Eneroth Reference Manager

[eneroth3]

I’m happy to announce Eneroth Reference Manager today, after much hard work.

This extension helps you handle components linked to external SketchUp files. This can be highly useful to organize large projects, to collaborate and to increase modelling performance.

Eneroth Reference Manager - Bulk Relink

Eneroth Reference Manager - Bulk Relink and Level of Detail

Eneroth Reference Manager - Bulk Save Out

Some useful features of Eneroth Reference Manager are:

• Bulk operations - Instead of reloading and re-saving components individually you can load or save them all instantly. Bulk Save As and Bulk Relink lets you keep the directory structure, but move it as a whole, e.g. when a project has been moved to a new folder or to replace a large quantity of low polygon components with the corresponding high polygon ones.

• Seamless integration to SketchUp - Eneroth Reference Manager fully supports dragging files into the SketchUp window, placing from the component browser and importing from the File menu. No specialized workflow is needed. You can also start using it in existing projects with no prior setup, and share the files with someone not using the extension. It all just works!

Get the extension in Extension Warehouse: Extension | SketchUp Extension Warehouse

[sjdorst]

Wow! I expect this will be your most popular - and profitable - extension yet!

[eneroth3]

I hope so . Any help spreading the word is much appreciated!

[psaal]

Congrats and many thanks for doing this. Super useful.

[benoldays]

I haven’t tried the extension yet so forgive me.
Two questions:

a) does the extension indicate whether any of the references are out of date?
i.e. I modify a referenced file in another instance of Sketchup, save it, and when I go back to the original file it indicates that the reference needs to be reloaded.

b) Are all the references reloaded on opening the main file the first time?
i.e. I modify some referenced files before opening the main file, save them, and when I open the main file these updated references are automatically reloaded?

Thank for all your great work eneroth3 I cant use sketchup without some of your plugins.

[eneroth3]

a. Not yet but it is planned for a future release. For now you’ll just have to press reload when you, or your college, have modified a linked file.

b. Nope. That would introduce serios lag on startup. However it is planned to be a question asking whether you want to reload modified files, and a per model option to not ask the question, identically to in LayOut.

[eneroth3]

Here’s a real life example of Eneroth referenhce Manager being used for my school project.

In one model I work on apartmnt, windows, doors and other components.

I then save them out and load them into the full project model.

Working on details gets much easier with a lighter and physically smaller model (no clipping plane problems). It also helps quite a bit to have the different apartment types placed more diagrammatically when re-occurring parts are copied between them. The same goes for performing corresponding actions to several of the windows, e.g. change the profile of the window sill.

[JQL]

Ene, one question:

Q. Do you have bulk discounts?

[eneroth3]

Unfortunately not as Extension Warehouse doesn’t support it . It is a question I get quite often and I hope it is added in the future. I’ll pass it on to the developers!

[eneroth3]

Eneroth Reference Manager is now also available in german. This is the first real localized extension I release. Feedback on the translations or localization implementation are much appreciated!

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/eneroth-reference-manager

[eneroth3]

I’m proud to present version 2.0 of Eneroth reference Manager. New for this release is the sync status being displayed in the manager window, allowing you to easily see if a linked file has been updated and needs reloading (or re-saving).

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/eneroth-reference-manager

[Early_Hominid]

True cross referencing to avoid doubled up geometry & components

I have been trialling this extension for the last couple of weeks. Its awesome in its current form with the batch save out/reload. Its a total game changer for me in my day to day modelling with SU.

Can I suggest the following way it may be improved/completed?

Situation:

Tom and Harry have two working models for a particular job. (You may be asking yourself where Dick is in all of this? Conveniently for Dick, He is on vacation during this job with no component browser headaches either).

1. site map
2. building

Lets say that concurrently, Tom is working on ‘site map’ and Harry is working on ‘building’.

Into his site map model, Tom imports the building model (in its current, ‘work in progress’ state). The building model is now a component called ‘building’ contained within the site map model. He continues to model around the building component without editing actually it.

Soon after, Harry imports the site map model into his building model but has done so after Tom already imported the building model into his site map model. Because the building model has only just been imported to the site map model (and is now a component within site map), this action has caused Harry to wind up with a double up of the building geometry - one lot that is native to his model (the original building), and the other lot that was re-imported as a component ‘building’, via Tom’s site map model.

Any subsequent reloading of each cross referenced model will continue to stack doubled geometry on top of itself causing a headache in the component browser etc.

Is it possible to add the following functionality to this extension?

