Drill holes in objects using sketchup

If you've ever used sketchup for woodworking, you've probably noticed that it's a pain to drill holes in your workpieces. You have to create a circle, type in its diameter, then use the push/pull tool to push the hole through to the other side. Unfortunately, you can't make the hole a component, either, since it won't intersect right unless you explode it first.

So here's a ruby extension for drilling holes with a single click. Save the below code to a file called "drill.rb" in your Plugins/ directory. Open sketchup, go to Window... Preferences, click Extensions, and enable "Ruby Script Examples". Then you may need to restart sketchup to see the Plugins dropdown. Select "drill", type a hole diameter in the VCB and then hit enter. It'll save that value until you change it. Now click on a face on a 3d object to drill a hole through it.

# Hacked together from the linetool example by Jason E. Holt
# Copyright 2005-2008, Google, Inc.

# This software is provided as an example of using the Ruby interface
# to SketchUp.

# Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for 
# any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
# copyright notice appear in all copies.

# THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
# IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
# WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

require 'sketchup.rb'

class Drill

@@drill_diameter = 1

# This is the standard Ruby initialize method that is called when you create
# a new object.
def initialize
end

def draw(view)
    Sketchup::set_status_text "DIAMETER", SB_VCB_LABEL
    Sketchup::set_status_text @@drill_diameter.to_s, SB_VCB_VALUE
end

# The activate method is called by SketchUp when the tool is first selected.
# it is a good place to put most of your initialization
def activate
    Sketchup::set_status_text "DIAMETER", SB_VCB_LABEL
    Sketchup::set_status_text @@drill_diameter.to_s, SB_VCB_VALUE
end

# The onLButtonDOwn method is called when the user presses the left mouse button.
def onLButtonDown(flags, x, y, view)
    center_ip = Sketchup::InputPoint.new
    center_ip.pick view, x, y
    face = center_ip.face

    center = center_ip.position
    normal = face.normal

    if ( face )
      circle = view.model.entities.add_circle center, normal, @@drill_diameter / 2.0

      other_entities = face.all_connected

      reversed_normal = normal.reverse

      circleface = nil

      # This seems lame.  add_circle seems to add it as a face, but then I have
      # to go looking for that face.
      for other in other_entities
 if other.typename == "Face" and other.classify_point(center) == 1
   #UI.messagebox("found myself :/")
   circleface = other
 end
      end

      # Find a face opposite the one they clicked in
      for other in other_entities

        #UI.messagebox("type is " + other.typename)

        if other.typename == "Face"
          if reversed_normal.samedirection? other.normal
            #UI.messagebox "found it!"
     
     point_on_other_face = center.project_to_plane other.plane
     if other.classify_point(point_on_other_face) == 1
       #UI.messagebox "yes, point projects onto other face."
       pushpull_distance = point_on_other_face.vector_to(center).length

       circleface.pushpull(-pushpull_distance)
     else
       #UI.messagebox "nope, doesn't project"
     end
          else
            #UI.messagebox "nope"
          end
        end
      end

      view.model.commit_operation

    else
      UI.messagebox "Drilling only works on faces"
    end
end

def onUserText(text, view)
    
    # The user may type in something that we can't parse as a length
    # so we set up some exception handling to trap that
    begin
        value = text.to_l
    rescue
        # Error parsing the text
        UI.beep
        puts "Cannot convert #{text} to a Diameter"
        value = nil
        Sketchup::set_status_text "", SB_VCB_VALUE
    end
    return if !value

    @@drill_diameter = value
end

end # class Drill

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This functions is just a shortcut for selecting the new tool
def drill
    Sketchup.active_model.select_tool Drill.new
end

UI.menu("PlugIns").add_item("Drill") {
  drill
}