Get it now!
Skatter is a powerfull scattering extension for SketchUp.
Render hundreds of thousands of objects without overloading SketchUp. Scatter them parametrically or paint them by hand, while keeping control over collisions, camera clipping, rotation, scale, translation, randomness and density based on altitude, slope, falloffs and more.
Learn all about it : http://getskatter.com
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Hello OnoSendai and Whaat,
I'm curently developping a scattering plugin for Sketchup, called "Skatter". I'd like to know if you're interested to make it work with Indigo.
It is not released yet, it'll come out in a few weeks/months. One of its main features is a "Render Only" option. It allows to scatter components that will be rendered but not displayed in the viewport. That way, we can generate hundreds of thousands of instances while keeping a very lightweight model. (Because even a large number of proxies can be heavy)
Of course we can choose to disable this feature and generate regular component instances.
Here is a preview video of the current alpha version (with Thea Render) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQHUN0IvgLs
The way it works is pretty simple. Skatter stores the position/rotation/scale informations in a hash/array that any render engine can read and use.
The hash is in a shared namespace called "Common", and its name is "render_instances".
Its structure is as is :
Code: Select all
{
Sketchup.active_model.definitions.entityID => {
"plugin" => {
comp_def => [
{:transformation => trans1},
{:transformation => trans2},
...
]
}
}
}
"plugin" is the plugin name. This level is necessary so we don't overwrite each other's infos. But as you read only, it's irrelevant to you.
comp_def is the component definition object.
trans1 is a transformation object.
To read it is pretty simple in ruby :
Code: Select all
modelID = Sketchup.active_model.definitions.entityID
if defined?(Common.render_instances) && Common.render_instances[modelID]
for plugin_name, comp_defs in Common.render_instances[modelID]
for comp_def, insts in comp_defs
for inst in insts
transform = inst[:transformation]
#Then do your stuff using comp_def, and transform...
end#for
end#for
end#for
end#if
This is kind of an exchange standard between plugins and render engines.
For instance, Profile Builder could use this
I'm aware that Indigo for Sketchup has a built-in scattering tool. But Skatter is a dedicated plugin, with a lot more features (and still more to come).
Please tell me if you're interested, so I can send you a copy.
Thanks,
jbb