SketchUp Sketchy-Edge-Style Competition

To enter, all you have to do is create a custom sketchy-edge Style for SketchUp and upload it to the 3D Warehouse. Winners will receive a Google SketchUp care package which will include a 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator, along with other Google SketchUp goodies and an opportunity to have your style immortalized in future versions of the software. Up up to ten winners will be selected by our illustrious panel of judges.

You may enter this competition if you are 21 years of age or older and a resident of US or Canada. Good luck and we look forward to seeing what you create!

Test Post

YafRay Renderer

I subscribe to the YafRay renderer forum. I am constantly blown away by the renders from this free ray-tracer.

There's few references to SketchUp on the forum, however. The few people who are using SketchUp are exporting to Blender, or Lightwave before rendering.

There doesn't appear to be an exporter for SketchUp yet.

Ruby Lightwave file reader and utilities

Hosted at RubyForge.

LWO Exporter Plugin for Google Sketchup

This is a basic LightWave object exporter for Google Sketchup 6. It may work in previous versions, but is completely untested there. All the usual provisos apply - this is VERY ALPHA software, which may wreck all your data and destroy any plans you had for actually leaving work on time for once. I make no promises *whatsoever* about its suitability for any purpose, at all.

That being said, you may find it useful in its current state. It exports the data in the SketchUp model to a LWO model file. It exports the geometry and material definitions, but only front materials are respected - back materials are completely ignored. Texture images are exported as UV mapped surface layers, and transparency is also supported. Smoothing is currently unsupported.

Alex Young

7th April 2007

Version: 0.0.6

download
homepage

You Never Write, You Never Call

If I've neglected to get back to anyone, on any issue, please don't hesitate to send a reminder.

Amazing Organic Modeling in SketchUp

An amazing series and How To for organic modeling in SketchUp by the incredibly talented solo.

Plugin: Instlaller (alpha)

I've started on a plugin for installing plugins from within SketchUp. It's in the very early stages yet.

I posted it over at SketchUcation.

link

Sun Tool Preview

This is a plugin for sun studies. It's in the very early stages. Comments and suggested use cases are appreciated. Giver 'er a try.



sun_tool_0.1.rb

Plugin: Map Sun

I've uploaded Map Sun.

Map Sun plots points along the path the Sun takes durunbg a 24 hour day. It uses the date set in the Shadow Dialog.

The height of the Sun is fixed at 5 miles. I think it's far enough away - any farther and the model gots wonky.

Users will need to edit the script's timezone (tz) variable to set the correct timezone of where you live. Open the script in a text editor, change the value, and save the file.




map_sun_1.0

Plugin: Subdivide and Smooth

Whaat has posted an animated GIF showing off his subdivide script - let me just say it's amazing!

(link)

Tutorial: Modeling Box With Radiused Corners

Dave R posted a nice tutorial showing his method creating radius corners on box shapes.



(link)

Another German Plugin: LTPlus DXF-PlugIN-V.7.1 DE

I'm not sure what else this plugin does, but I noticed the DXF export right away. It's a Ruby plugin based on Didier Bur's STL exporter, and thus the DXF export functionality can be isolated and made into a separate plugin - which I will do as soon as I have time.

(link)

Plugin: ripe ruby tomatoes

Tomatoes is a set of Ruby scripts for SketchUp for:

what are tomatoes?

tomatoes are a handful of simple but ingenious ruby programs.
tomatoes are running smoothly with sketchup from google.

they generate quickly norm elements, prototypes,
residential space elements or wardrobes.
they generate directly into the existing
drawing or in a components library.

room designer, carpenter and carpenter for kitchen
can quickly and convincingly customers a submit offer.

tomatoes - and they have the guarantees for a order in the bag!

even layman succeed, after a brief study
of the tutorials, a pans ready furniture to draw.

"sincere thanks master finewood, now i can imagine what in the good livingroom comes!"

link

Plugin: SUTool Plugin Organizer

Plugins menu getting crowded? wikii has posted his new plugin called SUTool over at SketchUcation Forums. SUTool is a WebDialog sidebar where you can create customized menus for your SketchUp plugins. It's in its early stages, but it works with some plugins (not all.)

I made a flash tutorial for installing and running it. Here's a quick demo video:

Google Launches 2008 Model Your Campus Competition

Now open to international students.

link

Plugin: Show Rendering Options

Yet another diagnostic to show a model's rendering options.



show_rendering_opts1.0.rb

Plugin: Show Shadow Info

Another simple informational dialog showing a models' Shadow Information.




show_shadow_info_1.0.rb

Plugin: Show Model Options

A small debugging aid that shows a model's options. Select "Show Model Options" in the Plugins menu.



show_opts_1.0.rb

Ruby To Extract PNG Thumbnail From SKP

I am nearing completion of have posted some pure Ruby code that extracts the png thumbnail image from the SKP file. Did you know each .skp file has the thumbnail image embedded in it? That's what Windows Explorer uses to thumbnail .skp files.

