I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m hoping to find a reporting tool that will give me something like an expanded Component Attribute box, that clear shows the hierarchy of sub components, sub-sub components, sub-sub-sub components etc.
For each (sub) component, it would show:
Attribute_Name Attribute_Value Attribute_Formula
And the attribute NAMES would be indented much like the Component Organizer (I slapped together a non-sensical set of components to illustrate):
Then, under each component would be the details for each attribute that appears in the Component Options box - I should say, the standard attributes you’ve chosen to appear and the custom attributes you’ve added.
The File → Generate Report… has ALMOST everything I need, but it won’t suffice. Why?
Format Problems
- Every possible attribute name becomes it’s own column!
- Since it’s designed to be later manipulated in a spreadsheet, the “level” of each attribute is identified by a number in a single “level” column.
Content Problem: It doesn’t even have the option to include an attribute formula!
And I lack the current knowledge to try to hack something together in Ruby. I could learn, but it wouldn’t be quick.
So I turned to the Extension Warehouse - a few tools MIGHT have done it, but no…
Next? SketchupUcation – same result.
I’m hoping the group here can point me to an existing tool!
In case you’re interested, here’s my use case:
I’m in the process of creating a fairly complex component. I started with basic shapes and created components for each shape, with custom attributes acting as input for dimensions. Since I’ll be using a number of variations of each (different dimensions of angled steel and 5-10 variations of steel rectangular cross section tube - with varying thickness of the faces), for each basic shape, I have at least 2 lower level geometries, with rotations and copies, that make up the basic shape. These basic shapes are then combined - in various ways - into sub-assemblies. The sub-assemblies are given a carefully chosen axes so that I can copy, move, and reflect them simply. (The underlying project has many symmetries that I’m trying to exploit.
I’ve made one size of the finished piece, but I want to be able to change the overall dimensions - and the positioning of 2 critical parts - through top level Component Options feeding custom attributes. These then get sliced, diced, and propagated down to ultimately control many different geometries. To make things even more complex, as one overall dimension shrinks beyond a certain point, one basic shape in TWO sub assemblies is no longer needed and I intend it to disappear by assigning is LenX, LenY and LenZ = 0!!! Why not hide it? Because I also need to hide the lines indicating two faces up against each other, and I fear that hiding them will be undone if I set “hidden”=false in one of it’s parents! (Note to mention if the user shows hidden geometry!.
Now I need to make sure that my top level inputs propagate down correctly. And while I could do it using the Organizer and flipping the Component Attributes box back and forth between values and formulas, I’m hoping there’s a better way that I can sit down with a large hierarchy and plan - using pencil and paper - the edits I need to make!
Any ideas?