Development and Updates for the Medeek Wall Plugin

[Medeek]

Version 0.9.7f - 10.11.2018
- Window sill qty. callout added to the framing callouts for windows.



Looks like I forgot to add the quantifier for the window sill plate.

[Medeek]

The framing algorithm for stacking windows and doors is going to get very messy, what if the trimmer and kings studs don't exactly lineup?  Then the framing gets really interesting. 

A larger or smaller opening above another will also call for different framing solutions.

This one is going to take some serious thought.

Why do you designers have to make things so difficult?  This one is not really that high on the todo list but it is giving me some serious headaches just contemplating it.

Does anyone have any examples (drawings or pictures) of this sort of situation(s)?

[Medeek]

Necessity is the mother of invention as they say, and as I was creating a small two story model of a garage for local customer today it quickly became painfully obvious that I still do not have a good stair plugin or module.

The toolbar for the stairs module will start out with the following two icons, there will probably be additional ones added for concrete or steel stairs in the future:



The basic parameters for the Draw Stairs Menu will be:

0.) Stair Assembly Name:  Auto assigned by the plugin but user can edit this parameter.
1.) Stair Type:  Straight, L-Shape, U-Shape 
2.) Stair Width:  40 inches or 1000mm
3.) Stair Height: (This will be determined by the picking of points and the bottom floor plane) ft-in or mm
4.) Max. Riser Height:  7.75 inches or 200 mm
5.) Draw Risers:  YES/NO
6.) Riser Thickness:  3/4" or 19 mm
7.) Riser Material:  Lumber, Lumber PT, OSB, PLY
8.) Top Tread Flush:  Yes or No (this option will make the top tread flush with the upper level/deck
9.) Tread Depth:  10" or 255 mm
10.) Tread Thickness:  1.25" or 32 mm
11.) Tread Nosing:  1.25" or 32 mm
12.) Nosing Shape:  SQUARE or ROUND
13.) Tread Material:  Lumber, Lumber PT, OSB, PLY, Oak, Birch, Maple, Pine etc... (custom material from material manager in global settings.
14.)  Stringer Qty:  2, 3, 4, or 5
15.)  Stringer Depth:  11.25" or 285 mm
16.)  Stringer Thickness:  1.5" or 38 mm
17.)  Stringer Material:  Lumber, Lumber PT, LSL, LVL
18.)  Stair Framing:  YES, NO, 2D
19.)  Advanced Options YES or NO

The advanced options or parameters are tentatively:

1.)  Thrust Block:  None, 2x4, 2x6, 2x8 or metric sizes for metric templates
2.)  Hanger Board:  Yes or No, will default to 3/4" or 19 mm OSB
3.)  Landing Tread:  Yes or No  ( will default to a 3-1/2" landing tread with bull nose to match stair treads)

Eventually I will add other advanced options such as hand rails, skirt boards, gypsum spacers, blocking, brackets etc...

I'm not an expert on stairs but I do have a couple of details where I've considered the various elements of a typical stair case:

http://design.medeek.com/cad/autocad/STAIRHEADER_SECTION.pdf

http://design.medeek.com/cad/autocad/STAIR_SECTION.pdf



L-Shapes and U-Shapes get quite a bit more complicated with the inclusion of a landing.  I will start with just a straight run of stairs first.

Right of the bat I will start with HTML draw and edit menus, no point in messing around with the traditional UI, especially with such a long list of parameters already.

[Medeek]

Version 0.9.7g - 10.13.2018
- Created icons for the stair module.

Still putting together the HTML menus.  It may be a couple days before this module actually produces useful output.

[saakejam]

Nathan:  As I was working on my Windows platform something broke.  I now am having the same problem as on the Mac. which is not resolved. (Thought to be a 3DConnexion driver update)

I can send you the .skp if that is something useful for troubleshooting.


Medeek Wall

Cursor will not anchor when needing to change direction.
This just started when changing parameters in the wall height??

