[Plugin] Shape Bender Beta v0.55 UPDATED April 21, 2010

[Chris Fullmer]

I gotta admit, neither of those uses crossed my mind! They look great. I'm going to a cad manager meeting and I'm doing a presentation on Dynamic Components and Ruby. I'll be sure to include that example in my presentation!

Chris

[sepo]

Chris is there any solution to my problem yet?

[Gaieus]

What I'd absolutely love (and don't get me wrong, Chris, this is a brilliant ruby in its kind anyway) is if the UV maps (say positioned texture and such) would keep their maps relative to the modified (bent) mesh. I.e. if the texture bent along with the mesh itself.

Example: just imagine building perfectly textured arches in seconds.

[Chris Fullmer]

Hi Sepo, thanks for reminding me. At this point, no, I've got nothing for that. It is odd that its the same error that most people get when they have a conflicting script. But you said you unloaded all other scripts and the problem persisted, right?

[sepo]

Yes that is correct. I have installed it my quad desktop with vista and it is really fine. I have also loaded it up on my laptop xp and it fine. It is only on this xp desktop which is making error. I can't work out why. I will go again through the plugins, but these are the same ones which I have on the laptop. I must point out the first version worked fine on the xp desktop . It is the last version I have problem with. It seems it has something to do with progress.rb but I do not know where to look. BTW plugin is awesome and I see much more use for it than simple bending. Using form to do transformations seems to give a lot of possibilities.

[Chris Fullmer]

ok, I have to ask again just to be sure - as this has bitten many many people in the passed - but did you look in "compatibility files" folder? This is a special new fun feature of Vista where it hides files to keep you safe. Navigate to the plugins folder and look for a button called compatibility files as shown in the picture I found on the internet:

DH5.jpg

Ignore the path and the "games" that is circled, just notice the compatibility files button that is circled. If you have that button showing, then you have hidden plugins installed. You need to click on that button to go to your Plugins "Compatibility Files" folder. Once in it, you'll find a bunch of plugin files. You can just move them all into your plugins folder. They still work just fine when in the compatibility folder, they just make troubleshooting challenging Now is there any chance that you have a copy of component spray in that folder? Move it over to the plugins folder and then make sure you have the updated version I linked to earlier. Or for testing purposes, you could even remove all the plugins from compatibility files location and the regular plugins location temporarily. Then put back clf_shape_bende_loader, the clf_shape_bender folder, and progressbar.rb.

If you are not having the compatibility files problem, then I'm really running low on ideas. There is no reason that just my script and progressbar.rb alone should not work. Unless you also have another location that is loading ruby scripts somehow....?

Chris

[sepo]

As I said I loaded it on Vista qaud desktop. It works no problem there.
It has problem on my other desktop which runs on XP.

[Chris Fullmer]

mis-read that bit. sorry about that. Could you send me a model that it is not working on? (which should be easy if it is every model). If I can't find anything, I'll just release a simulatenous version that does not call progressbar.

Chris

[sepo]

It seems it was component spray. When I removed plugins one by one I just upgraded to new compospray thinking that will do the job. I made a point to update it as you asked before but it seems it still clashes with other plugins. I removed it now completely and it works like charm. Also made my protrude work again. I am really sorry to have bothered you.

[Chris Fullmer]

Hey, thats great!

And not a bother at all. But the new version of component spray really should be compatible now.

Mind trying to upgrade it one more time? Here is the link to the newest compatible version:

viewtopic.php?f=180&t=16446&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p129280

Chris

[sepo]

I do not know what happened when I upgraded. It works now. Thanks very much for your patience. BTW some of the forms which would have taken long time to model or were almost impossible now can be done in no time. I suggest you change the name from bend to morph because that is exactly the thing this plugin is capable of. BTW I showed the plugin to my students today. There was just one big woooow.
Thanks once again for your patience.

[Chris Fullmer]

WooHoo! Glad its all working now.

[watkins]

Dear Chris,

I have just installed your shape bender ruby and tried one of the shapes shown in Massimo's post. Amazing!! You really are a very clever chap.

