Another view of board and battens:



Just over five years into programming these plugins, I released the first version of the Truss plugin Oct. 7, 2015.

The further I go it seems like I just keep coming up with more things "todo".  I really need to take myself and clone me about five times and then set each clone at developing the various plugins, maybe then I might get somewhere with all of this.

Similar to the estimator found in the Wall plugin the user will be able to select "All" or a selection of assemblies to run the estimator on:



The non-Medeek wall and roof assemblies will also be selectable since the Electrical plugin also works with non-Medeek walls, roofs etc...

I don't feel like it is necessary to break the listings into the assemblies they are part of however I will include a column in each table which lists the main assembly the electrical component is found in, this should prove useful to some.

There are a lot of little details with regards to different electrical components (ie. outlets, switches, panels etc...)  Each type of electrical component has unique characteristics, all of this data needs to be output by the Electrical Estimator, it will probably take me a few days to assemble this new module.

Once it is complete it will make this plugin a much more useful tool.

P.S. I think it would be also quite useful at some point to incorporate a price database that works with the estimating module.  This separate database would be referenced to determine the price, vendor etc... for a given electrical component.  Additionally, the list of materials could then be conveniently broken into separate purchase orders for each vendor.  I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself here but with the ability to program just about anything with the API and the Ruby back end its conceivable that one could generate PO's that could then easily be imported into Quickbooks or any other accounting software.  I've done a bit of Quickbooks API programming in the past where I integrated my own customer billing system and expense database with the software, its really not that hard to do.

When I ran my web hosting company back in the early 2000's I got really sick of having to manually enter in customer orders and business expenses into Quickbooks, the problem was my billing system and Quickbooks (my accounting system) were completely two different ecosystems.  I would usually have to devote one entire day out of the month for this tedious task.  I finally got smart one day and decided it would be really nice if I could somehow automate this process.  After about two days of programming I had fully automated the manual entry problem and set it up as Chron job that would run nightly, it would even shoot me out an automatic email every morning letting me know how the process went and if there were any issues.

"Laziness is the mother of invention"

Version 1.6.9 - 10.17.2020
- Added the ability to create custom "Board and Batten" wall cladding materials within the Material Library.
- Enabled "3D" Board and Batten wall cladding for all wall types: Rectangular, Gable, Shed and Hip.



For the plugin to recognize the wall cladding material as a "board and batten" material is must be in this format:

battens_{decimal value}_{decimal value}_{decimal_value}

The three values are:  batten spacing, batten width, batten depth respectively.

There should be no white spaces inserted into the name, only the underscore character in three places as shown.

Texture vs. 3D Battens:



Personally I prefer the texture myself, lower poly and it looks just as good or better than the real deal.

Some more screenshots of battens:







*Notice the format of the batten material and its three numeric values within the name of the material.

First look at a 3D batten cladding on rectangular walls:



View model here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/5e43daf3-c604-49b7-82d6-95dfbc76563c/Batten-Test-1

Version 1.2.2 - 10.16.2020
- Added a "2d Symbols Only" parameter into the General tab of the Global Settings.
- Enabled the "2d Symbols Only" mode for the following electrical elements: Outlets, Switches.





Yet another update per customer requests.  A number of users only want to use the plugin to show the 2D electrical symbols rather than drawing the 3D electrical components (and the symbols).  (Technically one could achieve pretty much the same result by turning off the electrical rough and finish layers.) 

The new 2D symbols only mode will allow this mode wherein only the 2D symbols are drawn.  Note, that I have only enabled this feature for outlets and switches thus far and I will need to extend that functionality to all other electrical elements (ie. fans, data outlets, floor outlets, panels etc...)

The nice thing about this bimodal system is that all of the regular data is being stored for each electrical component in the model (attribute library) so one can switch between modes mid-stream without any problems if necessary.

Just for fun I created some "wire" sizes at your typical HVAC duct sizes and then laid out some geometry (polylines) with the help of the SketchUp grid extension:



The only thing I could not draw with the wire tool was the rectangular reducer shown in blue.

HVAC (duct work) is fairly straight forward in my opinion however there needs to be a few more specific parts and pieces in order to terminate and make transitions.  So there would need to be a separate tool (and library) for common size reducers, boots and grilles.

I'm not really an HVAC (mechanical engineer), I've done a little work in the field about 15 years ago while doing some contract work at BYU, but then again I'm not an electrician either and look how far this plugin has come.  I guess it just takes some interest and a desire to learn, but I do think HVAC is a bit more involved than Electrical.

Version 1.2.1b - 10.15.2020
- Draw Wire Tool input extended to two options: Points, Edges

Tutorial 5 - Wiring (11:15 min.)

For round wires I have the "circle segment" parameter which allows ones to decrease the number of segments in order to keep the polycount down in the model.

The draw tool needs a feature or switch which allows one to simply select a pre-drawn polyline (of edges) rather than picking points.

Version 1.2.1 - 10.14.2020
- Added a Custom Wire Library to the Global Settings which allows user defined rectangular or circular cross section wires/cables/conduit.
- Enabled the Wiring Tool with three additional context menu functions: Edit Wire Assembly, Regen Wire Assembly, Edit Wire Path.
- Added a 4th dimensioning layer specifically for wire callouts in the Layers tab of the Global Settings.
- Added the following parameters to the General tab of the Global Settings: Wire Label Callout, Wire Label Prefix, Circle Segments.





I think I need a few additional tools to round out this wiring module and make it more intuitive and efficient to use:

- Move Segment Tool (rather than having to edit the wire path directly)
- Integrate the Estimating tool with the wiring statistics

Version 1.2.0 - 10.11.2020
- Added a "Refresh Licensee Data" button within the License tab of the Global Settings.

You need to turn on the layers feature.  To do this navigate to the Layers tab of the Global Settings of the plugin(s).

Version 1.6.2 - 10.09.2020
- Added a "Refresh Licensee Data" button within the License tab of the Global Settings.

Version 2.7.8 - 10.09.2020
- Added a "Refresh Licensee Data" button within the License tab of the Global Settings.