How difficult would it be to develop a plugin for myself so I use it to design Ductile iron pipework? I know 3Skeng has something that has pipework etc which looks good but it looks expensive and you also need to buy add one libraries also which adds up as they are yearly subscription.
I currently have a big library of pipes and bends etc that i have modelled and saved as a component which i just bring into the model when needed. I also add to this list when i have a new pipe size or a pipe i have not modelled before. I then use my 2D CAD blocks to create new SU components.
Has anyone had any luck which using Chat GBT to develop a plugin?
There have been a few attempts reported on the forum. As I recall, all of them needed at least some modification to work. None of them properly wrapped the code in modules to keep it out of the global name space. Also, I don’t remember seeing evidence that it knows about the SketchUp Tool protocol, which is essential for any extension that provides user interaction vs just a batch command.
If you don’t know the Ruby language, SketchUp Ruby API, and Generative Pre-trained Transformer, I don’t recommend using them to create a Sketchup extension.
Considering - that you can’t spell the AI’s name, you are unlikely to know it. You did not state your knowledge of Ruby language and SketchUp Ruby AP. In this case, hard to tell you how difficult it would be for you making Extension for Sketchup.
I would add to Steve’s comment that AI tends to refer (call) methods that are logical but do not exist.
AI lies unabashedly. (I don’t think AI even knows what a lie is.)
So if you don’t know Ruby you cant judge AI.
Perhaps ChatGPT can assist you in conceptualizing and drafting some Ruby snippets that you can use later in an extension, but it cannot build a complete, functional extension entirely on its own. I started that way myself, but later realized that I needed to study Ruby and the SketchUp documentation (and a lot more!) to get things done.
Start by writing down the steps in your manual workflow.
Then make note of procedures that you would like to streamline or automate in your current manual workflow and how your think the process would work better or faster.
Then you can compare your needs against the abilities of any existing extension(s).
If nothing exists, then you might go the route of creating a custom extension. (But I’ll warn you it is a steep learning curve unless you have prior experience with dynamic object-oriented languages and event driven programming.)
