sketchUcation

Overview of Curvizard

Curvizard is a suite of interactive tools operating on sequences of edges (Contours) and Sketchup curves. The common characteristics of Curvizard tools are:

• Support Pre-selection mode, with launch from toolbar, main menu, and contextual menu. Option for Auto-exit when launched from contextual menu or pre-selection.
• Interactive selection mode, where edges can be selected across the boundaries of components and groups (edge picking method is similar to Curviloft’s)
• Non-destructive approach for most tools. When edges are connected to faces, Curvizard tools try to preserve the faces and their texturing.
• Most operations can apply to several curves or sequences of edges in one shot
• Full support of Undo / Redo, via Ctrl-Z
• Functional enhancements for some tools versus existing scripts (details sections below)
• Quick Launcher

In the current version, Curvizard supports the following functions:

• Make Curve **(i.e. weld), with option for auto-extension
• Explode Curves** (multiple edges)
• Cleanup Contour (collinear, small spikes)
• Simplify Contour (by angle)
• Smooth Contour (by splines with average angle)
• Modify Edge Properties (soft, smooth, hidden, cast shadows)
• Convert to Guides: convert a sequence of edges to a sequence of construction lines
• Reconstruct Arc or Circle: convert a sequence of edges to a true Sketchup Arc or Circle when this is possible (so you can then change the number of segments)
• Reconstruct Polygon: convert a sequence of edges to a true Sketchup Polygon when this is possible (so you can then change the number of segments)

Discussion forum

Links to Sketchucation Forum: Main Post   Latest Release

Installation of Curvizard

IMPORTANT: Make sure that you have first installed LibFredo6 v8.8 or above.

Curvizard is released as a regular RBZ extension file on the Sketchucation Site.

To download the RBZ file, use the red button on the right side of this page:

•  Download  If your are already logged in.
•  Log in to get it!  otherwise, in order to log in or to register to Sketchucation as a new user (this is FREE). Then you will be able to download the RBZ file.

Then, you can install the RBZ file from within Sketchup, via the Sketchup Extension Manager

If you are not familiar with the installation of Sketchup extensions and Sketchucation, it is advised to watch the video LibFredo6 installation.

IMPORTANT: Whatever way you choose, you MUST quit and restart Sketchup to get Curvizard (and LibFredo6) properly loaded.

After the installation, you should have the following footprint in the Sketchup Plugins directory:

The Quick launcher allows to launch any of the tool from a dedicated dialog, which can optionally be pinned. This allows to keep only the QuickLauncher icon in the toolbar.

Overview of Curvizard

There is also a good video tutorial by SketchupEssentials on some functions of Curvizard

...and one by TutorialUp..

Generic usage of Curvizard tools

1) Selection of Contours

Choose in the button palette the edge Extension mode (edge by edge, Curve, Follow mode, All Connected). You can also filter by edge properties.

Click on edge or faces to select edges until you have your Contour selected. If you wish to have several Contours which are connected, click on the small blue arrow button to freeze the previous Contours.

Click on the green checkmark (or Enter) when you have finished the Contour selection. The geometry is generated

Note: if you invoke Curvizard with a preselection of edges, then you go directly to the generation of geometry.

2) Once the geometry is selected

you can rollback to edge selection via the orange arrow or Esc or Ctrl Z.

For some tools, you can change the parameters (ex: angle for Simplify Contours)

Note: It is always a good idea to check the tooltips and contextual menu to see available options

Quick Make Curve on pre-selection of edges

Smooth Contours

Documentation

Here is the documentation, in English.
Curvizard - User Manual - English - v1.4 - 15 Sep 13.pdf

Note: If you drop the PDF doc files into the Plugins directory, you can access them from within Sketchup via the menu Windows > Tools > Fredo6 Collection... > Curvizard> Documentation...

Custom Ruby commands to launch Curvizard

If you have a custom toolbar (or a plugin for that), you can safely launch the Curvizard tools with the following Ruby code:

F6_Curvizard.launch_action(action_code)

where action_code is a Symbol, with value:

• :make_curve
• :explode_curve
• :cleanup_curve
• :simplify_curve
• :smooth_curve
• :edge_prop
• :convert_to_guide
• :arc_circle
• :polygon

If you need the icons, they are in the subfolder Fredo6_Curvizard/IMAGES_Standard.

Links to Sketchucation Forum: Main Post   Latest Release

Release History

Curvizard 2.5a – 01 Apr 24: Future compatibility

Curvizard 2.4b – 10 Feb 20: Bug fixing (model entityID)

Curvizard 2.4a – 24 Feb 19: Reconvert a suite of edges to Arcs, Circles and Polygons when possible

Curvizard 2.2a – 23 Nov 18: New vector icons for toolbar by [b]John Clements

Curvizard 2.1c – 03 Jul 18: Maintenance release fixing a small bug (when parent is model)

Curvizard 2.1b – 01 Apr 18: Maintenance release for non-ascii username

Curvizard 2.1a – 28 Mar 18: Maintenance release to bring it on par with LibFredo6 8.1

Curvizard 2.0a – 13 Nov 15: Support of non-ascii username

Curvizard 1.9a – 19 Oct 14: Support of non-ascii username

Curvizard 1.8a – 04 Mar 14: Introduces Quick Make Curve with edge extension, as a request from several users.

Curvizard 1.7c – 16 Feb 14: Fixes an error present in v1.7a and another one in v1.7b

Curvizard 1.7b – 16 Feb 14: Fixes an error present in v1.7a when generating curves (as signaled by dedmin)

Curvizard 1.7a – 15 Feb 14: Fixes major bugs in the display of Curves for Simplify, Smooth and other tools. Vertex marks were missing in v1.6a.

Curvizard 1.6a – 03 Feb 14: Fixes major bugs in the Make Curve tool

Curvizard 1.5a – 27 Nov 13: Release for future Sketchup compatibility

Curvizard 1.4a – 15 Sep 13: Fix a bug in Edge Prop tool, include CadFather alternate toolbar and comply with new naming conventions. Here is the [url=http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=46473%26amp;p=491229#p491229]release post[/url].

Curvizard 1.2a – 18 May 13: Improve management of bigger amount of edges and contours: vusual progress bar and UI navigation more fluid.

Curvizard 1.1e – 07 Dec 12: minor release to fix a problem of versioning

Curvizard 1.1d – 05 Dec 12: small update to remove un-necessary traces in the Ruby console.

Curvizard 1.1c – 29 Nov 12: fix to Cleanup Contour (did not launch). See [url=http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=46473%26amp;p=442586#p442586]Release Notes[/url]

Curvizard 1.1b – 29 Nov 12: fix an issue in the translation and integrate the Chinese translation (Guanjin) and an update to the Spanish (Spain) translation (Oxer)

Curvizard 1.1a – 28 Nov 12: New release with 3 new functions: Smooth Contours, Edge properties and Cleanup Contours. See [url=http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=46473%26amp;p=442440#p442440]Release Notes[/url]

Curvizard 1.0 c – 11 Jul 12: Initial public release