Hiya! I haven’t been able to find the tools I need in the existing library of SketchUp plugins, nor through SketchUcation or other forums. From my limited experience it appears these tools are entirely possible, though I expect I’ll need to have them custom created. Take a look and see if you might be interested in the job:
Tool 1, call it “Angle To Ground” — I select a group of faces and text is auto-generated at the center of each surface with a unique ID and the angle with respect to the ground plane. Ideally I have a few options such as setting the starting ID number to iterate on, using or ignoring hidden lines, and choosing the angle datum (e.g. vertical is 0°/90°, leaning back is +/-).
Tool 2, call it “Angle Between Faces” — I click a line that represents a common edge between two angled faces and a text label is generated containing the length of the edge and the angle between the faces. Would be nice to be able to control the precision of the measurement (rounding angle and length) and have the label visible on top of the geometry from any angle.
Tool 3, call it “Pattern On Face” — I click a face and a predetermined component/geometry is patterned onto the face until no more will fit. Necessary options would include defining an inset from the face border, setting the driving orientation of the pattern (e.g. longest edge or datum direction), using or ignoring hidden lines, rectangular vs triangular pattern, and of course spacing of the objects.
As you can see, these are pretty easy to explain, though the UI/options may need some tweaking to get the precise output I’m looking for. The text should also be in the environment and not a separate window or dialog… I need it to come along when I export the model as DWG or PDF. Thanks for reading, hope to work with you soon!
Two existing plugins which I helped to design and create do something close to what you want.
Slope Marker from SketchUcation will mark the slope of a face with a single click, and mark another face with one more click - as fast as selecting faces before batch marking them. It doesn’t add a unique identifier but maybe the lead author @slbaumgartner could modify it to do that.
And Angular Dimension 2 can mark the dihedral angle between two faces sharing a common edge in three clicks.
Not at my computer to demonstrate, and on my way to bed after midnight in the UK, But I’ll try tomorrow.
“Gradient Tools” can do the gradients ( slopes) on faces or edges. but it’s expressed as a slope factor , eg 1:5
Very similar to Slope Marker, by the sounds of it.
Pattern on Face is a great idea and it escapes me why this hasn’t already been invented already.
Face looks good, or, for a more random approach there’s Skatter or the more simple Fur extensions.
But getting things customised seems like a good approach - for the ones I’ve had prepared for me, they all work well and I use them often, so money well spent.
Slope marker produces a result which can be formatted in several different ways, including showing a slope line and the angle from horizontal in degrees - for example:
Is this extension available for download? I don’t see it listed in the Extension Warehouse or on your website. I’m looking specifically for the Face Array tool in the video posted by @curic4su.
I’m looking specifically for the Face Array tool in the video posted by @curic4su. I can’t find that on the Extension Warehouse, sketchucation, or on curic4su’s website.
@cannellbd Closest I’ve found is Component Array. It’s actually remarkably close to what I’m looking for, except that I can’t define the array direction off of an edge of the plane.
Hey John, Slope Marker isn’t bad! Unfortunately though, it appears to always give a downhill slope instead of driving off the front/back surface, global axes, or which side of the surface I clicked. It always reads 0-90°, legible on the downhill face (the surface leaning back). Ideally I would have been able to get any 1 of these 8 labels to read 100°, either by reversing a face or by clicking the other side.
As @john_mcclenahan mentioned, he was mainly the idea and testing guy whereas I did most of the coding for Slope Markers. I’ll take a look to see how hard this option would be to add.
So what you want is the angle measured from horizontal, but so as to be >90°?
Steve (@slbaumgartner) has responded to you in a PM with a version that shows the complementary angle (100° in your example) when you hold down shift when placing the marker. Does that do what you want?
I’m curious - what’s the use case for that?
I don’t understand where you would use it in modelling (for example) building construction, or terrain modelling, road or railway construction (for the which the plugin was designed) but perhaps you are in a different field?
I’m in kinetic architecture, my main product consists of geometric panels installed at varying angles to create a faceted aesthetic. Some of the panels are leaning forward (ie >90°) and some backward (ie <90°), so I need to be able to identify them in the model so that they are differentiated in an export/print. The angle drives installation.
I see the message, thank you! I’ll get back to @slbaumgartner on that.