Ruby Errors: Several attempts made to adjust outside of rebooting the computer which I will do now

Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method `bounds' for nil:NilClass>
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `block in check_corners'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `each'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `find_all'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `check_corners'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_rectangular_wall.rbs:2954:in `create_wall_geometry'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_rectangular_wall.rbs:2376:in `main_menu_html'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1472:in `calculate_obj'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1489:in `update_state'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1515:in `onLButtonDown'


Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method `bounds' for nil:NilClass>
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `block in check_corners'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `each'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `find_all'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_wall_cornerconfig.rbs:60:in `check_corners'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_rectangular_wall.rbs:2954:in `create_wall_geometry'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_rectangular_wall.rbs:2376:in `main_menu_html'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1472:in `calculate_obj'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1489:in `update_state'
c:/users/kemo/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2018/sketchup/plugins/medeek_wall_ext/medeek_draw_wall_tools.rbs:1515:in `onLButtonDown'

[Medeek]

This appears related to a recent change I made to the corner config module, I may have inadvertently broken it.  Can you email me your model and tell me which wall in particular is throwing this error.

[Medeek]

Version 0.9.8 - 10.14.2018
- Critical update with the global settings module.
- Critical update with the auto-corner configuration module.

I noticed an error that seemed to be common across a number of users and after digging down through the code I think I unearthed the bug that was causing this error.  This error was actually caused by a recent change in the code where I was attempting to improve the performance for larger models (0.9.6).

I believe this fix should address the bug and also augment the performance for large modules.  Sometimes when you try to fix things you break things but in the end it will all work out.

[Medeek]

Version 0.9.8b - 10.15.2018
- Fixed a typo/bug in the window module (casing).

This bug was only an issue in imperial templates and when you enabled casing but not ext. trim.

[saakejam]

0.9.8 fixed both Mac and Windows platforms...  The only item noticed was sometimes the menu dialog comes up blank (All White).  Not all the time and you can refresh the size which brings it back.
Not a big problem.

[Medeek]

0.9.8 fixed both Mac and Windows platforms...  The only item noticed was sometimes the menu dialog comes up blank (All White).  Not all the time and you can refresh the size which brings it back.
Not a big problem.

Is the dialog issue (white) coming up in Windows and Mac?

[saakejam]

Only noticed on Mac.  Have not used Windows updated Ver. yet.

[Medeek]

Wall Presets often seem to be confusing many of our designers so I've put together a short video trying to clarify some of this functionality and possible quirks that users should be aware of:

[saakejam]

Good video...  Goods tips.  I have to say the best menus you have are ones that pop up illustrations hovering over the item selection.  Especially in the Truss selections.  Very helpful because we sometimes call components by other names or don't know the item by name.  I would employ this all over.

Since the anchoring fix I have been churning out work.  Not fast because I'm a novice.  I will be excited to see the new Truss custom materials selections come to life.  This leads me to ask if in the pipeline you will have a joist system plug-in to build floor decks?  Medeek Floor.. 🙂.  An outdoor deck system plugin?

[Medeek]

Version 0.9.8c - 10.17.2018
- Removed the wall justification parameter from the draw and edit wall menus.
- Interior wall door casing properly configured for both sides of the wall.



Today was one of those busy days where most of the day was consumed by emails and phone calls.  Its safe to say that most of the day was spent interacting with people and less time spent on the code, not that this is a bad thing.  Since I could not dive deep into the gable or stair projects I put out a couple small fires that were a bit lower on the list.  Its always nice to knock out some low hanging but troublesome fruit.

Prior to this fix all doors created within interior walls were installed with ext. trim on the wall's exterior side.  In reality interior doors should have casing on both sides of the wall.

[Medeek]

Good video...  Goods tips.  I have to say the best menus you have are ones that pop up illustrations hovering over the item selection.  Especially in the Truss selections.  Very helpful because we sometimes call components by other names or don't know the item by name.  I would employ this all over.

Since the anchoring fix I have been churning out work.  Not fast because I'm a novice.  I will be excited to see the new Truss custom materials selections come to life.  This leads me to ask if in the pipeline you will have a joist system plug-in to build floor decks?  Medeek Floor.. .  An outdoor deck system plugin?

I'm glad to hear you are getting some productivity out of the plugin(s).  I've been adding tooltips into more of the menus (little blue question marks), however I do need to utilize more images/thumbnails rather than words.  Sometimes a picture is much more helpful.

The Truss plugin already has a number of I-joists, lumber and floor truss floors available, click on the floor truss icon, the drop down menu will allow you to select from various floor joist systems.  Note that this feature is still quite limited since only rectangular floors are currently available but I have plans to make any floor shape possible, similar to the slab tool in the foundation plugin.