[Plugin] Sketchup Ivy

[Pierreden]

After playing with "An Ivy Generator"(found here) I thhought about how awesome it would be to be able to play with something like this directly in Sketchup. I therefore started to port the ivy generator to ruby and Sketchup. As i now have working code with regards to the main parts of the algorithm, collition detection, adhesion and the growing of the ivy branches, i decided to post a proof of concept.


Usage
-Select "Sketchup Ivy..." in the Plugins sub-menu
-Adjust Parameters in Menu
-Every time you click your left mouse button, the ivy will grow
-CTRL-Click for leafs (repeat as many times you want)
-When you're happy with the ivy Shift-click to make it into actual volumes.

Please get the latest version's RBZ from the PluginStore

Download

Now suitable for all OSs and SketchUp versions from v8 through to v2015...




VERSION 0.6
UPDATE 12.05.2011
-Tooltip
-Minor bug fixes
-Additional parameters.

VERSION 0.5
UPDATE 09.05.2011
- Will now use components with "ivyleaf" in the name as leafs. 3 included by default.
- Hopefully better mac support
- Small algorithm changes
- ALT+click to make ivy grow towards pointer
- Thea users: uncheck 'export as components' before exporting. (Thanks Solo)
Fix 0.5.2
- Tool startup fix (maybe?)

VERSION 0.3
UPDATE 05.05.2011
- Simple gui. (More parameters to come)
- Leaves
- Speed and reliability
- I know theres some issues with mac. As i haven't had the opportunity to debug on a mac, im not sure if its working now. Mac users with issues are very welcome to PM me or write here. (Guess this goes for everyone with issues, im sure there is lots ).

VERSION 0.1.5
UPDATE 28.04.2011
[Uploaded buggy file !! Sorry]
- Added Wind (comming from the position of the sun atm)
-Bug fixes

VERSION 0.1
UPDATE 27.04.2011
- Faster Preview
- Better Ivy "Resolution"
- Faster and more reliable volume generation (less buggsplats?)
- Face normals should now be oriented correctly
- More reliable collision detection
- A few bugs in the force algorithms fixed.
- Works as before. Edit the values in Plugins/SketchupIvy/setup.rb

TO COME
- Leaves as Components
- More Parameters and grow patterns.
- Other Plugins. Fur, Cloth and Tree.



Notes
- Never shift-click when there is more than 150 branches (information in the ruby console). This will often cause a bugsplat (seems like sketchup realy, realy, realy doesn't like programmaticaly adding of entities or seemingly infinit loops :/ )
- For the adhesion to work, you have to be in the same scope (i made this to clearify (face.classify_point seems buggy)
- This script has only been tested in SU8. As far as i know this script might cause bugsplat infernos and generally fuck shit up in other versions
- If you find any bugs or problems please PM me If you're extra awesome attach the error description from the ruby console.


Any suggesions, comments or crits are very much welcome!

Peace
Pierre

[Mike Lucey]

Thanks Pierre, Could this be the new 'Fur'?

[Pierreden]

Thanks Pierre, Could this be the new 'Fur'?

I havent realy seen the connections before now, but i guess this algorithm is sort of like "fur branching of furs". I believe tha changes needed for this to behave as fur is minimal! brb

[dbalex]

nice! thanks for this! finally an ivy generator inside sketchup!

[Pixero]

Great. I will surely be following this thread.

[rombout]

hi,

im working on a mac, the plugin doesnt seem to work at all in niether Su 6,7 nor 8

[solo]

Download link sends my virus software into a tizzy, anyway to host it elsewhere?

[Pierreden]

Download link sends my virus software into a tizzy, anyway to host it elsewhere?

Try this one

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xou6dj

[Pierreden]

hi,

im working on a mac, the plugin doesnt seem to work at all in niether Su 6,7 nor 8

Thats not good. I would really appreciate it if you could PM me the error message you get in the ruby console (Window - Ruby Console)

Regards

[Rich O Brien]

Hi Pierre,

Great plugin. We normally add the [Plugin] tag to the title to help search/identify plugins. Just edit your original post. You can also edit the original when you update version numbers so members can see it's been tweaked.

Great to have you around SCF

[solo]

Thanks.

Okay it works fine. I will wait for the leaves however as at moment it looks like a growing spider.

A GUI would be awesome and if qnything like Ivy generator which can follow a profile like an arch would also be brilliant, as well as gravity/adhesive controls

Great start.

[thomthom]

Very interesting project. I'll give it a whirl when I get time and maybe poke about in the code. Ivy generator is something I've wished I had on several projects.

[Gaieus]

Hi Pierre and indeed it seems to be a very exciting project.

I've been making ivy with the fur plugin so far but a more straightforward and "real" ivy generator would be much better of course!

Any chance to attaching the file straight to the first post though? Some member have issues with this, others with that file hosting services (some are not accessible in certain countries) etc.

(Surely I cannot tell a script author where to host his plugin - just suggestions for easier use)

[tomislavm]

Thank You!