SketchUp does not need to be running to extract the thumbnail, only the .skp file is needed.

This means what? If you host a model site, you don't need to manually load every model to generate a thumbnail - it can be automated. It can be used to create an index to your model files, or create web pages using the images. It can be used to create on-the-fly image galleries - and stuff like that.

The extracted png's are 128 pixels wide and about 70 pixels high, although the height varies for some reason.

It's command-line only right now, which is good enough for me.

extract_png.rb

SketchUp WebDialog & Javascript Library

I was wondering how to create a library of common functions that SketchUp-Ruby coders could use in their WebDialogs.

The example I have attempted to create is a width method for WebDialog - it returns the current width of the WebDialog window.

This is what I came up with. I am hoping someone with a higher understanding of Ruby/SketchUp/JavaScript can help me clean it up, and point me in the right direction.

w.rb

class UI::WebDialog
  @_width = 1
  def width
    puts "executing getWidth()"
    execute_script("getWidth();")
    @_width
  end
end

# Extend the Dialog s
def ex(s) 
  def s.setWidth(v)
    @_width = v
  end
  s.add_action_callback("width") {|d, a| puts "width callback called."; s.setWidth a }
end


# Create a new dialog
w = UI::WebDialog.new

# Extend the dialog (w) to include a .width method.
ex(w)


html = %[
<html>
  <head>
    <script> 
    function getWidth() {
     window.location = "skp:width@" + document.body.offsetWidth;
    } 
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <button onClick="window.location='skp:test'">Click</button>
  </body>
</html>
]


##########################################
# Everything above here would be in
# separate files and required as needed.
# So your main script would be small, and
# all the definitions  forthe extended
# functionality would be hidden.
#

# Set the html file for the dialog
# f = File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/w.html" 
#w.set_file( f )
w.set_html( html )

# add a simple test callback
w.add_action_callback("test") { |d, a|
  print "The width of this dialog is: "
  p w.width
}

# show the dialog
w.show 

How to Set a WebDialog to Screen Center

I posted an example of how to set an initial position of a WebDialog using the onLoad event. It demonstrates one way to get the screen dimensions, the dialog size, and using a callback to set the dialog position.

I have tried using the javascript self.moveTo function in a WebDialog in order to avoid using the callback, but I can't get the dialog to respond to the function call.

View post.

Models: VELUX Skylights and Roof WIndows

VELUX America has made a wide range of its skylights and roof windows available online as 3-D models drawn in Google® SketchUp™.

3D Warehouse Collection.

100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art

100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art

Google SketchUp Technique Series: Inferencing

Free vs. Pro Poll Results

There were 41 total voters.

19 Free
22 Pro

I don't have any keen insight about the numbers, although I expected there to be more Free users than Pro because, well it is free. Thanks everyone for participating.

Plugin: OBJ Exporter

Dec 18, 2010 - TIG just released a new .obj exporter. TIG's plugins are usually solid, so I recommend trying TIG's. (TIG's OBJexporter on SketchUcation)
















2/5/2009 - Marten van der Honing sent me another .obj exporter that supports textures. See this post for download.


7/27/08


While the Pro version of SketchUp comes with the ability to export OBJ files, the free version does not.


This plugin was my attempt to write an OBJ exporter using SketchUp's Ruby API. My motivation was selfish curiosity more than anything, so when the plugin reached a state where it was able to export simple models, I lost interest.


There must have been a need for this exporter because some sites started linking here, and the plugin has now become one of my most downloaded - in spite of it's lack of features and abundance of flaws.


In it's current version, this exporter may or may not meet your needs:


Current "Features"

• Exports entire model.
• Exports top-level Groups and Instances only (not nested entities).
• Has trouble with complex Faces.

With the growing interest in this plugin, I have decided to take another look at improving it. It is difficult to give a time-frame for this work. The first thing I should do is actually sit down and read the specification of the OBJ file format. I am looking at the OBJ exporter which comes with Blender as an example (export_obj.py). I am also looking at the features of the Pro OBJ exporter for a feature comparison.


Finally, I want to thank everyone who has already helped me and given feedback - I can use all the help I can get.


Download


obj_export_1.1.rb

SketchUp Annoyances: Toolbars

A video is worth a thousand words.