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HOWTO change the default G-code plotter
SketchUcam is provided with the Gplot program to visualize the G-code that
you have output from your drawing.
You can change the program to any G-code plotter that takes a filename as command line parameter, such as
NCPlot. NCPlot will be used as an example here, replace references to NCPlot with your G-code plotter.
Follow these steps:
- Close Sketchup
- Find your NCPlot icon or menu entry, and right click it
- Select 'Properties'
- Under 'Target', select all the text as in image at right
- Press CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard
- Open the file 'gplot.rb' in the folder C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins
or C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins if you have 64bit Windows.
For Sketchup 2014 the path will be something like
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2014\SketchUp\Plugins
You need to open it in Notepad or a similar plain text editor. NOT MSWord!
(to open Notepad, Start|All Programs|Accessories|Notepad)
The file open in Notepad should appear as at right.
- In front of the line
@exe = Sketchup.find_support_file("GPlot.exe", "/Plugins")
place a '#' like this
#@exe = Sketchup.find_support_file("GPlot.exe", "/Plugins")
- add a line below that one
- in the blank line type
@exe = ""
- now, between the "", paste the path to NCPLot.exe we copied to the clipboard earlier
@exe = "D:\myapps\NCPlotv1.2\NCPlot.exe"
- for each \ character in the path, add another one next to it like this
@exe = "D:\\myapps\\NCPlotv1.2\\NCPlot.exe"
Save the file, which should look as in the image at right
Now let us test Sketchup
- Open Sketchup,
- open a drawing for which you have created G-code,
- select Plugins|Plot G-code
- NCPlot should open with the existing G-code file