[Alan Fraser]

Very interesting start. Just to get the coder's cog wheel whirring; you realise of course that a random growth generator has implications way beyond just ivy? Especially if it has a GUI that allows you to control variables like the upper limit of vector change, the amount of branching and taper, number of segments per limb etc.
Obviously, Follow Me won't follow a branching path...but there is a Max plugin called Branches that generates a single, random, tapering limb. What you then do is click on a joint higher up; and it shoots off another branch, taking the overall scale of this offshoot to be based on the now (reduced) diameter of the original limb at that point. Now that would be really something.

[Edit} 20 minutes, 1 cup of coffee and 1 V-Ray render later. This is a very useful plugin, even in it's early stages.

ivy.jpg

[Pierreden]

Wow. Thanks for all the replies!

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

@Alan: Yes. That seems brilliant! (one day It really seems like this Ivy algorithm has a lot of potential (way beyond ivy). And in regards to what you said about gui, this is what i have in mind.It is scene-aware and quite easy to customize. Last night I rewrote a chunk of it , added an external force (wind, comming from the sun) and tried to make it a bit more aware of the scene. After some tweaking it realy looks like a good Fur plugin - (screenshots below). I guess it wouldnt be too hard to make it in to a tree growing algorithm og even combine these into a powerpack of branching awesomeness.

Regards
Pierre

[thomthom]

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

Yes - under the textbox when you write a post there is an "Upload attachment" tab where you can upload files.

[Pierreden]

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

Yes - under the textbox when you write a post there is an "Upload attachment" tab where you can upload files.

Hehe, sorry about that. Latskap.

[Gaieus]

And I have just checked; the extension "rar" is also allowed (I thought maybe that's the problem).

[Sergio Morera]

Thank you for your generosity. I look forward to give it a try

[Didier Bur]

Hi,

Very interesting. Two remarks/questions: lots of branches have their faces reversed. Do you think this will be fixed in a future release ?
Do I have to play with the parameters to make it 'grow', as it seems to 'fall' more than to climb ?
Regards,

ivy.jpg

[Oxer]

Hi,
A very interesting plugin, i have used Ivy Generator by Thomas Luft but it's better if you can make ivy into Sketchup directly.
I use Mac and the plugin don't works on OSX, i hope that you can solved this problem.
Bye and congratulations for this promising plugin.

This is a unfinished old project, i would like make this into SU directly.

Hiedra.png

[robert111]

can anyone make tuto for this nice plugin plzzzzzzzzzzz

thanks robert

[andre51]

Great plugin! Thanks a lot

ivy.jpg

[Pierreden]

Hi,

Very interesting. Two remarks/questions: lots of branches have their faces reversed. Do you think this will be fixed in a future release ?
Do I have to play with the parameters to make it 'grow', as it seems to 'fall' more than to climb ?
Regards,

I think both off these issues have been fixed in the v.0.1 release


@Oxer:
I can take a look at it. If you could PM me the error output in the ruby console it would be of great help! ("windows" > "Ruby console" inside sketchup and then try to make a new Ivy with this window open and copy the error message)

[Oxer]

I probe the plugin again and don't works, the Console window appears blank and happens nothing.

Captura de pantalla 2011-04-27 a las 00.59.52.JPG

Sorry Pierreden but i would like help you more, if there are another mac users please comment about the use of the plugin on Mac OSX.

[Alan Fraser]

Some great improvements there...and pretty easy to customise (I doubled the float length). One issue I have on my system is that when the progress meter hits 100% I still can't see the red latent growth path. It's only visible from certain very specific angles, so I have to keep constantly orbiting to a new position to see where it's up to. I have the latest graphic drivers. It's no biggee, but I thought I'd mention it.

[notareal]

Interesting project. I am sure that this has more potent than just to grow a ivy.

[thomthom]

Some great improvements there...and pretty easy to customise (I doubled the float length). One issue I have on my system is that when the progress meter hits 100% I still can't see the red latent growth path. It's only visible from certain very specific angles, so I have to keep constantly orbiting to a new position to see where it's up to. I have the latest graphic drivers. It's no biggee, but I thought I'd mention it.

That's probably because the tool doesn't implement the Tool.get_extent method: http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/do ... getExtents

@Pierreden: Beware that adding methods into the base classes risk running into conflicts with other plugins. It's the same as adding methods to the root namespace - everything is shared. Method names such as .to_v, .to_p, .all_faces could potentially be used by other plugins authors.
Even though it looks nicer to extend the base classes there always is a risk of clashes. I always advice people to void it just to be on the safe side.

[Lobster]

Hi,

Looks really interesting but I too have a problem on a Mac OSX 10.6.6. Sketchup 8.

There is no output in the console window showing fault after choosing/ticking in the plugin list and clicking on a surface.

The extraction of the .rar seemed fine and i have the folder and .rb file in the correct directory. I presume that the files remain in the Sketchupivy folder?

Regards

Sam