Utilities
The Utilities submenu contains various utilities and macros created using the Sketchup Ruby API. This menu item only appears after enabling the utilities tools using the Extensions panel of the Preferences dialog box.
' Note - Ruby scripts are contained in the Plugins directory under the installation directory. Create Face
The Create Face menu item invokes the Create Face utility allowing you to troubleshoot face creation and, in most cases, create a face for three or more intersecting edges. Specifically, the Create Face utility is useful when:
• A model has two edges that have a common end point geometrically (the coordinates of the end point are the same), but the edges are not connected topologically. In this case, the Create Face utility will properly connect edges and create a face.
• A face cannot be created because edges are not exactly planer, or appear to be connected when there is actually a small gap between the ends of the edges. In these instances, Create Face will not create a face, but displays a message indicating why SketchUp cannot create a face. This message can be used to troubleshoot face creation.
Query Tool
The Query Tool menu item invokes a Query Tool utility that displays the current mouse position in the VCB.
Fix Non-planar Faces
The Fix Non-planar Faces menu items invokes the Fix Non-planar Faces utility to find and fix non-planar faces. Fix Non-planer Faces looks at the Vertices of every face and checks to see if they are on the plane of the face. If not, Check Validity tries to break the face into triangle so that each triangular face will be planar.
Fix Non-planar Faces can actually change the model, but does not move vertices or edges. Instead, Check Validity will split faces into triangular faces if they were not planar.
' Note - Non-planar faces can get created by a bug in the DWG importer.
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