Programming in Sketchup

Programming in Sketchup

• We can add programmed behaviour to Sketchup

• The language used is Ruby, an object-oriented programming language

• There are several ways of adding Ruby programs to Sketchup

• We will focus on plugins

Programming in Sketchup• Look at the Sketchup menu bar below• It contains the following items

Sketchup File Edit View Camera Draw Tools Window Help

• This will change when we add certain types of plugin to Sketchup

Programming in Sketchup• To write Ruby programs, we need a plain-text editor• We will use TextEdit, which is in the Applications folder

Programming in Sketchup• By default, TextEdit creates Rich Text files• We must change this in the TextEdit preferences

Programming in Sketchup• Below, we see the default situation

Programming in Sketchup• Below, we have changed this to plain text

Programming in Sketchup• A simple one-line Ruby program:

UI.messagebox('Hello World!')

Programming in Sketchup• We save the program in a filled called helloWorld.rb in this folder:

/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp [n]/plugins • Now, when we restart Sketchup, ...

Programming in Sketchup• ... a message box pops up, containing the string we specified

A program which adds a menu item

module Say_Hello

def Say_Hello.main

UI.messagebox("Hello world!")

end

end

UI.menu("Plugins").add_item("Greet the world") { Say_Hello.main }

Programming in Sketchup• Let's overwrite the previous program with this new one

Programming in Sketchup• When we re-start Sketchup, we do not see the greeting we saw

before

Programming in Sketchup• But notice that there is a new item in the Sketchup menu bar• It now contains the following items

Sketchup File Edit View Camera Draw Tools Window Plugins Hello

Programming in Sketchup• When we click on the Plugins menu item, we see the option Greet the world

Programming in Sketchup• If we choose the option Greet the world, ...

Programming in Sketchup• ... we receive the Hello World greeting

Programming in Sketchup• If we click OK on the message box, we can start drawing

Programming in Sketchup• Let's create a box

Programming in Sketchup• We can then use the Greet the World option again and ...

Programming in Sketchup• ... we receive the greeting again

A program which draws geometry

module Draw_triangle

def Draw_triangle.main

point1 = [0,0,0]

point2 = [20,20,20]

point3 = [20,20,0]

Sketchup.active_model,entities.add_face point1,point2,point3

end

end

UI.menu("Plugins").add_item("Draw triangle") { Draw_triangle.main }

Programming in Sketchup• Saving the program in the plugins folder in a file called draw_triangle.rb

Programming in Sketchup• Re-starting Sketchup

Programming in Sketchup• Now, we have two of our own plugins

Programming in Sketchup• Let's choose the new one

Programming in Sketchup• A triangle is created

Programming in Sketchup• If we remove Sang, we can see the triangle more clearly

Programming in Sketchup• Let's move the triangle and ...

Programming in Sketchup• ... use the plugin again

Programming in Sketchup• As expected, we get another triangle

Exercise

• Tackle Exercise 34