Medeek Truss

Half wrap of a hip roof return:

All of the gutters and downspouts are constructed as solids so that it is easy to manipulate them with Pro’s boolean tools or other third party solid tools.

Version 2.0.6b - 2017.11.11

I’ve added a text file in the materials sub-folder that allows one to modify the available materials (colors) for the gutters within the global settings menu.

The default values are:

8B4513:BROWN
B87333:COPPER
C0C0C0:SILVER
FFD700:GOLD
8B0000:DARK RED
0000CD:MEDIUM BLUE
006400:DARK GREEN
556B2F:DARK OLIVE GREEN
FFFFF0:IVORY

If all of these custom materials are deleted then only “white” will be available “FFFFFF” in the global settings.

The first six letters is the RGB value for the color, the description after the colon is the color name.

The Medeek Seal of Authenticity:

COA_MEDEEK3_490

This will be shown in the new license tab of the plugin global settings when the copy is fully registered.

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Had a little fun with AutoCAD and SketchUp yesterday. I created the arc aligned text in AutoCAD first and then imported the DXF, then completed the solid model in SketchUp:

I like the motto! Had to use Google Translate to understand it.

I was wondering if anyone would lookup the motto.

As you probably guessed it is latin, translated its meaning is:

“Where once there was nothing.”

The idea being that I like to create things that fill a certain void in existing technology or tools.

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Version 2.0.7 - 11.16.2017

  • Added license tab to the global settings.
  • Minor updates to the licensing system.

I’ve spent a couple days on adding language support but was unable to roll it out with this latest release. I will keep working on this in the next few days and hopefully have something to show for my efforts with the next major release.

As far as languages go I am planning on producing language files for each of the SU supported languages.

Any help with translating some of these very construction specific terms and phrases would be greatly appreciated. Google translate seems to work quite well but I don’t completely trust some of its translations.

Starting to make some head way on the translation / language support:

I’ve decided to devise my own language handler since I could not get the built in one to work.

The upside is that this allows me so support any language I choose, not just the languages supported by SketchUp. I will be adding in an option in the general settings where the user can select their language of choice.

I will also be storing the language data in a new sub-folder “lang”. My intent is to be able to make it possible for the user to add their own language file and translations if they need to.

I’ve identified a couple of major bugs with the gutter module when using metric templates. I will address those later today and roll out a sub-release. I apologize for not catching those earlier.

My first menu in Japanese:

Fortunately, I know a little Japanese so I think I’ve got these more or less correct. I will probably need to have a native Japanese speaker who is familiar with the construction industry check these over for me.

I’ve added in a language option into the General tab of the Global Settings:

I currently have nine languages that I will support however if there are any others that you would like to see added please feel free to suggest one.

I think this method is preferable over using the locale of the installed plugin since someone that is running a french version of SketchUp may want to run the plugin in English or some other combination. This allows the user to customize their user experience exactly.

Version 2.0.8 - 11.18.2017

  • Added language support for the following languages: French, Spanish, German, Russian, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese.
  • Added a language option in to the “General Tab” of the Global Settings.
  • Fixed a bug in the gutter module for metric templates.

There is still a huge amount of work to get all of the menus translated into the eight languages given above.

I apologize Version 2.0.8 had a fatal flaw in it that thankfully someone pointed out to me this morning. Please re-download sub-rev. 2.0.8b which addresses this issue immdediately.

The problem is that I am encrypting the .rb files into .rbs when I sign the plugin. I don’t want to encrypt the language files in the “lang” folder however the signing page did not know to discriminate so it encrypted those files as well and hence broke my links to them from the plugin load module.

Once I sign the extension and encrypted it I had to re-open the .rbz and put back in the unencrypted language files, problem solved.

Web based (HTML) user inputs will also require translation. These are a little more challenging than the regular (non-graphical) UI but nothing a little javascript could not overcome.

Here is the gutter tab of the global settings translated into Japanese:

The translation (creation of language files) for each menu and alert will take some time and effort.

I am offering a free license to any user who would be willing to help with the translation into their native tongue. I am still compiling a list of words and phrases but it should only number about 100 to 150 at best.

While ogee gutters are the most common type around here, it raises the question if they are common or used at all in Japan. I have no idea, just wondering.

With Japan I don’t know about the gutters, that is why I have a few shapes that can be further modified (dimensions). However, while I was living in Japan (2 years) I did notice that downspouts are not very common. The use of rain chains are much more common:

Back to complex roofs. I’ve been giving some thought to complex truss roofs and how to handle L-shaped roofs and their derivatives. Basically there is three ways to frame them out, which one is the most standard or preferred?

Is the idea to have the plugin consider all roofs to be clear span? Just wondering about interior load bearing partitions.
Just curious,

Shep

For now, yes.

I don’t think interior bearing walls would drastically affect the overall placement and truss profiles. Mostly it would change the web configurations.

Can you give me an example where this would change up the truss layout?