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Matthieu Noblet has very kindly developed a free SU ruby script which strips all materials assigned to groups and components and applies them instead directly to the geometry. This makes it much easier (and therefore much quicker and more reliable) for VfSU to "read" skp files. After running this ruby script in SU parse times can drop from as much as 20 minutes to a few seconds. When you run the script it takes a few seconds to process a small model (e.g. a villa, 100+ components, 20 materials) or a few minutes for a huge model (extremely complex scenes, thousands of components, 50+ materials). You only have to run it once for existing geometry and materials, so it's worth the wait for big models... just remember afterwards to always apply materials directly to geometry not groups or components so you don't have to run the ruby script again.
If any of you are not familiar with using SU ruby scripts, just download the zip file below, unzip it and save the "Remove_CG_mat.rb" file into the "Plugins" folder in your Google SketchUp program files. The next time you open an SU session it will be accessible under the "Plugins" menu under the name "Remove C-G Materials".
Four things to note:
Firstly, IT DOES NOT DELETE any of your materials, it just reassigns them from the outside of groups and components to any geometry within that was assigned the default SU material. As such you won't actually see any difference in your model after running it, all UV mapping should be exactly as it was before.
Secondly, because of the very nature of the script after running it you should not apply materials to default faces of groups or components just by applying a material to them. It's a shame to lose this useful feature of SU modelling, but if you use VfSU often it's a very worthwhile sacrifice to make for a huge increase in parsing speed and reliability.
Thirdly, it doesn't perform miracles- if your skp file is huge, with lots of materials and thousands of groups VfSU is still going to take quite a while to parse SU. What this ruby script really helps with is VfSU taking a long time just to parse even relatively small files.
Finally, as with many ruby scripts, this is not created, endorsed or tested by Google or ASGvis in any way and therefore you use at your own risk. Although hundreds of users have downloaded it and haven't reported a single problem or bug, you run it at your own risk. If you're paranoid, "save as" your skp file before running it!
The zip file containing the ruby script can be downloaded here.
If you'd like to say thanks to Matthieu for this very generous contribution to the VfSU community, post here, he's a good guy and deserves some thanks!
Jackson
If any of you are not familiar with using SU ruby scripts, just download the zip file below, unzip it and save the "Remove_CG_mat.rb" file into the "Plugins" folder in your Google SketchUp program files. The next time you open an SU session it will be accessible under the "Plugins" menu under the name "Remove C-G Materials".
Four things to note:
Firstly, IT DOES NOT DELETE any of your materials, it just reassigns them from the outside of groups and components to any geometry within that was assigned the default SU material. As such you won't actually see any difference in your model after running it, all UV mapping should be exactly as it was before.
Secondly, because of the very nature of the script after running it you should not apply materials to default faces of groups or components just by applying a material to them. It's a shame to lose this useful feature of SU modelling, but if you use VfSU often it's a very worthwhile sacrifice to make for a huge increase in parsing speed and reliability.
Thirdly, it doesn't perform miracles- if your skp file is huge, with lots of materials and thousands of groups VfSU is still going to take quite a while to parse SU. What this ruby script really helps with is VfSU taking a long time just to parse even relatively small files.
Finally, as with many ruby scripts, this is not created, endorsed or tested by Google or ASGvis in any way and therefore you use at your own risk. Although hundreds of users have downloaded it and haven't reported a single problem or bug, you run it at your own risk. If you're paranoid, "save as" your skp file before running it!
The zip file containing the ruby script can be downloaded here.
If you'd like to say thanks to Matthieu for this very generous contribution to the VfSU community, post here, he's a good guy and deserves some thanks!
Jackson
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