Hi Igor,

> At the moment SKP export is neither usable for an
> experienced user nor for a starter <...>

I know for sure that this is not correct, because the only feedback that I've had up until now is from people who are using it successfully for their work.

Yours is the first feedback about the groups issue.


> You may leave number of options available currently via UI
> as it is and the rest (for "experienced users") hide in the
> ini file

The UI is only one of the issues (although certainly a big one) - it also takes me a lot of effort just to implement numerous configuration options, especially in a case like this where the documentation for the library is poor and where the overall mechanism has many things to look out for.

Just writing the geometry well involved quite a lot of work due to various issues that had no mention in documentation, like vertices cannot be closer than 0.001 units apart, exporting polylines will crash if you create them with line segments and the vertices of the line segments get merged with existing geometry, etc.., etc.., etc... it's not like I can just throw a switch and instantly have new export features working totally smoothly, on the contrary it takes a lot of effort to make them work well. Particularly in something that has proven to be delicate and have numerous issues.

So in general these things get developed at a somewhat slower pace - it is not feasible for me to just load in a ton of options "just in case" for things that I'm not sure are even going to be used or not.

So instead of just saying you want options for all kinds of different behavior, it helps me a lot if you could prioritize what would be the most important for you, so that I can implement things one step at a time with the most important stuff getting implemented first.

From what it sounds like, an option to export each MoI object as a separate group would be the highest priority thing, is that correct? I think that I understand how that should work. That seems like it could be the best starting point for the next feature work on SKP export.

For layers or materials, that one could need to wait a bit until I get some more feedback on what would be the most expected way to have that work...

> But in my experience the common SU practice is taught
> in the very first lesson about SU

Are any of these lessons online or in the official SketchUp documentation? If you can point me towards some documentation that gives some official recommendation to not assign geometry to other layers than layer 0 for example, that would definitely help make it easier for me to focus on that as the main method to process stuff.

- Michael

Thanks Michael!

ps At the moment SKP export is neither usable for an
> experienced user nor for a starter <...>
in terms of post-processing I meant - otherwise export is the best of the best

The groups is the highest priority - you are correct!

I'll point you to the relevant Google training vids when I get home for general method with layers

Regards
Igor

not sure that help but... ;)
http://code.google.com/intl/fr/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/layers.html

Else big difference with other prog
Layers are only for visibility not for the geometry!
(a window layer a, glass layer b, you change size window, glass is changed also)
so you must make groups or components for avoid that
Something drawn on a layer is visible on all other layers!!!
Something on calque 0 inside a group on layer b will be visible on layer b even you hide Layer 0
it's not the case for layers different than layer 0

Ideal is drawing something in layer 0, then dispatch it on a other layer

it's for that than some people don't never use layers but just the Onliner!
(only layer0 as you can't kill it)
all is managed by the arborescence and names object
so you must be just well organised and all works perfectly without layers!
No problem of a groups in layer a, other part in layer 0 etc...
only one layer :)

you don't want see something? Select & Right click on the name(s) in the Outliner / hide et voilà :)
Of course you can make anything in the Outliner
group anything, make component anything, move anything etc

So yes "group" first from Moi to Sketchup will be very fine :)
Components will be more complex because they can be also gluying, cutting...

Michael

Let me be clear - We have two issues - one is grouping - the other is style translation

As for the first - as we have agreed - it will be useful.

As for the second - there's not yet a clear vision what would be the best but i want to make a suggestion.

As I had some time to think over where styles should go (layers or materials) I came to a conclusion that it should be materials

Sorry I misguided you first as I was mislead by what you once said regarding styles as layers. Layers are of no particular use in Skp (as Pilou also mentioned) so I suggest a new paradigm - say I need to model a pen or a teapod which isn't quite easy to do in su
So i go moi and model it there - then i assign different styles for different parts of a model and them export it to su (for presentation)
In su the moi styles automatically traslated into materials and if there is an already setup material named same as style - then style becomes that material
By that I have fully prepared beautiful materials in su as well as entourage and a moi model ready to be styled, rendered or documented. That makes sense to me. I Mean I assign SKP materials right inside MoI

And when you introduce groups in MoI those may become layers or a group of groups as i previously mentioned.

this paradigm will significantly intensify use of MoI in my everyday practice

what you think?

Regards
Igor

I do a lot of Sketchup work so here are my opinions:

Export objects as groups. Assign style colors as materials. All geometry and groups placed on Layer 0.

