FaceUp for SketchUp

Extensions
1

Hi there folks!

A few days ago, I uploaded a new extension to the Extension Warehouse.
It’s designed to:

:one: Create faces from a selection of edges and orient them effectively.
:two: Extrude selected faces to generate solid groups.

Trailer:

A quick example of use:

FaceUp on Extension Warehouse
:link: Extension | SketchUp Extension Warehouse

FaceUp on GitHub
:link: https://github.com/alsomar/faceup

19 Likes
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Awesome. Giving Eneroth’s FaceCreator and Fredo’s JointPushPull some competition :wink:

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yeah, at first I thought the same, I already use both, no need for a new one.
but then I saw this.

Capture d’écran 2023-12-04 à 16.16.11
(first video, about mid)
it’s not just making a pushpull on each face. it’s making each face become a separate grouped volume.

and that’s nice.
because right now, say I have a wall + insulation in my dwg, I’ll create the faces with eneroth’s tool, then group both faces separately so that when I pushpull, I get two separate 3d volumes ready to be manipulated.

with yours, it does the job by itself. and if it’s too zealous, you just have to merge volumes afterward

nice

2 Likes
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Good call out. This now has the potential to replace three extensions - including CLF’s loose to groups.

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A common part of my workflow is to copy a face in a group, exit the group, paste in place, group, enter that group and move on from there. This sounds interesting.

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Hi Eric,

Thank you for your feedback. I watched Zoe Mia’s video on CLF’s Loose to Groups for clarity. It seems CLF’s tool groups loose geometry, requiring a volume, whereas my extension turns individual faces into solid groups, which is slightly different.

I must say, I agree with your assessment of Fredo6’s JointPushPull – it’s an incredibly versatile tool, capable of various extrusions. My extension has a more specific function: it simply converts faces into solids, not offering the broad range of extrusion options that Fredo6’s tool does.

Regarding Eneroth’s Face Creator, while both our tools create faces, mine also orients each face toward the camera, which adds a unique aspect to it.

Despite not having interacted directly, I have been following your work for years, admiring your SketchUp Arcade Machine and your magnificent contributions to the community. This is why I feel deeply saddened reading your responses. If you truly believe there has been any bad faith on my part, or that I have not acted appropriately, I will remove all my extensions from the Extension Warehouse tonight. Please believe me when I say I am genuinely sorry and never intended to harm the developer community.

Kind regards.

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Oh, I don’t think he meant that at all! In fact, I think it was a compliment. Typed words in a BB can be easily misinterpreted.

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Hello Alejandro

Thank you for this great plugin. Very simple to use, simple interface! It will be very useful!

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I think my response may have been misunderstood. I was congratulating you for creating an extension that combines, and as you’ve clarified, improves upon existing extensions. There’s no bad faith that I can see here. Thanks for making the extension and keep it up as we’re always in need of new extensions and ideas to keep SketchUp both fun and powerful to use.

4 Likes
10

I’m so sorry, I misunderstood your messages. I guess I’m not having the best days lately and am a bit sensitive about certain things. Thank you very much for your response, and I deeply appreciate your kind words. Have a great day.

6 Likes
11

Ok, I see now. It’s not what I was talking about here, but what it does do is truly helpful: Each face, even if adjacent to another, becomes a solid object of it’s own. Native Push-Pull gets confused when faces adjoin each other and just makes a deformed face rather than even make one solid let alone a bunch of them. For importing plan drawings in particular, this is truly helpful. I was recently given a really badly drawn DWG floor plan of a large commercial space and a soul crushing deadline to work in. I think I resorted to @Box’s trick of extruding the negative space and then reversing what’s solid and what’s void to do the massive quantity of extrusions as quickly as possible. I wish I had this at the time.

Thinking of Box’s trick, which he mostly shows for Follow Me tasks prompts an idea for the next release: Make the same function this does now for Push-Pull work for Follow Me as well. For example, all the times people ask about making stranded rope or wire: Select multiple faces and have follow me yield multiple groups all in one action.

1 Like
12

Exactly, the primary aim of FaceUp is to streamline the process of importing DWG files and efficiently converting them into volumetric models. This is achieved through the two tools of the extension.

3 Likes
13

I’ve used many “make faces” plugin over the years (Eneroth, SketchPlus, s4u, TIG, the old Smustard one by Todd Burch…) and your “orient to camera” + “extrude to groups” tricks might make me settle on this one as my main tool, thank you very much!

A couple of suggestions, if you don’t mind:

  • Create faces inside groups and components without having to go into them to select edges directly. From the list above, only Eneroth does this iirc, and it can be really convenient, especially with dwg imports with many blocks (components) with no faces in them.
  • A third option that combines the two modes of your plugin: Summon and Extrude. That’s the defining workflow/feature of the plugin after all. I tried “extruding” faces with 0cm height, and it works! It converts faces, even if they’re touching, into separate groups, which can be really helpful. If we had these two features, I could make a selection of edges and groups/components, then run a Summon and Extrude command to create separated individual face groups in one go (something I do a lot with CAD imports, right now in multiple steps).
  • Possibility to complete the extrude operation with a double click? Having to move my mouse hand to press Enter is slightly inconvenient :slight_smile:
  • Remember the last used extrusion value instead of a fixed 100cm
  • One thing I like about the old Smustard Make Faces plugin is that it pops up a window after the operation where it reports how many faces it created. This can sometimes be helpful with more complex models for troubleshooting. Having to dismiss an extra window after every operation is annoying though, of course, so I’d ideally love it if it simply flashed a more inconspicuous “X faces created” report on a corner of the screen that fades away after a second or two. Admittedly, this is a rather niche feature suggestion so feel free to not even consider it.
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Hi @farukahmet,

Thank you so much for your insightful feedback and suggestions! I really appreciate the time you took to share these ideas. Here are my thoughts on some of your points:

  • Combining ‘Summon and Extrude’ Modes: This concept was indeed considered during early development. My current focus is on refining the existing tools, but integrating a combined ‘Summon and Extrude’ feature is a strong possibility for a future update.
  • Completing Extrusion with a Double Click: That’s an interesting suggestion I hadn’t considered before. I will look into the feasibility of implementing this to enhance user convenience.
  • Remembering the Last Used Extrusion Value: This is already on my to-do list. I’m working on making the tool more user-friendly by remembering your previous settings.
  • Reporting the Number of Faces Created: While I understand the utility of this feature from the old Smustard Make Faces plugin, I’m cautious about interrupting the workflow with pop-up windows. I will explore alternative, less intrusive ways to provide this information.

Keep an eye out for future updates where some of these features might be implemented!

Warm regards.

1 Like
15

Hi, looks very promising indeed, bravo !
Could it possibly move the line geometry to Untagged ?
(often we inherit dwg s with loads of layers/tags so when extruding the lines on the solids remain on the original tags/layers which is a bit annoying)
Anyway, many thanks :slight_smile:

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Great suggestion! That’s the way it should work, I totally agree.
I’ll try to implement this feature in upcoming versions.
Have a nice day!

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Fab’ Thanks :slight_smile:

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18

Consider spelling “length” correctly (not ‘lenght’)

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Oops! Thank you for pointing out this typo.

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If you would like a complet(er) check of the language in the UI send me a resource file or something and I’ll look it over (no charge).
gregor(dot)shapiro(at)gmail(dot)com
P.S. This submission through your website form was considered spam!