sketchUcation

Overview

This plugin allows the user to add angular dimensions to a Sketchup model. It is a significant update of Steve Baumgartner's Angular Dimension v4.

Instead of using a 'face-me' text box with leader to display the dimension, this version places the dimension text in the plane of the dimensioned vertex. The plugin detects whether Sketchup is using dot or comma as a decimal separator, and adjusts the Settings and Help dialogues accordingly.

Right angles can optionally be marked with a square, at (an arbitrarily chosen) 1/3 of the size of the dimension arc radius chosen.

Small angles are now (from v6.0) better presented with text inside and arrows outside dimension lines.

In the view where you are adding dimensions, the text is placed mostly upright - i.e., with its baseline less than 45 degrees from horizontal, angled by a multiple of 90° from the angle bisector of the vertex.

If you want the text orientation to be consistent over successive uses of the tool, set up a scene or scenes for your chosen viewpoint(s) and return to the scene for adding further angular dimensions in the same view.

Now multilanguage: Settings, Help dialogue, menu selections and Status Bar text are now translated into Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, and Português (Brasil). The translations are taken straight from Google Translate. If any are wrong, please contact the authors with suggested improvements.

v6.1 adds Swedish and Russian (Thanks, Feodos for those).

Note: As in previous versions of this tool, the dimensions are not associative. If you change the position of vertex or edges, the angular dimension group will remain unchanged. You will need to redraw the angular dimension.

Compatibility: In addition to the labelled compatibility with SU2013 and later versions, this works (subject to minor Known Issues - see the Documentation for more details) with SU8 M2, but not with earlier versions.

Usage

To use the plugin, start it from the Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Draw menu, or from its own toolbar, or by assigning and using a keyboard shortcut - for example {Shift}+D if you use d for (linear) Dimension. If the toolbar is not visible, use menu View/Toolbars/Angular Dimension 2 (Windows) or View/Tool palettes/Angular Dimension 2 (Mac) to display it. It first appears at top left of the screen, but can be moved or docked where you want it.

Then pick three points to define the angle you want to dimension - first on one edge, then the vertex, then on the other edge. With default settings, the radius of the dimension arc will be the distance between first and second pick points, but you can override this in Settings.

To toggle between dimensioning the internal angle or the external angle, press the {Tab} key (Windows), or {Option/Alt} key (Mac).

If the dimension text is too large to fit inside the dimension lines and arrows, it will be placed outside the dimension arc.

Each dimension is created as a group, with a subgroup each for arrows and text.

To use the plugin, start it from the Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Draw menu, or from its own toolbar, or by assigning and using a keyboard shortcut - for example {Shift}+D if you use d for (linear) Dimension. If the toolbar is not visible, use menu View/Toolbars/Angular Dimension 2 (Windows) or View/Tool palettes/Angular Dimension 2 (Mac) to display it. It first appears at top left of the screen, but can be moved or docked where you want it.

Then pick three points to define the angle you want to dimension - first on one edge, then the vertex, then on the other edge. With default settings, the radius of the dimension arc will be the distance between first and second pick points, but you can override this in Settings.

To toggle between dimensioning the internal angle or the external angle, press the {Tab} key (Windows), or {Option/Alt} key (Mac).

To change the settings, go to menu Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Settings menu, or use its own toolbar, or assign and use a keyboard shortcut - for example, {Ctrl}+{Shift}+D.

The plugin detects whether Sketchup is using dot or comma as a decimal separator, and adjusts the Settings and Help dialogues accordingly.

To change language, choose the Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Choose Language menu item, and select the language.

The Settings and Help dialogues change language immediately. Menu items and status bar text change language only after restarting SketchUp.

Overview

This plugin allows the user to add angular dimensions to a Sketchup model. It is a significant update of Steve Baumgartner's Angular Dimension v4. John McClenahan proposed the idea and did the initial design and programming. Steve joined in to work on critical issues and to refine the code.

Instead of using a 'face-me' text box with leader to display the dimension, this version places the dimension text in the plane of the dimensioned vertex.

Right angles can optionally be marked with a square, at (an arbitrarily chosen) 1/3 of the size of the dimension arc radius chosen.

In the view where you are adding dimensions, the text is placed mostly upright - i.e., with its baseline less than 45 degrees from horizontal, angled by a multiple of 90° from the angle bisector of the vertex.

Small angles are now (from v6.0) better presented with text inside and arrows outside dimension lines.

If you want the text orientation to be consistent over successive uses of the tool, set up a scene or scenes for your chosen viewpoint(s) and return to the scene for adding further angular dimensions in the same view.

Note: As in previous versions of this tool, the dimensions are not associative. If you change the position of vertex or edges, the angular dimension group will remain unchanged. You will need to redraw the angular dimension.

Compatibility: In addition to the labelled compatibility with SU2013, 2014 and later versions, this works (subject to minor Known Issues - see later) with SU8 M2, but not with earlier versions.

Usage

To use the plugin, start it from the Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Draw menu, or from its own toolbar, or by assigning and using a keyboard shortcut - for example {Shift}+D if you use d for (linear) Dimension. If the toolbar is not visible, use menu View/Toolbars/Angular Dimension 2 (Windows) or View/Tool palettes/Angular Dimension 2 (Mac) to display it. It first appears at top left of the screen, but can be moved or docked where you want it.

Then pick three points to define the angle you want to dimension - first on one edge, then the vertex, then on the other edge. With default settings, the radius of the dimension arc will be the distance between first and second pick points, but you can override this in Settings.