It struck me that we might begin a thread where people can post tutorial examples of using your ruby to solve tricky modelling problems. Perhaps Massimo could start the thread with his two examples. This could be useful to new users of Sketchup, and also to expand the use of your ruby. As it stands it is almost a loft tool which people have been asking for for a long time.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Regards,
Bob

[Dylan]

I agree Bob.
Seeing a few examples with explanations would be a big help to people.
It seems this tool is far more poerful than it first seemed!

[gaucho]

Hi Chris,

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here.
It shows up the right bending, but when I finally press enter, it just desapers!

thanks for the plugin!

[Chris Fullmer]

@Gaucho - Could you open the Ruby Console (Windows>Ruby Console) and then run the script. It should hopefully output a bunch of errors when you hit enter. Please copy and paste those here into the forum. That should help figure out the problem. Does it happen with every model, or just that specific example?

@Bob and Dylan - I agree, I didn't think about my script doing those things quite honestly. I wouldn't mind seeing more examples to help my brain understand how the script is being used. Maybe its a gallery topic? Showing off the output from a script? I could see that. Or maybe in plugins - shape bender in action! I don't know. Or maybe I can include their images in the first post of this thread to show what the script does beyond my basic tutorial video.

Chris

[waltw]

That sounds like it did not get installed quite right. There should a file called clf_shape_bender.loader.rb in the main plugins folder. Then there should be a folder caled "clf_shape_bender" and inside that folder should exist the files:

clf_shape_bender.png
clf_shape_bender.rb
clf_shape_bender_small.png
curve_pointer.png
default_pointer.png
line_pointer.png

I'm guessing you might have ended up with everything in the main plugins folder. So manually create the clf_shape_bender folder and move all those files above into it, leaving only clf_shape_bender_loader.rb in the main plugins folders.

See if that is by chance the problem and let me know, thanks!

Chris

Thank you Chris............you were spot on
You're certainly taking SU to higher levels

[dtrarch]

Hi Chris

Your magic script will also do a follow and keep and no need to align to the end point.

Just thought y'all would like to know.

dtr

Bend_and_Follow.png

[Chris Fullmer]

Hey, thats a good one! Thanks for all the examples, very useful!

Chris

[watkins]

Dear Dtr,

Not sure how you have arrived at that. Is the bending done out of plane? Could you be more specific? A brief tut would be good.

Regards,
Bob

[massimo]

Watkins, the plugin works also out of plane.

[dtrarch]

Watkins

Reference object and reference line must be on red axis.
The reference line must also be the same length as the object and offset in plan as you want.
(in this case it was centered and above one of the elements)
1-Pick the object
2-invoke the script
3-pick the reference line
4-pick the path and [enter] to create the sweep.
Done

dtr

[watkins]

Dear Dtr,

Thanks for that. I didn't know the script would bend a group/component around a 3D path. I must pay more attention.

Kind regards,
Bob

[Pilou]

For the fun
Only problem calculates become more and more longer
Choose very fine your second curve and some funny surprises will arrive

[piyanan]

Hello any one

I did install this plugin for my SU-7
Lay down plugin clf_shape_bender and clf_shape_bender_loader.rb in my Plugin then try working see at below screenshot

1 Make group model
2 click tools
3 click line
3 click curve

And wait but notthing happen

Any one to know this problem ?

Thank

[Chris Fullmer]

Hmm, interesting. Does it just stop right there and not keep going? I've never seen it stall like that. So try this.

Open the webconsole by going to Window>Web Console.
Then run the plugin

If there are any errors or any messages that pop up in the web console, copy and paste them into this thread and I'll take a look at it.

Chris

[gaucho]

Hi Chris,

I've managed to make it work, actually, is was working already, just for some strange reason, the final bended text was located 15m above the original position...

anyway, thank you very much for this plugin.. real time saver!

[Chris Fullmer]

oh good, glad it works. Hope it keeps working!

Chris

[andyboy88]

Hi, I'm a new member and a cabinetmaker. I'm eager to try Shape Bender but I can't find the link for the script. Every link I try on the blog just takes me back to the forum's discussion page. I may be thick. Can you help?
Thanks

[•BTM]

The file is on the bottom of the first post of this discussion, page 1.