SU plugins

[Dwayne Payne]

I was playing with SU tonight and noticed under plgins that I have "Cost". So I tried clicking on it and saw "Assign estimate to material" I opened that and found what looks like a place to enter a material name and cost/sq.ft. I filled in info and it said material not found. How do I get this to work? It would be nice to assign material and cost of it so I have an idea of what work will cost me/others.

Dwayne

[Dave Richards]

Dwayne, I believe your Cost Plugin is coming from a script called Attributes which is included with SU. From reading the script I think they mainly meant it to be an example of how a script could be written.

Did you have only the default face color on your selection? Or had you selected anything first?

I tried it just now. first I applied the Wood-Cherry texture to a face, selected the face and then Assign Estimate to Material. It showed a menu box listing that texture as the material. I gave it a value other than 1.00.

Next you select the face or and choose Assign Estimate to Faces. Doesn't look like anything happens.

Finally select all the faces and choose Compute Estimate. It seems pretty slick but of course it only works on surface area so it won't do board foot calculations.

[Dwayne Payne]

I tried to get it to work Dave, guess I am just a little too slow. Thanks for responding to this though. I am working with a material called Starboard. It is a HDPE used in making boxes/doors..etc.. mainly for marina applications. I have purchased a plastic welder and will hopefully get some training next Thursday. What I really like about this stuff is that it is cut with woodworking tools. I have been using SU to design some parts for my boat and if all goes well I am going to try to make some money on this. I was hoping to get something easy to estimate cost. Since most of this work would be custom it would be nice to draw it, show it and have SU tell me how much to charge for it.

Dwayne

[Dave Richards]

Dwayne, you aren't shot out of the water yet. Use a texture such as Plaster in the Assorted Materials section. Apply that to a face in your model. Then go to the In Model tab in the materials browser. Double click on the texture and you'll get the edit dialog box. You'll see an eyedropper near the upper left corner. Click on that and click on the plastered face in the model. Change the name to Starboard (to the left of the eyedropper) and edit the color etc as needed. Then click Add. Now apply that texture to the faces as desired in your model.

If you intend to use that material again, right click on it in the In Model box. select Add to Library. Make sure before you do that that you have the desired library select in the Library tab.

Now, when you run the cost script, anything you've given the Starboard texture can be included in the cost figure. Since Starboard comes in sheets, it is easy enough to assign it a price per sq ft so the Cost script should be effective for you.

BTW, I've got a doctor friend up here who has an Irwin 34. He had some leaking at the lifeline stanchion where you board on the port side. Water got in and ruin the teak plywood panelling in the quarter berth. I ended up doing the repair on the stanchion and I have the panel to use as a pattern for a new one. There's a scupper made of plastic tubing of some sort that was epoxied in place but of course the epoxy doesn't stck to the plastice so it also leaks despite my efforts to seal it.

So he was thinking about using Starboard but I can't see working a 1/4" thick piece of that into place. I'm convinced the original was put in place before the deck was put on and replacing that piece of panelling is going to be like building a ship in a bottle.

I'm thinking of encapsulating a new piece of teak plywood in epoxy so that it is less likely to absorb water. Either that or some nice woodgrain contact paper.

Any thoughts? What do you think about that Starboard stuff?

[Dwayne Payne]

As far as Starboard goes I have seen it used alot in boats. It has a very high resistance to UV rays and of course will never rot. The downside to it is that nothing really sticks to it. If you have a scupper and can get a good fit between it an some Starboard the you can use 5200 marine adhesive/sealant. It will not stick to the Starboard but it will seal. If you go to the website for Starboard (kingstarboard.com) it list 2 adhesives that work pretty good. It requires some suface prep with a torch but they say it give decent results. I chose to buy the welder because the 2 main ways of attaching it together is with screws or weld. I hate the idea of using screws. One thing to consider when using it is movement. It wil expand and shrink approx 1/32 for every foot of material length per 40 degree temp change. Not sure if that is a concern for you but thought I would bring it up. Now as far as working with the material goes, I LOVE it. It is easy to cut, router, you can even cold/heat bend it if you want to. Best of all when you cut it ou do not get "dust", you do have plastic everywhere but nothing that kills my sinuses like wood.

[Dwayne Payne]

I give up...does not want to give me an estimate. Always says 0.00

[Dave Richards]

Dwaye, I made some screenshots. Hopefully you see something similar.

First the Plugins menu showing the flyout menu with Cost. Also note I've used the Plaster material to create a new material called Starboard. The RGB sliders are set a bit differently from the Plaster settings.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/cost1.jpg

Next, after clicking on Assign Cost by Material, I get this little dialog box. The default setting is 1.00. I changed it to 4.23. If there had been more than the one texture in the model I would have had a list of materials to select from.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/Cost2.jpg

Now I select the face, Then choose Assign Estimate to Faces from the Cost menu and get this box. Click OK.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/cost3.jpg

Finally, when I select Compute Estimate, I get this last little box. Mote, although the face is still selected from the previous step, it doesn't need to be for this step.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/cost4.jpg

See if you can make it work that way.

[Marty Walsh]

Dave,

I've been following this post with interest, (as I do all your SU posts). All I have to add is WOW, look at all those plugins you have installed!!!!

- Marty -

[Dave Richards]

Marty, to tell the truth, I should remove some of them because I don't use them. I haven't because once in awhile someone asks a question about one of them and I have to run through using it to be able to help.

[Dwayne Payne]

I will try this over the next couple of days. I will say though that it looks like what I have been doing. I am thinking it has something to do with the fact that all my parts are components and 1/2" thick. maybe you cannot assign a texture to the face once made a component? Remember what you told me about components, nothing sticks. Kind of like my Starboard

Dwayne

[Dwayne Payne]

Is there a good source for plugins? A website? Do you write them?

[Dave Richards]

It's the component thing Dwayne. Let me investigate that a little.

As to sites for Rubies, here are my two favorite ones.
http://smustard.com/
http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/RUBY_Library_Depot.htm

I haven't figured out how to write them other than the one I did to start Hyper Snap for screen shots.

Alright, it is the fact that the pieces are components. Unfortunately it can't break through and read the component. Like I said early on, this was mainly written as an example of how to write a script. I don't think the SU people had any ideas that it would be a real useful script. Of course they might write or rewrite the code in some future version to make it work with components.

I'll see if I can get any more info for you. In the meantime I think a workaround for this would be to copy the components either to a blank area in the drawing or to another page. Then move the parts away from each other to create an exploded view. Then select the components and explode them so they are no longer components. Then you should be able to run the Cost script on the parts and get the total. You only need to click on a single large face from each piece of the cabinet or whatever it is.

[Dwayne Payne]

I will definately try it. Thanks again Dave, if not for you I would have thrown this program out long ago

[Dwayne Payne]

I could not stand it, had to try to get it to work before leaving town. It works great,I think it will help me alot for what I need.

Thanks Dave

[Dave Richards]

;)

Patience