There's also this 'surveytool' plugin by architect John Wehby, that takes distances and bearings...
http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/author_details.php?id=50
There are also some other useful tools by him there... 😄

Writing a script to import distances and angles is quite straightforward... can you post a text file of some example data... It could place cpoints that you then swap for components later [such tools already exist]

I will try - thank you.

Actually this has been around for as long as I can remember. And while I use thomthom's cleanup script and purge all the time, this is still a big issue because sometimes you want to forcefully delete a material that is still in your scene. This happens a lot when you bring in some 3d elements and such and end up with a few oddball materials that you don't want, but don't want to dig around and find out where they are in the model.

-Brodie

I certainly dream of more than this, but this would be a great step in the right direction. The current UV tools available through ruby do me no good for just the reason you mention. When I want to wrap a stucco material around a column it scales way too large with no means of tiling it as you mention. Creating a custom material for such things is too much of a bother for me and clutters things up.

-Brodie

I don't like the fact that there is no AppStore link. This leaves me to conclude that this app will be pretty pricey. 😲

yea - a UI that's separate and doesn't lock up. That would be a big enhancement.

Okay then, in V-ray, you can set a material double sided (somehow, do not ask me as I do not use V-ray but down in the V-ray subforum on the board index).

This means that while a face can be completely transparent from one side, can be a shadow caster material from the other - i.e. if you create a dummy, shadow caster face for a 2D component, it will result in a "normal" shadow from any angle.

This is actually very useful in SU as well. See an example file by Alan Fraser here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=173618#p173618
Although it is not a "classical" 2D face me component, its leaves are actually face me pieces. If you turn hidden geometry on, you will notice what casts the shadow there. You can use that shadow caster component (maybe a bit slanted towards the camera so that you can never see "underneath") with a transparent material on top and a non-transparent, shadow casting material at the bottom in V-ray.

Yup, I believe that works I guess...

@unknownuser said:

The reason I want SketchUp to work this way, is because I have so many plugins, SketchUp takes FOREVER to load. And with this plugin, I don't want to wait for 20 seconds before I can edit my component.

Also, why should I buy a $25.00 plugin when this is free?

I would pay $25 for multiple windows in one instance of SU and I didn't know about that component editor window... that is sweet I'll have to get that.

Very good point 👍 and it does not sound like something that is too hard to implement. 😒

hello, i'am not talking about a renderer software i use vray and maxwell and other but a shader in the window of sketchup because the way sculptris use is very light and easy try you understand what i mean it'a free programme
create by pixologic .
When i use sketchup i always interogate me why there is no shading mode like sculptris voila
i use sketchup since the 6

Here are two ways - I added a temporary diagonal line to find the square's center.
One is maximum size it will snap 'square' when the point-on-edge' is approximately square as shown, the other is fully 'inscribed'...OctagonInSquare.pngOctagonInSquare2.png

It wouldn't be impossible to work in 3d; it would make things more flexible! (by posting this, I am secretly pushing through my selective-snapping-disabling agenda)

Perhaps something from here might help

http://www.freebyte.com/cad/fea.htm

The free versions are usually node limited (typically 300), but for small item might be useful.

Regards,
Bob

@agamemnus said:

Eyeballing? Doesn't sound very accurate......

It is'n't accurate indeed, but often quite enough to cut out the image part you need, say for a new 'Face Me' component. Then inferencing other than 'On Face' gets in the way. That was my point. I can't think of another time disabling inferencing would help at all.
The main reason for answering here was that other axes (as in the question by OP), like R/G/B with 60/60/60 degrees is possible.

If you would like to exchange suggestions about working around the orthogonal axes as mentioned in this thread:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=34690
let me know in that thread. (here we are to much off topic, sorry)
Unfortunately, in that thread your uploaded image contradicts what you are writing. So I'm not certain why you cannot just do what you are after without disabling inferencing to axes or disabling whatever.

Already to contradict myself...

I was assuming you had already played with the "Combine Textures" option in SketchUp. It does approximately exactly what you want. It has limitations though. It only works on co-planar faces though. So on a small model, it would be possible to rotate all faces, or use Jim Folt'z flatten script to flatten all faces, then combine the material into a single jpeg. That would be veryt tedious and not entirely useful on very large models though. But I suppose it could be exactly what you want if you only need it for small amounts of work.

To use it, select to faces that are coplanar, and one must already have an image material on it. Select them both (or more than just 2) and right click, and choose "Combine Textures". That will put them into a single jpg. Then you can right click on one of the faces and choose "Texture > Edit Texture Material" and it will open the jpg into your defaul image editor (You can specify that in your SketchUp preferences to use whatever image editor you have on your computer). So that is an option if you want to go through that process 😄

Chris

I don't think there is Al.

Another trick is to use the Section Tool, as follows:

It's a work-around but it does what's necessary.

Cheers,

. Diego.

Have you tried exporting via LayOut? Apparently it can export better than SketchUp.

got two more e-mails today... both identical, with my key info...

@unknownuser said:

"Hi Kristoff,

Thanks for contacting Google SketchUp. We regret to hear you never received your license information via email. Our records show that your license was sent out automatically following your purchase.

Please note that the license information template we send out contains executable links to our product download and may be getting flagged as spam by your internet service provider. Below is the license information again without the links.

We recommend adding our email address domain of @sketchup.com to your white list to ensure you receive future emails from the SketchUp team."

yeah I knew that it may be flagged as spam, but I actively and daily check my spam folders because lots of things I want go in there... and it never came.

what irks me is they had a specific box to declare an e-mail addy that I wanted the license info sent to along with whatever addy they had on file... and I filled it in. I expect more from Google, they're too big to make these little mistakes. thanks for listening to me vent.

so anyway... all is well in my world and I'm now SketchUp 8 Pro... now I'll be hitting a couple of Plugin Developer's donation boxes to complete my Christmas support of the modeling world.