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Tutorial: Connecting SketchUp to Pachube v0.2

Posted March 3rd, 2009 by c.burman@pachube

In this tutorial we will explain how to connect a pachube enabled component inside of SketchUp to a live pachube stream. Version 0.2 of the plug-in has be rewritten from scratch so that a user can simply add pachube enabled components to a SketchUp file without having to code how they work. This tutorial demonstrates how this process works. There will be more tutorials uploaded covering how to create new pachube-enabled components.

A video of this tutorial can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhzA5_oFKuA

1. Software installation

1.1. Installing Google SketchUp

For this tutorial you will need Google SketchUp installed. This is free from: http://sketchup.google.com/download/
(the pachube plugin has been tested on versions 6 and 7 for Mac and PC)

1.2. Install the plugin

Download the Pachube2Sketchup plugin from here: http://sketchup.pachube.com/plugin/files/v02/pachube2sketchup.zip

Unzip the Pachube2SketchUp folder and put it in the sketchUp plugins folder which can be found:
On a Windows PC:
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Sketchup 7\Plugins\

On a Mac:
Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp/plugins

Its important the files are in a separate folder or the plugin will load by default which may cause problems. If you have previously installed Pachube2SketchUp you'll need to delete or move the old version.

1.3. Download the Tutorial Scene.

Download the SketchUp scene for this tutorial: http://sketchup.pachube.com/tutorial_scenes/pachube2sketchup_v02_demo.skp

2. Connecting to Pachube

Once the plug-in is installed, open SketchUp, and load the tutorial scene mentioned above.

It should look something like this:

We'll now load and start the Pachube2SketchUp plugin.
Open the Ruby Console window from the menu Window>Ruby Console.

In the console type:
load 'pachube2sketchup/start.rb'

A new window should pop up with the plug-in inside.

Activating an Environment

Select the pachube flag so that the whole pachube component appears selected, which should look like this:

Click on 'Activate Environment' to have the plugin connect to pachube and retrieve the feed data. The first time you do this, an authentication dialog will pop up to ask for your Pachube username and password.

Wait until the data has fully loaded from Pachube and then you should be able to use the buttons to flick though the pachube historic data.

Known Issues

  • In Mac OSX the Pachube2SketchUp interface can get hidden behind the main sketchup window. Use CMD+~ to bring it to the front.

Tutorial Resources

References

Re: Tutorial: Connecting SketchUp to Pachube v0.2

On July 22nd, 2009 mkal says:

greaaaaaaaaaat