Fredo has a plugin for area labelling under his Fredo tools. It works rather well and probably the functionallity can be adapted to your needs. Sketchup also has the ability to report material areas, so if your outer shell is all made from certain materials you can add up your areas.

I notice this was last updated for SU 2015, last commit Nov 7 2014 - does it still work with SU 2016?

I tried once more, and this time it's listed. (no idea why it wasn't earlier - but at least it's working now.) Very nice feature.

@driven said: 78000 chars long They store the preview image as a Base64 string, maybe that's why?

A good question for: http://forums.chaosgroup.com/

@wawmsey7 said: However it would be easier if I could have code before the code for loading the component to check if it's already loaded or not into the model and then load it if it's not already there? Is that do-able? You need to search the DefinitionList collection properly. This class, like many of the API collection classes, has the Enumerable library module mixed in. The following method should be wrapped within your plugin module: def self.get_component( filepath = "some/path/to/component.skp" ) # Warning, on MS Windows the definition paths are # returned with backslashes not forward slashes ! filepath = filepath.tr("\\",'/') dlist = Sketchup.active_model.definitions found = dlist.find {|cdef| if cdef.path.nil? false elsif cdef.path.tr("\\",'/') == filepath true else false end } return found if found if File.exist?(filepath) dlist.load(filepath) else return false end end

Also, if the subtract statement is the last one evaluated in the method, it's result will be the return object from the method itself. Otherwise you can insert a statement like: return result as the last statement.

Make the new geometry inside a temporary group. Make edges, find_faces of one edge you know will be the loop. Get a reference to the face as I shewed... PushPull in the group. Explode the group when done. If you have a series of ordered points [or edges] they will work with add_face If you have a 'donut shape' face, you need to make the inner face [that will eventually be a hole], get a reference to it, then make the outer face, now erase the inner face to leave a hole. Or find_faces for inner and outer loops' edges, then collect the faces into an array faces=gents.grep(Sketchup;;Face) faces.each{|face| face.erase! if face.loops.length == 1 ## the face with will be the hole - erase it. face.loops.length > 1 ## will be the donut. }

@wawmsey7 said: > edge1.transform!(tr) > again the edge draws fine but my rotation code throws up an error! Matt, have the Ruby Console open when testing code, and paste the error message in the post, if your asking about Ruby errors. The first error message line in the backtrace will contain a sub-string like: “filename:lineNo: inmethod'”or “filename:lineNo.”` which tells you exactly what ruby script, it's line number, and possibly the method that it occurred within. The message tells you (usually) exactly what went wrong. For example, Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined methodtransform!' for #Sketchup::Edge:0x00000009e8e690>... tells you that the Sketchup::Edge class has no instance method named " transform!`". So at that point your quickest way to resolve your dilemma, is to go to the API's Method index, and find methods in the "T" category that have to do with transformations. See Exception class, backtrace() method. And more generally dealing with exceptions.

the type of component that would explode to form a solid would be one that cuts an opening. So pin pointing those particular components and their influence to explode would be necessary before outer shelling. Using the outliner and selecting, right click exploding would be the quickest. Grouping and naming such geometry would help (you would have to pass the required attributes through of course). like plates with a set of holes would be grouped to Ax_"name" like Ax_plate1, Ax_plate2....so easy to reference the "A" would be a place holder, "x" for explode I believe you would need some kind of naming convention, for a ruby script to seek out and destroy once you have establish a simple method, then you can build a ruby script, or course with help from the gurus. EDIT: just realised that nesting down more than one level is causing your problem as you wrote, However the same principle applies.... use outliner, open(+) to require nested group, can use control to select more than one,right click to context menu....explode

@wawmsey7 said: Using sketchup to create complex dynamic components isn't unusual so vray should definitely work out how to cater for this. Like I said, we can probably figure out a way to turn off some functionality such as monitoring scene changes constantly. This is the first complaint I've heard about this afaik, I'll keep a lookout for any other slowdowns that are a result of our presence, perhaps there's a simple solution.

Another work around is to apply a checkers material directly to the faces of the component and then delete it from the model. This sets the UV for faces. Now, any material you apply to the component remains correctly UV maped.

What you should do is having a set of materials applied to a hidden part of the component, then randomize the materials applyed to the component's copies.

OK guys I have tried TIG idea for the pinecote pavilion which I think went ok, using a rectangular components for all columns and beams, trying to keep file size small. Please check the model in the 3d warehouse as pinecote pavilion ( about 6mb but went to 7mb after location) and let me know what you think. Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

@pcmoor said: for doors use flip along axis instead of using a left and right component. i understand the "flip along axis" concept you speak of, but i have no idea how to implement it in the sub-component of a dynamic component (such as the door on a dynamic cabinet). for instance, i'm currently using the latter method you mentioned (i have two door components, one left and one right, and the left door stays hidden when the cabinet is "hinged right," and vice versa). i would love instead to use a single door that can be hinged either left or right. but when i try to do that, i get door rotation and door location issues. W1D.skp above is a single door wall cabinet (designed by Exitenz) that i found in the 3D Warehouse, and it uses only a single door component that can be hinged left or right (as opposed to using two door components like i did, and keeping one of them hidden at any given time). the door position and rotation formulas make sense to me when i look at them in the component attributes window, but only if the door's component axes change when the hinging changes from left to right or from right to left. in other words, his door must work as hinged left and hinged right b/c it flips along an axis whenever the hinge selection is changed...and this is what i'm having trouble with. the only way i know how to perform such an action is to right-click on a selected component and use the "flip along component's red/green/blue" function. Exitenz's wall cabinet does this automatically when the hinging gets changed from right to left or vice versa...play with his model and see for yourself. anyways, the reason i get door position and rotation problems in my own model is b/c my door's component axes don't reposition (due to a flip along a particular axis) upon a change in door hinging. how do i go about this? here is my model so you can see what i've done so far: W1D_one_door_swing_both_ways.skp @pcmoor said: for rotating function, you need to place an extra component wrapper to protect contents i'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. are you saying that component that is meant to rotate (such as a cabinet door) must be a grandchild to the main component (the cabinet itself)? Exitenz's model above had a component wrapper <F_W1D> around the actual door component <DRBB#1>, making <DRBB#1> a grandchild of the actual cabinet <W1D>, and i don't quite understand why that's necessary... @pcmoor said: don't hide different types of doors,knobs or other components; swap them instead. what do you mean by "swap them instead?" are we talking about the use of layers, or perhaps adding and/or removing parts from an external library into our model? TIA, Eric

Sounds like you've built a nice render farm box. Now it's time to build a sketchUp machine. Thankfully the SketchUp machine will be dirt cheap because you only need a few gigs of ram, a gaming videocard and a single processor or high speed multi-core processor. I would say this could be done with a few hundred dollars depending on what parts you have laying around. You could get an 1155 board on ebay for like 50, an i5 or i7 in the 3 ghz range that can be overclocked to 5 ghz for around 150-200 and an older GTX 4 or 5 series for around 100. now if you have a few parts laying around you're set to build with sketchup and do renderings on your other box while you work. I would imagine that this will be faster than any settings you can make on that box you're currently using. However, I think you might be having an issue some where that can be resolved on your current system. Sketchup hasn't changed all that much over the years and you should be able to handle it with this setup. I wonder if this issue happens with all dynamic components or just a certain set? Yes, an SSD will be a noticeable increase in performance on the whole machine but specifically larger software packages like adobe and autocad. SketchUp will load much faster.

I'd love to support per object animation, but I don't know how we are supposed to get the updated transform info, or work with this data at all. Anyone know how it works?