[Request] make scroll-zoom ignore faces with transparent material on them

hi there,

it would be supercool if there was a plugin that makes it “default” possible to scroll zoom and kind of ignore transparent faces… when there are many “glass” elements etc… its a mess if you you scroll behind a panel…

:slight_smile:

best, franz

Do you want to scroll through transparent faces as if they were holes (not slow down scrolling speed)?

SketchUp’s Ruby API poses one problem: An extension can only listen to scroll events when it is the active tool. That means either you would have the desired behavior only when you activate this scroll extension, or the developer would have to duplicate a lot of tools (orbit, but also drawing tools) and their exact behavior.

I’m confused. Zoom affects the view of the entire model. Do you mean that you would want a different zoom speed from the scroll wheel if the cursor is over a transparent face?

And with what purpose, ? … to better understand the request.

Ideally what would be good would be a modifier key that allowed you to zoom through things whether transparent or not. Nobody likes getting stuck inside a wall, but equally you don’t want to zoom through when you want to zoom close. It’s the nature of the zoom tool that when it gets close it slows down, needs an accelerator key for those times you want to put your foot down.

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hey there,

thanks for the replies and feedback…

the idea is to make navigation easier…

for example large office space with lots of glass walls… zoom is not an option there… you have to orbit and walk etc… but the main “navigation tool” is the scroll wheel of the mouse?!

sure one could switch to walk mode or get a space navigator etc… but i like the suggestion from user Box alot… a modifier key that makes the scroll effect temporary ignore the context and scroll a fixed amount… that would be a good start :slight_smile: but better yet would be an option to just ignore specific materialas or layers… then the problem was gone entirely…

nothing big really but i just found this to be annoying and how often do we see people scrollllllllllllling… until they are through a wall etc…
best, franz

“default” in your context means modify the native tools which Ruby tools cannot do.

So then moving this to the Feature Requests category.

I find this actually very useful. It is a situation that probably all SketchUp users have already hit. (@jbacus ?)

But having implemented a scroll and orbit functionality myself, I know it is not trivial. What fixed amount is the right amount? Models vary in size between millimeters and hundreds of meters, so the step size depends somehow on the context (one can consider a wider context, not the single point under the cursor). An approach could be to “freeze” the current scroll speed the moment when you press the modifier while you approach the wall.

It seems to me unnatural to walk through walls (you get weird effects when you are half through). 2D graphics are an analogy to the real world, maybe there is a better way to navigate into the room behind the glass wall? For example with floors on layers, I would keep the upper floors hidden and zoom out through the now open ceiling and zoom down into the neighboring room.

Or maybe that is the power of 3D graphics that you can take these shortcuts directly through walls?

One thing you could do right now that doesn’t require you to wait for a feature to be added is to use layer tags and turn off the visibility for the glass panel groups/components in the model when they would otherwise be in the way.

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Thanks for or the active discussion :slight_smile:
Sure enough there are always “workarounds” but a somewhat native intuitive solution would be nice… a modifier key to ignore transparent materials is very close imho