It is possible to also export geometry as locked groups, which can be safer but is not actually high on my list. When you import landscape geometry from Google Earth into Sketchup it comes in locked.

That's all; keep it as simple as possible.

Stay away from Layers. I have read that the only reason Sketchup has layers is because they knew they would have to import AutoCad layers somehow. Beginners can really screw up their geometry if they don't know how to use layers.

As the discussion has shown, edges, faces and vertices of two different objects can be stuck together if they get too close in Sketchup. This can happen between two objects that are on different layers if they are not grouped, even if one of the layers is turned off. So you can drag around all kinds of invisible stuff if you aren't careful. I don't use layers much. I prefer to hide/unhide groups and components in the Outliner.

It would be impractical to export objects as components because each component has its own axes. Well designed components require well placed axes which is a step you might as well take in Sketchup rather than an export dialog. It is easy enough to select a group and make it a component once it is imported.

unc

Thanks Igor & Pilou & unc for the additional feedback, that's helping to get things on a clearer track.

This whole business of "SketchUp has layers but you shouldn't use them" is kind of weird.

Also the interaction in SketchUp between groups and layers was somewhat baffling to me for a bit, but I think I've figured out now that layer0 is treated in a special way, with geometry set to layer0 taking on the color of the group's own layer, while geometry in other layers retains its geometry's own layer color or something along those lines.

The whole idea of a group having its own layer assignment as a separate thing from its geometry's layer assignments just seems like a kind of strange thing, particularly with the idea of overriding just some of those children's layer assignments but not others...

Some of this appears to apply to materials as well, since there seems to be a concept that a group can have its own material assignment as a separate thing from the materials assigned to faces within the group. It looks like if the faces are assigned to their own materials, then assigning a material to the group (or using the paint bucket on the whole group object) does nothing at all, which seems like it may be confusing to people.

On the other hand if I assign materials only to groups then that doesn't seem like it will be compatible with multiple materials within the same solid (if solids are exported as groups), like if you assign the top face of a box in MoI to be Style = Red, but have the side walls be Style = Blue...

I guess that I would assign materials to the faces so that multi-material solids would work as expected, and then just hope that people will know that they need to double-click or explode the group before their paintbrush tool in SketchUp would actually do anything to it. These kinds of things may be why I would not export objects as groups by default but have it as an option that you could turn on.

- Michael

I totally support this approach with just one little notion,

If a solid in Moi would have a single style assigned to it - I would go and assign a material to a group in Sketchup. If multiple materials are assigned to different parts of a solid in MoI - then I'd assign a material to each respective geometry part inside a group in SU

I personally always on purpose model solids as one style and if i get a group which has a mat assigned to geometry inside of a group in case of a multifaceted solid - I'd have to manually repaint each and every facet if i need to change a mat.

(of course there are plug-ins in SU - but that's not a neat way but a workaround)

No matter how you do eventually implement the feature I'm already happy as it's already looks like a good upgrade for me))

Thanks
Igor

Hi Igor,

> If a solid in Moi would have a single style assigned to it - I
> would go and assign a material to a group in Sketchup. If
> multiple materials are assigned to different parts of a solid
> in MoI - then I'd assign a material to each respective geometry
> part inside a group in SU

That seems like it should be feasible, so this will be the plan for v3. I've got these (export objects as groups and styles as materials in this way) on my list of stuff to add in to v3.

Thanks for the feedback on planning how to make this work!

- Michael

< my list of stuff to add in to v3.
I don't want to know how long is this list! :D

Hi, im curious... was all this implemented on v3? Cause I desperately need it!

@Edy17
You need what exactly ?

If that is about group or other components
you can make that : name al your different futur objects (or not)
Export as 3DS files format, reload it in Sketchup - explode them in Sketchup = you have different Components !
and they will named obj0, obj1, obj2 etc...
In case where some components are exactly the same (like a copy)
use this plugin from Thomthom who make "Instance" of one! ;)
Components comparaison: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=30143

Have fun exporting!

Hi Ed,

re:
> Hi, im curious... was all this implemented on v3? Cause I desperately need it!

Sorry no it was not implemented for v3, it's still on the "to do" list for some future version.

- Michael

Pilou: I tried that but it makes triangles and it is difficult to edit on sketchup.

Ok Michael, thank you.