Cast Oven 3D Model Generator - Sketchup Plugin/Dynamic Component

[loganc10]

I'm in the planning stage of a cast oven (build/question log will be coming soon). I went down the rabbit hole a bit more than planned in Sketchup. Upon surfacing I have a pretty comprehensive dynamic component and Ruby plugin in Sketchup that includes 30+ sub-geometries, 40 formulas within the dynamic component, and a few hundred lines of Ruby code to do the necessary boolean operations (unions, subtracts, etc). The result is a fully dynamic and adjustable model with 20+ parameters, like layer thicknesses, offsets, inverse flue funnel box in top of gallery, etc. Below is an example:



CastDomeGenerator_32inCast_2inBlanket.pdf

Parameters:

Description	Value
Dome Diameter	32"
Dome Thickness	2"
Blanket Thickness	2"
V-Crete Thickness	1.5"
Render Thickness	0.75"
Gallery Height Ratio	0.65
Gallery Width	18"
Vert Wall to Arch Ratio (Gallery)	0.6
Gallery Length	10.5"
Gallery Recess/Offset (from front of ID dome)	1.5"
Lip Size	0.75"
Gallery Cast Thickness	1.5"
Gallery Blanket Thickness	1"
Gallery V-Crete Thickness	1.5"
Gallery Render Thickness	0.75"
Flue Funnel Box Height	3.5"
Flue Funnel Box Width	10.5"
Flue Funnel Height Adjust (from top of Gallery)	-2"
Flue Pipe Depth Adj.	-2"
Vent Pipe Size	6"
Flue Pipe Base Height Offset	3.5"
V-Crete/Render Pipe Support Vert Scale	0.9
V-Crete/Render Pipe Support Horiz Scale	1

It's still a bit crude at the moment, but if there is larger interest I might be able to package it up a bit neater for other's use. Though the desktop and licensed version of Sketchup is required (not sure if that would be a gating factor for many).

Depending on time/interest, I have a few ideas on backlog:

1. Such as a generated report/dialog output to show volumes of cast and VCrete layers, total dimensions and weight, etc.
2. Selection between different flue gallery styles (inverse box funnel, etc, etc)

Let me know what you think, and if you have any more suggestions! If anyone would like me to export a oven with certain parameters, I'd be happy to.

Logan

[robi]

Sounds very interesting, but over my head... I use MSVisio for work and used it to make basic shape drawings for my oven... I tried figuring out sketchup but the learning curve was too steep... wish I could figure it out, 3d would be nice, but I guess I just do that the best I can in my head... it would be nice to plug in the numbers and have a drawing just happen. If it could figure out a materials list then I think that would be awesome... there's a spreadsheet somewhere for that tho...

as for uploading the picture... what I do is upload the jpg file then I select medium... then preview to make sure it looks right. Also because it appears that the image file is now duplicated in my post I remove the first one. There is probably a proper way to do it but this is what jumped out at me as I tried to figure it out...

[loganc10]

Just a quick bump/update, I was finally able to get some better exports and re-upload properly scaled sized images; and also added the parameter list/inputs into the dynamic component.

I'm still working out a few bugs in the shape generation (you might notice the V-crete and render layers that wrap around the flue pipe is a bit thin, etc). Soon I plan on experimenting a bit more, and will likely post a few examples of common sizes (say 30", 32", and 36" domes) and attach Sketchup files, pdf outputs, etc.

[Passaro]

Hello loganc10,

I'd be interested in that plugin
Were you able to complete it ? Can I help ?