Fredo
Fredo is the author of two exciting plug-ins for SketchUp: Joint Push/Pull and Offset On Surface, which introduce a new level of advanced modeling tools to the program.
CatchUp: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and your background?
Fredo: I am not at all in the architecture or design business, though I have an engineer background. But it’s been a long time I have been doing technical things in my daily job. Indeed, I have been programming in a remote past, in various languages, and for very different types of applications. Let’s say also that I am now closer to the 50’s than to the 20’s!! And, as you can guess, I am French, enjoying the sun of the Riviera.
CatchUp: How did you get involved with Ruby scripting for SketchUp?
Fredo: By chance actually! I have been using some architecture software for designing extensions of my house. At that time I participated to a French forum (http://escargot-archi.eu) . Then I moved naturally to Sketchup, mostly for fun, because I liked very much the neat and straight approach of the user interface, and found this software incredibly well thought through (in particular the inference mechanism and visual navigation). When designing a ship, I had to build the hull with Bezier curves. I found however several limitations in the script Bezier.rb. So I had a closer look at the script code and by trials and errors, managed to
change the precision parameter. But doing so, I got interested in Ruby as a programming language, and found there another gem, probably the most elegant language I had practiced. Then, I learnt more of Ruby, evolved the Bezier script carefully, and progressively retrieved all the reflexes of the programmer I have been in the past. Here too, that was for pleasure, as a relaxing activity...
CatchUp: What projects/scripts are you most proud of and why?
Fredo: Probably Joint Push Pull, as, when I started, I had no clue whether this was possible or not. In parallel to programming, I had to refresh on Geometry! That was a good challenge and this is where I really discovered the Sketchup API, with all its limitations and capabilities. I also spent a lot of time on things that users would hardly notice, such as the positioning of bitmap textures (actually the most difficult part).
CatchUp: You recently gave the SketchUp community an enhancement of an existing tool for SketchUp - the Offset tool. Did you expect this tool to receive such good reviews?
Fredo: I was a little bit surprised, I must admit. The idea comes from members of the forum and when writing it I was not convinced this would be really useful in practice (I now realize why it is helpful, in conjunction with Joint Push Pull). I thought it was easy, and it was not at all. What I really appreciated is the enthusiastic echo I received from the forum. This rewards the hours of work, sometimes in complete darkness, fighting with geometry on surfaces.