The TF rubies are a set of plugin extensions for timber framers. Version 2.2 has just been released, and is available here:

http://www.northernlightstimberframing.com/su/downloads/tfrubies.rbz


To Install, use Sketchup 8's new plugin install feature:

· Download the file tfrubies.rbz using the link above. Save it somewhere on your computer, like your desktop.

· In Sketchup, from the main menu, select Window | Preferences. (Sketchup | Preferences on a Mac)

· Choose Extensions from the menu on the left.

· Press the Install Extension button.

· Browse to the file tfrubies.rbz that you downloaded in the first step.

· Answer “yes” to all the warnings.

· Restart Sketchup.


New features:

Stretch Tool. It works just like the built-in move tool, except that it moves only one end of the component. So, just place one end of the timber component where it belongs using the move tool, then select the stretch tool, and grab the other end of the timber by an appropriate handle, such as a shoulder line, or post bottom. Then drag that end to its desired location and click again to drop it. Just like the move tool, you can simply place the mouse cursor over any location on the face of the target timber. I suggest you map the shortcut key "s" to this tool, and use this instead of the native "scale" tool provided by Sketchup.

Show Pegs. When preparing a model for presentation to a client, you will probably want to spruce it up with textures, walls, windows, etc. You can use Plugins | TF Rubies | Add Pegs to add cosmetic pegs to your model. Note that these are just little “pegettes” for presentation only. They will not follow along when you move timbers around. They are all on their own layer, so it’s easy to erase them all, and recreate them again. They are all the same component, so if you change one, you change the, all. So you can add a texture or color or chamfer to all of them easily. Delete or hide this layer before you make shop drawings or generating a timber list.

Here's a youtube video demonstrating the use of the new stretch tool.

This is SO cool.

Clark, wonderful work on the new stretch tool...

I don't make much use of the Rubies in my normal work flro, but this will get mapped to my keyboard.

I have what may be a possible bug (or undocumented feature). TFRubies seems to ignore groups when producing it's timber list. Exploding the groups results in the timbers appearing in the list. Which leads to the following request:

Is there a way in which we could mark objects as being timbers? This would allow the creation of complete house models while still being able to produce the timber lists. I'm not sure if this is something that one can do in Sketchup. If I find the time in the near future I can take a look at the tfrubies code and see if I can work it out, but I don't see my spare-time-O-meter being full any time soon.

The TF Rubies were designed so that all timbers must be top-level components, and not part of any other component or group. And joints must be sub-components of timber components. One of the reasons it was done this way was so that you did NOT have to mark every timber. I suggest you place all non-timber elements on layers that can be hidden when making shop drawings and timber lists.

Thanks. I wondered afterwards if it wasn't intentional. By the way, Great tool. Love it. The stretch tool has been very useful for making quick modifications to the frame design, and the TFRubies gave me a reason to try Sketchup for which I'm very grateful.

You can still create 'whole house' models.

I use either layers or various combinations of groups.
When doing the frame take off, simply turn off all the other layers and export the timbers. (same goes for panel take offs, etc.)

If using groups, I simply copy the TF group to a blank sketchup model, export the list, and then I can send that model along with my quote... stripped of any extra data.

A question regarding the peg holes. Looking through the code I see that the peg holes are fixed at 1" diameter (Specified in the code as 0.5 radius). I can hack this fairly easily to change the peg size on my computer, although I've not looked to see what effect it will have on the pegs when they are drawn, but I was wondering how much grief it would be to allow this to be user specified in the configure box. I'm up against a deadline at the minute and unlikely to be able to look at it for a few weeks, but if it's too low on the priorities list, I can take a look later on and see if I can figure it out. Do you have a system for receiving patches? If I were to send a diff of the relevant file, would that be enough?

OK. I had a bit more of a browse and found where the pegettes are generated and they're hardcoded there as well, so it seems that a variable encoding this size should be easy enough to hack in, even if it's not immediately available from the configure box.