To toggle between dimensioning the internal angle or the external angle, press the {Tab} key (Windows), or {Option/Alt} key (Mac).

If the dimension text is too large to fit inside the dimension lines and arrows, it will be placed outside the dimension arc. The arrows may also be placed outside the dimension lines if they will not fit along with the text (from v6.0).

Each dimension is created as a group, with a subgroup each for arrows and text.

Settings

There are a number of settings to adjust the size and appearance of the generated dimensions.

To invoke the Settings window, use the menu Tools/Angular Dimension 2/Settings, click on the toolbar icon ('hamburger' menu) or press whatever shortcut key (if any) that you chose to assign to this menu item - for example, {Ctrl}+{Shift}+D.

Changing the settings while the tool is in use changes both the most recently drawn Angular Dimension (so long as another one hasn't been started, and the tool has not been de-selected), and future ones, until the settings are changed again.

You can use the native Scale tool to scale an Angular dimension to make the whole thing larger or smaller, but remain in the vertex. Use the corner handle of the scale tool opposite the vertex and not on a dimensioned edge to perform the scaling.

To see the effect of a change on the most recently drawn Angular Dimension, change the setting, then press {Enter} to make the change take effect but leave the dialogue open. (You only need to toggle the checkbox Use square mark for 90°? to change this setting and have it take effect - you don't need to press {Enter}).

Invalid values will be highlighted in red, with an explanation at the bottom of the dialogue, and the focus will be held in the invalid text box until it is corrected.

Click the [OK] button to store the settings and close the Settings dialogue.

Default settings are remembered between SU sessions, and can be saved or loaded using the relevant buttons on the dialogue.

Arrowhead style
Choose your preferred arrowhead style from the dropdown list.
The selection matches SU's linear dimension styles - closed, open, slash, dot and none.

Arrow scale
Length of arrowhead as fraction of the dimension arc radius.
0.03 - 0.15 recommended, 0.01 - 0.20 required.
Initial default 0.05.

The dot arrowhead is given a diameter of 0.333x the arrowhead length - the same diameter as the width of the arrowhead.

The none arrowhead places a guide point at the end of the arc, which can be turned off by unchecking the Sketchup menu View/Guides.

Arc radius
Set specific radius of dimension arc (as a SU length).
If no units are specified, then the model's current units are used. Otherwise, use any length units valid in the SU Measurements box.
Leave at default of 0 to use distance between first and second pick points.

Arc segments
Number of segments in dimension arc, per 90° of arc.
12 - 24 recommended, 8 - 48 required.
Initial default 12.

Line scale
Dimension witness line length as fraction of arc radius.
1.02 - 1.12 recommended, 1.00 to 1.2 required.
Initial default 1.05.

Text scale
Text height as a fraction of arc radius.
0.05 - 0.15 recommended, 0.03 - 0.20 required. Overridden if Text height > 0 Initial default 0.10.

Text height
if > 0, make dimension text a fixed height (as a SU length).
If no units are specified, then the model's current units are used.
Otherwise, use any length units valid in the SU Measurements box.
If left at the default of 0, Text scale is used instead.
No recommended or required value.
Initial default 0.

Use square mark for 90°?
Click the checkbox to toggle Use square mark for 90°? to 'yes' or 'no' (the initial default is 'yes').

Save defaults
Click this button to save the current settings as defaults which will be saved in the registry (Windows) or a plist (Mac).

Load defaults
Retrieve the last saved default settings.

Languages

English, Deutsch, Français, Español, Italiano and Português (Brasil) - all the languages in which SketchUp is shipped in the Latin alphabet. From v6.1, Svenska and Pусский (Russian) have been added (thanks to Feodos on the SketchUcation forum).

Known issues

In SU8, use of the tool causes a Stack Overflow error in the Ruby console during mouse move between picks, which does not appear to affect the working of the tool unless the mouse movement is prolonged (when SU crashes). Cause and fix not known to the authors at the time of writing.

In both SU8 and SU 2013 on Windows 10, there is a script error popup which alerts when using the Settings dialogue. To prevent it recurring, go to Internet Explorer/Internet Options/Advanced/Browsing and uncheck both entries for Script Debugging (in IE and Other). Cause and fix not known to the authors at the time of writing.

Authors

Steve Baumgartner and John McClenahan slb.jwm@gmail.com © 2016 & 2017

5.0 Beta This initial release should be solid, but there are some known issues we found during our own testing that depend on specific combinations of OS, SU version, and IE settings. We are labeling it beta because we have only a limited suite of systems to test the combinations on. We need others to try it on their computers and report what they find.

5.1 Beta Added support for locales that use comma as the decimal point.

5.2 Beta Bug fixes for comma vs period decimals

5.3 Beta More bug fixes for comma vs period

5.4 Beta Added user setting for square vs arrows, arcs, and text for right angles

5.5 Beta Improvements for handling of right angles: stopped generating hidden arrows, arcs, and text; fixed issues with settings dialog

5.51 Beta Moved plugin to joint developer location slb_jwm and updated internal email links to joint vs. separate authors

6.0 Added better text and arrow layout for small angles. Added translations into all languages supported by SketchUp in Latin alphabets - Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Português (Brasil).

v6.1 Added further languages Swedish and Russian.

v6.2 2019-02-08 Code updated to work with SU 2019 which added a space before metric units when they are displayed. Also fixed typos in Help page for Line Scale.

** 2023-08-25 Added Ukrainian translations