Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Architectural Design with SketchUp
# Place a copy at the center of the bounding box
center = e.bounds.center
t = Geom::Transformation.new (center, e.normal)
new = ent.add_instance (comp, t)
# Now scale objects by some criteria
new.transform! Geom::Transformation.scaling center,
center.z/100
# Explode it so that we can remove the face afterwards
new.explode
}
end
When you run this code, it first looks through your selection and isolates the one
ComponentInstance (the circle). Then it iterates through each face and places a new instance
at the center of the face. It does this by finding the center point using the bounds.center
method of the Entity object (which gives the center of the bounding box). The new instance
is then placed with its orientation (its “normal” vector) aligned with the face’s normal vector
(which describes the direction perpendicular to the face).
A scaling transformation is applied to the circle, which varies the circle’s scale by how
far away from the ground it is. This results in small circles (“openings”) at the base of the
shell and the largest ones at the apex. As a last step, the component instance is exploded,
which lets us remove the circle’s faces manually, leaving nice circular openings in the shell.
The result is shown in Figure 6.20.
Figure 6.20: Rendered view of canopy after removal of circle faces
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