Upon importing or reloading a model, the user is prompted to choose from a list, which of those incoming groups/components is actually excluded from the import. In the example above, Harry would have greater success if he had the option of excluding the component named ‘building’ from the import, thereby ensuring he doesn’t import a copy of his own model.

I can imagine the process would be rather like importing scenes using 'Eneroth View Memory’ or some such.

I know that the extension ‘Cross Reference Organiser’ does this in an automated fashion but it doesn’t seem to allow the user ‘check box’ style control over what components contained within the model to be imported are included/excluded during said import. It would also make sense to integrate this functionality into Eneroth Reference Manager given all its other fabulous features.

Thoughts? Tell me I’m the only one who has encountered Tom and Harry’s problem while modelling?

Finally, I want to reiterate that this extension is already extremely useful and IMHO should, in fact, be native to SU.

[eneroth3]

Thanks for the feedback.

Eneroth Reference Manager is designed to be very closely aligned to how SketchUp handles components and links natively. This is why it works on models created prior to installing it, and models it has been used to create also works without it. Dragging and dropping files as well as the native right click > Reload… also works.

There are some limitations caused by this though. One is that the extension can’t modify any component it inserts, as that would cause SketchUp to regard it as a new separate component, causing duplicated definitions if it is inserted again. It would also break the extension’s display of sync status between the internal component and external file in the manager window. Additionally any changes to components would also mean there is more for the user to grasp to fully understand what the extension is doing and why. I’ve tried to to limit the scope of the extension to make it self explanatory.

What I do in similar situation to what you describe is to have a separate SketchUp model for this working state you mention. If I model an apartment building I even line up all the different apartment components side by side in a diagrammatical fashion in this working file. This workflow allows for the component to only include what it conceptually should include, i.e. not having the house within the site or site within the house. The working file can also contain some half-baked sketches, notes, alternative versions and other things that I want to keep separate from the components themselves.

From this working file I export the components to external files that I typically never edit directly. These files are then imported into the final assembly model.

Here’s an example of the working model for the apartments and the final building model for my bachelor project. As you can see the working file is quite messy with my notes, an old version of a some stairs and an extracted instance of the kitchen component while the resulting model is clean.

Hope this helps!

[eneroth3]

Eneroth Reference Manager is now updated with a command for directly opening linked models. It is accessible in the context menu, as well as in the Reference Manager window.

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/eneroth-reference-manager

[Early_Hominid]

Hi J,
I’ve been using this extension for a while now (Am absolutely loving it). I’m wondering, If I wanted to do a batch re-link of external components - that is, components I have saved out from a different model:

1. I select, say, 10 components in my model.
2. I open your reference manager dialogue.
3. Click ‘relink’.
4. Click ‘browse individually’ (because I want to choose external replacement components).
5. One after the other, a dialogue box opens for every component I want to relink. The problem is that in each dialogue box, I can’t tell which existing component I am about to re-link because it is not stated anywhere within the dialogue box. So, I am left to guess which particular component in my selection I am about to replace.

I hope this makes sense. There is a chance, of course, that I am doing this wrong!
BTW I am on a Mac, it might be different on Windows?

Let me know! Many thanks.

[DanRathbun]

Once you’ve made the batch selection there should be no need to keep it all selected,… so then JCE’s Relink command could select each instance (for each definition) you are about to replace, immediatley before displaying the dialog.

This and perhaps giving the open panel dialog a title with the old definition name, ie:

Relink "Fancy Widget" to ...
or
Choose file for "Fancy Widget"

[eneroth3]

The component name should be in the titlebar of the save as dialog. Maybe this title isn’t shown on all systems.

[Early_Hominid]

@DanRathbun

Once you’ve made the batch selection there should be no need to keep it all selected,…

This is true… One doesn’t need to keep the components selected, they appear in the reference manager dialogue, regardless of selection.

@DanRathbun

so then JCE’s Relink command could select each instance (for each definition) you are about to replace, immediately before displaying the dialog…

This is what does not happen, at least, on a Mac. There is no visual indication in the background reference manager dialogue box as to which component in the list is to be replaced.

[Early_Hominid]

@eneroth3

…Maybe this title isn’t shown on all systems.

That is correct, The name of specific component to be replaced doesn’t appear in the Mac equivalent dialogue. See below:

[eneroth3]

Can Mac display a title on these open/save panels in other situations? I’m wondering if this is a SketchUp API issue or a limitation in the OS. I’m passing the title when calling this dialog window.

Does this error only affect the openpanel (Relink) or also the savepanel (Save As)?