I want to move a group at the top level to within a nested group and have been attempting to use Instance Path to do so without success.
Here is the scenario…
Group_A and Group_X are at the top level
Inside Group_A is a nested group named Container_A
I need to get Container_A by iterating the model entities to find it by name.
I want to move Group_X into Container_A
My approach is to iterate the model to get the instance path for Container_A then later use the instance path to open it for editing and copy Group_X into it, thereby avoiding any cross-threading crashes.
Here is how I am getting the instance path…
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Group){|this_group|
if this_group.name == "Group_A"
this_group.entities.grep(Sketchup::Group){|this_ent|
if this_ent.name == "Container_A"
# capture the instance path for later use
@instance_path = Sketchup::InstancePath.new([this_ent])
end
}
end
}
and this is how I am copying Group_X…
# open the matched group for editing
Sketchup.active_model.active_path = @instance_path
# create a copy of Group_X in the active context, which should be Group A!!!
copy_of_Group_X = Sketchup.active_model.active_path[0].definition.entities.add_instance(Group_X.definition, Group_X.transformation)
# erase the original Group_X
Group_X.erase!
I think your issue is misunderstanding InstancePath. You must create it from an array of the entities in the nesting hierarchy leading from the model context to the leaf entity (this_ent). You only put in the leaf, so SketchUp thinks this ent is in the model. You need to put this_group in the Array before this_ent.
If I wanted to descend to an entity 27 levels deeper than the top level, I would have to record each entity along the way, resulting in an instance path array with 27 entries?
I recommend you don’t start Variables with a capital letter as Ruby will think it’s a Constant, and when you change it a message will appear in the Console.
Also why not simply use the group’s definition entities directly without worrying about ‘active_path’ at all ?
### earlier on set
this_group.entities.grep(Sketchup::Group){|this_ent|
if this_ent.name == "Container_A"
@defn = this_ent.definition
break
end
}
### later
copy_of_group_X = @defn.entities.add_instance(group_X.definition, group_X.transformation)
### etc
NB. I’ve de-capitalized your variables…
If you have several instances of the same group and only want to add into one of them then before that you need to use group.make_unique
So only that group is affected…
Hi Tig. I did not know that about variable names… Thanks!
That was the approach I was using that caused a crash, which got me thinking I should use the instance_path approach.
I am able to confirm that I have captured the correct group before attempting the copy by checking the entityID but unfortunately Bugsplat nonetheless.
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