to create and design cabinets and am trying to do this via dynamic components. so in my cabinets i have sections that i have designed as dynamic components that can be either a door, a door and a draw draw, three draws, change the frame width.... etc etc... these sections add up to one big dynamic component and all these various options can be altered through the dynamic components atributes and options windows... This all works great in theory and I have it sussed so that it will do as I want.

My only issue is that the more complex the calculations become and the more components that are involved i'm finding that it's all getting very slow and everytime i make a change in the attributes input i find that I have to wait a quite an age for it to alter the model. This slowness is exadurated even more as the components become larger and more complex with more calculations to sort through...

Is there anyway to speed this up? I know that I can create what I want to but am definitely being limited by the lagging. I'm pretty sure if I try to make it anymore complex or start making multiples of the components then it'll just bubsplat on me! anyone else experiencing these issues? It's not struggling with the geometry being too 'heavy' just the lengthy sums and calculations, if's, and's, or's etc... running throughout the nested components.

If anyone has any thoughts on how to make this work better then it'll be greatfully recieved! Maybe I just need a more beefy CPU?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts ...
matt

dam! thanks for the info though...

That would definitely be a good feature for vray in the future though. However, given a new release was only just made it could be a way off...

thanks for your help,
I set sketchup to high priority and the affinity to core no. 23...
However it still seems the same. Main problem being when using and altering dynamic components it gets rather slow and laggy, usually get the following message:
'this operation seems to be taking a long time. would you like to continue?' with the working bar ticking away at the bottom.

In the BIOS I have set my pc to hyper-threading mode to get the best speed when rendering. Could this setting be negatively effecting sketchup possibly as it can now use only one of 24 cores as opposed to one of 12 cores??

wasn't 100% sure how to do the next part:
'Now use the maxium resource amount cpu just below 50% if it hits 50 it the cpu limit of sketchup- since I don't have your machine-this is a guess-I would use lower grarph setting, thier no shader in skutchup'

thanks

Hi,
I recently purchased a new machine with the following spec:

Windows 7
dual xeon x5650 2.66 GHZ (12 cores / 24 thrads)- (sketchup will only use one of these )
Quadro 600 graphics card
12gb Ram
standard 1tb hard-drive

However, sketchup is still running rasonably slow and laggy etc. especially when using dynamic components with on click function or when it has to process new information in the dynamic component window. I thought that it would be super smooth on this machine... Anyone have any ideas why this may be?? could the graphics card possibly be letting the side down or would an ssd help (i doubt it).

Running Sketchup Pro 8 with Vray 1.6 installed

p.s vray works a treat with all 24 threads chuipping in...

Hi,
I've been doing some simple animation renders using vray recently where by the camera is moving and you set vray to render the all the frames in the scene. However, what I really what to be able to do is to render an animation of a door opening or draw moving, that sort of thing - an on-click type function. Does anyone know if this is possible at all.

The only thing I could think of was having the door open in one scene and not in the next but apparently sketchup doesn't on-click animations into consideration with different scenes.

If anyone has any ideas on this it would be greatly appreciated...
Thanks in advance!