SpaceDesign Wish List Revisited

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on June 1, 2011 at 6:22am

Groups to Components

 

We added a right click "Convert group copies to Components" to RpTools. It only works on one group, and any copies of it, at a time. This won't be as handy as you would like (e.g. it will not automatically drill into the model and replace all groups with components) But it should still be a useful tool. (The new version of RpTools has not been released yet)

 

I believe ThomThom's script will convert multiple groups, but does not use the group name as the component definition name.

 

If you wish, you can use ThomThom's script, by adding these last three lines at the appropriate place:

(That will fix his script to set the component name to match the group name)     
     
      # Iterate through the rest of the copies
      protodef = proto.definition
      if (group_name != "")
         protodef.name = group_name
      end#if

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on June 1, 2011 at 6:29am

Space Design Label Tool

 

We intend to do something along this line, but haven't done anything yet.

 

We posted a query on SCF (Place Label Tool) to see if anyone had a labeling tool alreay which we could modify, but it looks like we will have to write it from scratch. We will probably request that you select which attributes you want to use for labeling, then click on a component and click where you want the label placed.

 

We don't have a time frame for when this will be completed.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on June 1, 2011 at 6:30am

Increment (ID) Button

 

I had never responded to this in the original thread.

 

We will plan to add this feature to SpaceDesign.

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on June 1, 2011 at 6:33am

Scene Names

 

I had never responded to this either.

 

I just added this:

Substitutions

If you include the following in the text, it will be replaced by the proper values:

• %model% - the file name of the current model
• %scene% - the name of the current scene
• %date% - today's date

 

We will also try to add page numbers if we are not doing that already.

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on June 1, 2011 at 6:44am

Import / Export of Attributes

 

Import / Export of Attributes (CSV) (see screen dump)

Potentially I think this feature is REALLY useful.

Currently as far as I can see it only works with Components (Not Groups).

The reimport of data uses the Component Definition Name from the CSV file to associate the newly edited attributes back to the appropriate Component - unless I misunderstand this feature. This is a bit limited.

.................

This feature would be much more useful if the user could choose which field is used to rejoin any attributes from a CSV file back to Components / Groups. Currently its not possible to populate INDIVIDUAL instances of a particular Component from a CSV file- unless the Component is unique.

...............

Suggested possible future way of working with CSV files with Space Design:

1. User Exports out CSV - All Fields or Selected Fields - Effectively this would be the same as existing Space Design feature CSV Report - you could even drop current method and use CSV Reports which work really well. Components AND Groups are processed.

2. User adjusts attributes in Spreadsheet as required.

3. On reimporting attributes, user is prompted for which field from the newly updated CSV file to link back to which field from the Components / Groups inside SketchUp. (eg a user defined ID field).

4. This way, users could for example define an ID field (if required) for Groups / Components and be able to uniquely identify geometry. This ID field would be set up (and populated) using Space Design inside SketchUp BEFORE the CSV file was initially exported out.

..........................................

Long term it would be REALLY good if you could have a live link to a database eg MS Access / MySQL etc.

 

The import/export feature was developed to add attributes to components which would then be used in a component library. At the time we did not have a concept of "Instance Attributes" which are attributes stored on a component instance.

 

What I think would work here is:

 

1. We export a CSV file with a unique ID for each component instance or group. (We cannot use the SketchUp Entity ID, because it is not preserved between sessions  - so as you do the export we will place a unique ID on each item exported, and include it in the export file)

 

2. We will only export the Unique ID, the item name, and any "instance attributes"

 

3. You can then modify the CSV file as desired and re-import it.

 

4. The ID field will not be permanent - since it is too hard to keep up with copying entities, etc. It will work well as long as you don't modify the model between the export and the import.

 

 

 

I will add this and we can give it a try and improve it over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Uzeno on June 1, 2011 at 1:58pm

Import / Export of Attributes

 

I have a quick try with the with this a couple of weeks ago, and I did not get it to work as I had expected, although the import / export did work.

 

I was expecting the attributes to visible in the component, saving and loading the component the attributes were available in SD for reporting, but not in the component.  I think the attributes are stored as SD attributes.

 

Can I suggest an enhanced version or a separate plugin that would:-

Import / Export attributes from a dynamic component in the ‘native’ format of a sketch up component,

be able to also add new attributes to a component, including the various settings  (Units, Display rule, Display label & Display in), and formulas not just fixed values.

Be able to also import values / formulas for  pre-built attributes (Component Info, Position, Size, Rotation, Behaviours & Form Design)  including display options for each (Units, Display rule, Display label & Display in) etc.

 

I’m in the process of creating about 50 dynamic components and they all require a core of common attributes and calculations for use in Space Design, I would really like a plug in that could import them all in. The closest plugin I found was Apply To by Rick Wilson, (http://www.smustard.com/script/ApplyTo) but that just creates a clone of the donor component.

 

Al would you consider creating such a plugin? I think there is a large potential market for such a tool.

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