Class: Sketchup::Entity

Inherits:
Object
  • Object
show all
Defined in:
SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb

Overview

This is the base class for all SketchUp entities. Entities are basically anything that can be contained in a model, including Drawingelements such as Edges, SectionPlanes, Groups, etc. and entities that relate to those Drawingelements, such as Loops, Layers, etc.

Keep in mind that the methods below are available on all subclasses. For example, an Edge’s parent class is Drawingelement, and a Drawingelement’s parent class is Entity. Therefore an Edge has all of the methods defined in Drawingelement and Entity.

The Object.is_a? method is the common way of determining what sort of Entity you’re dealing with.

Examples:

# Count how many faces are in the current selection.
selection = Sketchup.active_model.selection
face_count = 0

# Look at all of the entities in the selection.
selection.each { |entity|
  if entity.is_a? Sketchup::Face
    face_count = face_count + 1
  end
}

UI.messagebox("There are " + face_count.to_s + " faces selected.")

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0

Instance Method Summary collapse

Instance Method Details

#add_observer(observer) ⇒ Boolean

The add_observer method is used to add an observer to the current object.

Examples:

entity = Sketchup.active_model.entities[0]
if entity.valid?
  status = entity.add_observer observer
end

Parameters:

  • observer (Object) —

    An observer.

Returns:

  • (Boolean) —

    true if successful, false if unsuccessful.

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 50

def add_observer(observer)
end

#attribute_dictionaries ⇒ Sketchup::AttributeDictionaries?

The attribute_dictionaries method is used to retrieve the AttributeDictionaries collection attached to the entity.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.set_attribute "testdictionary", "test", 115
attrdicts = entity1.attribute_dictionaries

Returns:

  • (Sketchup::AttributeDictionaries, nil) —

    the AttributeDictionaries object associated with the entity, or nil if there are no attribute_dictionary objects associated with the model. Care must be taken if nil is returned, for example: invoking attribute_dictionaries.length will throw a NoMethodError exception, not return 0.

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 84

def attribute_dictionaries
end

#attribute_dictionary(name, create) ⇒ Sketchup::AttributeDictionary?

The attribute_dictionary method is used to retrieve an attribute dictionary with a given name that is attached to an Entity.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.set_attribute "testdictionary", "test", 115
attrdict = entity1.attribute_dictionary "testdictionary"

Parameters:

  • name (String) —

    The name of the attribute dictionary.

  • create (Boolean) —

    boolean, if set to true then the attribute dictionary will be created if it does not exist.

Returns:

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



121
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 121

def attribute_dictionary(name, create)
end

#delete_attribute(dictionary_name) ⇒ Boolean #delete_attribute(dictionary_name, key) ⇒ Boolean

Note:

In SketchUp 2018, special attribute dictionaries have been added. The name of these dictionaries are “SU_InstanceSet” and “SU_DefinitionSet”. The dictionaries cannot be deleted via ruby and an ArgumentError will be raised. The key/value pairs in the dictionary can be deleted safely.

Note:

The return values are fixed in SketchUp 2019 M0.

The #delete_attribute method is used to delete an attribute from an entity.

If only the dictionary_name is given, then it deletes the entire AttributeDictionary. Otherwise, #delete_attribute deletes the attribute with the given key from the given dictionary.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]
# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.set_attribute "testdictionary", "test", 115
status = entity1.delete_attribute "testdictionary"

Overloads:

  • #delete_attribute(dictionary_name) ⇒ Boolean

    Parameters:

    • dictionary_name (String) —

      The name of an attribute dictionary.

    Returns:

    • (Boolean)
  • #delete_attribute(dictionary_name, key) ⇒ Boolean

    Parameters:

    • dictionary_name (String) —

      The name of an attribute dictionary.

    • key (String) —

      An attribute key.

    Returns:

    • (Boolean)

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



168
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 168

def delete_attribute(*args)
end

#deleted? ⇒ Boolean

The deleted? method is used to determine if your entity is still valid (not deleted by another script, for example.)

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.deleted?

Returns:

  • (Boolean)
  • (Boolean)

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 195

def deleted?
end

#entityID ⇒ Integer

The entityID method is used to retrieve a unique ID assigned to an entity.

The entityID is not persistent between sessions.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts
entity1 = entities[1]
id = entity1.entityID

Returns:

  • (Integer) —

    the id for the Entity object

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 221

def entityID
end

#get_attribute(dict_name, key, default_value = nil) ⇒ Object

The #get_attribute method is used to retrieve the value of an attribute in the entity’s attribute dictionary.

