VBO Ducting Basic

Who wants to “play” duct modeling in an easy and fun way? Please give this a test
(318) VBO Ducting Basic - YouTube
The download link (free) is in the video’s description.
Thank you.

I drew a line and clicked the Round Pipe button, and got “Selection must contains proxy!”.

Do I need to set up a proxy component for this? I didn’t read that in the instructions.

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The edges that are used to create a duct or piping branch need to be grouped together.

Create your path that the ducts will follow, group the edges, then run the plugin. The group of edges is was the plugin refers to as a proxy.

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Hi VBO!

A very useful extension with a few niggles that I am not sure is my issues or the extension.

If my duct changes direction away from the “plane” of the starting duct then the duct wont follow the correct orientation yet the correct elbow was actually used prior for a flat turn.

Is this something that I am doing incorrectly?

image

Try to change a bit the path…
7d7a95c3436c3b64b344d55e42b14383c0c42abe

You are changing two directions at the same time (or direction + rotation)

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@rtches Yes I could do that but I end up with the orientation not as I need it. At the point where it is disconnected I would normally use a flat 90 to keep the duct orientation the same in the vertical plane.

But it is OK if that is just a limitation of the extension. I just explode everything and grab the flat ninety and put it together by hand at that point then continue with a new section.

This is a great Plugin!
I’m unable to get into edit path mode though - double clicking or using the “edit fitting” tool doesn’t work - any idea how I can do this?

For anyone with the same issue you can break into two sections and then swap the W x H for H x W and it work.

You may use a special fitting. See this SU file.

Duct double change in direction.skp (228.0 KB)

Ah…sorry my image was what happens “organically” if I create one group. What I really wanted was the duct to stay “in plane” so that karked up joint would have been a flat turn if that makes sense.

What I have found is a work around is that I need to do this in 2 groups and for the 2nd group change the duct dimension from A x B to B x A and then it gives me a perfect results.

Also if any one has tried the round duct it is giving me elbows that are way larger than the duct size. Not a big issue for me as I am happy to use a follow me for round ducts but just an observations.

I just downloaded the VBO Ducting Basic plugin and i get this…any idea what going on?

I think the problem is with the scale of the components VBO uses. Try to scale the to fit…

Scale to fit? how in the world does one do that? can you provide more info?

Find the file where the plugin has the “source” components and try that all of them have the same diameter.
I use the pro version and I remember having to scale them.

here is the solution.
1…Go to the plugins folder (C:\Users"your user name"\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2023\SketchUp\Plugins\vbo_mep_ducting\models\Round HVAC Duct).
2. replace “VBO_E90_HVAC.skp” with the attached file. I fixed the scale of the source elbow file.
VBO_E90_HVAC.skp (33.4 KB)
3. That fixed it for me.