SpaceDesign

SpaceDesign is an add-on for SketchUp for defining attributes and creating reports from SketchUp components.

1 Getting Started - First Quick Report
2 Next Step - Define Attributes and Report Fields
- 2.1 Adding Attributes
- 2.2 Define Report
3 New in Version IH26
4 Advanced Techniques
5 License Cost
6 Features
7 FAQ
8 Downloads and Installation
9 See also

report on Dynamic Component attributes.
Add your own attributes and report on them.
Combine and count components with similar attributes.
Extend cost and other fields (multiply by quantity).
Total extended cost and other fields.

There are four basic functions:

Define attributes to be used in editing and reporting
Edit Attributes for components
Define which attributes you want to include in your report
Generate the report.

Getting Started - First Quick Report

After downloading and installing SpaceDesign, follow these steps to try it out.

1. Select "SpaceDesign" from the SketchUp Plugins menu.

Toolbar

Image:Space-design-free-toolbar.jpg

The SD icon loads a dialog which lets you define how SpaceDesign will be loaded when you load SketchUp.
The Attributes icon lets you define attributes. You can use standard attrbutes (e.g. Component name), Dynamic Component Attributes, or attributes you add to the component using SpaceDesign.
The Report icon loads the Reports Dialog to create a report. See: SpaceDesign Report Wizard .

2. Add a couple Components to your model (Regular Components or Dynamic Components)

3. Right click on a component, and select "Edit SpaceDesign Attributes"

4. Enter a value for Cost and Description

5. Click the Report icon

Make sure the PDF report is selected, and click Create Report

You should see a report like this:

The image is the current image in your SketchUp drawing.
I added a second instance of the bench so that you could see how count and extended cost work.
The text is set on the Text and Fonts tab of the report wizard.
See: SpaceDesign Report Wizard for more on report formatting.

Next Step - Define Attributes and Report Fields

The Define Attributes dialog will show:

Special $ attributes ($count, $comp_desc, $layer and $name).
The values for these are determined by the components in your model, and cannot be edited.
SpaceDesign attributes added to your components.
Dynamic Component attributes
(These are preceded by DC:. You can report on them, but need to use the Dynamic Component editor to change their values.)

Adding Attributes

You can add additional SpaceDesign attributes using the Add Attribute button. You will be prompted for the settings for a new component.

Name - The name for your new attribute
Header Text - The heading which will appear on reports
Format - Text, Numeric, Database or Currency. (See Number Formatting )
Decimals - If Numeric, this is the number of decimal places to use
Min Width - The minimum width for reports. (in average character size)
Right Justify -
Include on Report
Allow Viewing - Will be viewed on the Edit dialog, but cannot be changed
Allow Editing - View and edit on the Edit Dialog
Blank if Zero - report as blank when values is 0
Show Total - total this column
Extend From - calculate this field by multiplying another field by the Count field.
See: SpaceDesign Attributes

Define Report

Select the attributes desired on the report.

In addition to the SpaceDesign attributes on you components, you can include:

$count - count of components with the same attributes
$name - the name of the component
$description - The description stored in the component definition. (Or the Component name if the description is blank)
$layer - the layer on which the component is placed.

Check boxes

For each attributes, use the check box to include it in the report.

Report Title

This is used for the title of the report, and also for the name of the file for the report.

See: SpaceDesign Report Wizard for the settings on the other tabs
See: Space Design Report Format to determine the order and appearance of the report columns.

New in Version IH26

Database data type for metric values - See: SpaceDesign Number Formatting‎
Default Values for attributes - See: Default Values
Drill into Components and Groups - See: Drill setting
Substitution strings - See: Substitutions
Calculations - See: SpaceDesign Calculations

Advanced Techniques

See: SpaceDesign Calculations - setting attribute values based on size of components, or other attributes.
See: SpaceDesign Number Formatting‎ - Database and Currency formatting

License Cost

See SpaceDesign Pricing

Features

SpaceDesign Features
Feature	SpaceDesign
Assign Attributes to Components	-- Yes -- Attributes are stored in Component definitions. If you have two instances of a component and want different attributes - e.g. location or inventory tracking number - you will have to create a unique occurrence of the component.
Report on Dynamic Component Attributes	-- Yes -- You can view and report on Dynamic Component attributes. In order to change Dynamic Component Attributes you will have to use the SketchUp Dynamic Component editor.
Create a report or .CSV file of attributes in the model.	-- Yes -- Select and order attributes to be include in the report. Save report definitions to the disk for re-use. Report includes collation and counting of components with similar attributes.
Create a PDF Report.	-- Yes -- Report is stored in PDF format so it can be easily placed on web pages, printed, or emailed to clients.
Save Attributes in SKP model for Component	-- Yes -- Attributes saved in the definition are retained when you export the components into a library (can be used to preset attributes for component libraries or 3D Warehouse components)
Limit on number of attributes	-- No -- No limit on number of attributes
Include an image of the SketchUp model in the report	-- Yes -- Image of model and attribute report and ability to customize report format.
Define attributes based on size of component instances.	-- Yes -- Create multiple report definitions for multiple report formats. See: Substitutions
Calculate extended cost or total weight of components.	-- Yes -- Create multiple report definitions for multiple report formats. See: Extended Pirces and Costs
Perform Calculations on attributes	-- Yes -- Calculations based on width, length or other fields See: Calculations
Drill into Groups and Components for nested components	-- Yes -- Packages of components

FAQ

Question: I am looking for a SketchUp Plugin that will give a comprehensive bill of materials, I have had trouble finding a plugin that generates a report respective of a components alignment in relation to the axis of the whole model. Cut List 4.0 does this for me and is free, I assume that RP Report does something better than Cut List 4.0 so if I should I purchase RP Report, will it meet my needs?

Based on your request, we are creating a new version of RpReports, called SpaceDesign.

RpReports is very powerful, but it takes a lot of work to set up the projects. SpaceDesign is much easier to use for simple reports.

Here are the proposed features for the new SpaceDesign version (projected price $99.00)

Attributes on Components

Place attributes on components in one of 3 ways:
- Place the attributes in the model before saving the .SKP file for the component.

(In this case, the attributes will automatically be included when the component is placed from the disk or from the 3D warehouse.)

- Place the attributes in the component definition after placing the component in your model.

(In this case the attributes will apply to all instances of the component in the model, but will not apply to other models which place the same component. Unless you the receive the definition into a component library.

Place the attributes on the Component Instance. This option allows you to set or override attributes for each instance of the component. But the attributes will not be saved into the Component Definition or Component Libraries.

Reporting

When you are ready to generate a report, all attributes will be read from all Components. You will be provided with a list of all attributes names, and can select which attributes should be included in the report, and change to order of the attributes.

This system works OK if you only have a few different components in your model, and only a few attributes. (If you had 500 attributes and 40 components, then you would have to enter 20,000 attributes values one at a time.

If you have this many components and attributes, if would be better to have an automated system to edit the attributes in a spreadsheet and apply them to the model. We plan to add that feature to the SpaceDesign.

Beta Tester

If this is of interest to you, lets discuss a Beta test program where you can be our "guinea pig" as we develop this, and then decide whether you want to purchase it when we are done.

Downloads and Installation

There is a 30 day Trial Version for RPS products. This is a fully functional version, with watermarks or other text added to indicate that it is a trial version.

Follow the links from the Downloads Page to download the latest version.

See: How to Download and Install