If the third parameter, default_value, is not passed and there is no attribute that matches the given name, it returns nil.

If default_value is provided and there is no matching attribute it returns the given value. It does not create an attribute with that name though.

Examples:

# Add an entity to the model:
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
edge = entities.add_line([0, 0, 0], [9, 9, 9])

# Read an attribute value from the edge. In this case this will return the
# default value provided; 42.
value = edge.get_attribute("MyExtension", "MyProperty", 42)

Parameters:

  • dict_name (String) —

    The name of an attribute dictionary.

  • key (String) —

    An attribute key.

  • default_value (Object) (defaults to: nil) —

    A default value to return if no attribute is found.

Returns:

  • (Object) —

    the retrieved value

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 255

def get_attribute(dict_name, key, default_value = nil)
end

#inspect ⇒ String

The to_s method is used to retrieve the string representation of the entity.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
st = entity1.to_s

Returns:

  • (String) —

    the string representation of the entity if successful

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 283

def inspect
end

#model ⇒ Sketchup::Model

The model method is used to retrieve the model for the entity.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
m = entity1.model

Returns:

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 310

def model
end

#parent ⇒ Sketchup::ComponentDefinition, Sketchup::Model

The parent method is used to retrieve the parent of the entity.

The parent will be a ComponentDefinition, a Group, or a Model, whatever the entity is contained within.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
parent = entity1.parent

Returns:

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 341

def parent
end

#persistent_id ⇒ Integer

Note:

Only a subset of entity types support PIDs. Refer to the table below for which and when support was added. In general it is entities that you can iterate over in a Sketchup::Entities collection.

The #persistent_id method is used to retrieve a unique persistent id assigned to an entity.

The persistent id persistent between sessions.

SketchUp 2018
SketchUp 2017

Examples:

model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = [
  Geom::Point3d.new(0, 0, 0),
  Geom::Point3d.new(9, 0, 0),
  Geom::Point3d.new(9, 9, 0),
  Geom::Point3d.new(0, 9, 0),
]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
group = entities.add_group
face = group.entities.add_face(pts)
pid = face.persistent_id
# Exploding the group will preserve the pid.
pid == face.persistent_id # Should return true

Returns:

Version:

  • SketchUp 2017



392
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 392

def persistent_id
end

#remove_observer(observer) ⇒ Boolean

The remove_observer method is used to remove an observer from the current object.

Examples:

entity = Sketchup.active_model.entities[0]
if entity.valid?
  status = entity.remove_observer observer
end

Parameters:

  • observer (Object) —

    An observer.

Returns:

  • (Boolean) —

    true if successful, false if unsuccessful.

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



410
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 410

def remove_observer(observer)
end

#set_attribute(dict_name, key, value) ⇒ Object

The set attribute is used to set the value of an attribute in an attribute dictionary with the given name.

This method will create a new AttributeDictionary if none exists.

Note, a bug prior to SketchUp 2015 would corrupt the model if the key is an empty string. This also includes values that will evaluate to empty strings, such as nil.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.set_attribute "testdictionary", "test", 115

Parameters:

  • dict_name (String) —

    The name of an attribute dictionary.

  • key (String) —

    An attribute key.

  • value (Object) —

    The value for the attribute.

Returns:

  • (Object) —

    the newly set value if successful

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



453
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 453

def set_attribute(dict_name, key, value)
end

#to_s ⇒ String

The to_s method is used to retrieve the string representation of the entity.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
st = entity1.to_s

Returns:

  • (String) —

    the string representation of the entity if successful

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



481
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 481

def to_s
end

#typename ⇒ String

The typename method retrieves the type of the entity, which will be a string such as “Face”, “Edge”, or “Group”.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts

# I just happen to know that the second and third entities in the
# entities objects are edges.
entity1 = entities[1]
type = entity1.typename

Returns:

  • (String) —

    the type of the entity

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



509
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# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 509

def typename
end

#valid? ⇒ Boolean

The valid? method is used to determine if your entity is still valid (not deleted by another script, for example.)

This method is functionally identical to the deleted? method.

Examples:

depth = 100
width = 100
model = Sketchup.active_model
entities = model.active_entities
pts = []
pts[0] = [0, 0, 0]
pts[1] = [width, 0, 0]
pts[2] = [width, depth, 0]
pts[3] = [0, depth, 0]

# Add the face to the entities in the model
face = entities.add_face pts
entity1 = entities[1]
status = entity1.valid?

Returns:

  • (Boolean)
  • (Boolean)

Version:

  • SketchUp 6.0



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539
 
# File 'SketchUp/Sketchup/Entity.rb', line 538

def valid?
end