Animation

interface

• Introduction
• Methods
• • nextFrame
  • pause
  • resume
  • stop

Introduction

     # This is an example of a simple animation that floats the camera up to
     # a z position of 200". The only required method for an animation is
     # nextFrame. It is called whenever you need to show the next frame of
     # the animation. If nextFrame returns false, the animation will stop.
     class FloatUpAnimation
       def nextFrame(view)
         new_eye = view.camera.eye
         new_eye.z = new_eye.z + 1.0
         view.camera.set(new_eye, view.camera.target, view.camera.up)
         view.show_frame
         return new_eye.z < 500.0
       end
     end

     # This adds an item to the Camera menu to activate our custom animation.
     UI.menu("Camera").add_item("Run Float Up Animation") {
       Sketchup.active_model.active_view.animation = FloatUpAnimation.new
     } 

     Sketchup.active_model.active_view.animation = nil

Methods

Animation.nextFrameSketchUp 6.0+

The nextFrame method is invoked by SketchUp to tell the animation to display its next frame. This method should set up the camera and then call the show_frame method on the View.

The nextFrame method is the only required method of the Animation interface that you must implement.

Arguments:

view

The view for the animation.

Returns:

continue

true if you want the animation to continue on to the next frame, false if you want the animation to stop after this frame.

 def nextFrame(view)
   # Insert your handler code for updating the camera or other entities.
   view.show_frame
   return true
 end

Animation.pauseSketchUp 6.0+

The pause method is invoked by SketchUp when the animation is paused.

This method is optional (you do not need to implement this method unless you want to perform some specialized function when the animation is paused). You cannot call this method in your code explicitly and expect an animation to pause, only certain SketchUp events cause the method to be called.

Note: the user interface for pausing and resuming animations isn't integrated with the Ruby API in the current version, so this method is probably not useful to you.

Returns:

nil

 def pause
   # Insert handler code for whatever you need to do when it is paused.
 end

Animation.resumeSketchUp 6.0+

The resume method is invoked by SketchUp when the animation is resumed after being paused.

This method is optional (you do not need to implement this method unless you want to perform some specialized function when the animation is resumed). You cannot call this method in your code explicitly and expect an animation to stop, only certain SketchUp events cause the method to be called.

Note: the user interface for pausing and resuming animations isn't integrated with the Ruby API in the current version, so this method is probably not useful to you.

Returns:

nil

 def resume
   # Insert your handler code for whatever you need to do as you resume.
 end

Animation.stopSketchUp 6.0+

The stop method is invoked by SketchUp when the animation is stopped.

This method is optional (you do not need to implement this method unless you want to perform some specialized function when the animation is stopped). You cannot call this method in your code explicitly and expect an animation to stop, only certain SketchUp events cause the method to be called.

Perhaps the most common way for this method to be called is when your ruby code sets the view.animation to nil. See the class comments for an example of this.

Returns:

nil

 def stop
   # Insert your handler code for cleaning up after your animation.
 end