plot-paris, thanks for sharing your thougths.... they go in the same directions as my wishes do, though I would not have been able to demonstrate my ideas in such a clear way... implementing the hierarchy suggestions would make much sense and be a great help to manage complex structures in very logical and easy-to-handle way. I would use it each and every day. Cheers, Franziska

This is an old bug of SU that was fixed in version 4, but the fix had to be removed due to some trouble about probable copyright infringements or something like that. Unfortunately there isn't a known fix for this at this time. Personally I'm hoping it is fixed in the next version of SU.

oh, cheffey, I am flattered no, I am not working as interface designer (if I would, I would redesign SketchUp to look like the iPhone ). I am a mere student, currently working in london. my only goal is to give our beloved Ruby Gods ideas for their amazing plugins (well, if the Google guys were inspired by it and we find some nice new tools in SU7, I won't complain )

WOW I cant believe all the posts since I first saw this post. Seems like the ligh-up will become reality. Yippeee

great! I didn't know colouring lines is possible. now I am one step closer to evading cad programs... should be quite easy to handle the different line colours when your model is well organized (groups/components). perhaps applying different line thicknes to various lines would be a nice idea for a ruby (unless something like that already exists!? )

There is FlightPath (free) and its commercial, more advanced sister, Fight Path2 or even (the also commercial) PresentationBundle that can do that and even much more (more exactly you can set the path prior to the scenes and allow your camera to move along).

We should invite Mr.J. Holman as well

zero, check out Selection Memory 2 if you hadn't found it already.

@remus said: If you make the geometry a group/component and then apply a material to the group (without entering it) it should colour the back faces as well, is that the sort of thing you meant? That works. Good trick. At least it works if the entire component is one color.

as far as I know they enable you to determine the inner side or outer side of a shape. just imagine you have a cube. how is the computer supposed to know, what is inside and what is outside? some years ago everyone in europe believed earth to be the centre of the world until a smart guy called Kopernikus found some convincing arguments that the sun is much more centered than our small blue planet. two sided faces are our arguments to define the orientation of a shape. for basic SketchUp use this is not that important. but if you start rendering a scene it is essential. if you have a glass object for example, light will change its colour depending on the distance it travels through the material [image: QboE_pure01.jpg] (picture by http://www.purerender.com) therefore the render engine needs to calculate the thickness of the object. and it can only do that if it is told what the inside of the object is and what the outside.

This would be nice too: faster exploding. Probably been mentioned a couple of times before.

I don't think that shadows or lighting can be exported to PDF from any application, I understand that it is limited strictly to it's own lighting features. I am not wuite sure, but I think that 3D PDF does not have a shadow casting option. Shadows in SU are raster features generated by ýour graphics card and there is no way to export them in vector form. Anssi

reminds me of the fallen madonna, you know the on with the big boobies. he he awesome pav

Hey guys, See this post for the most basic functionality: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=9318

@olenordmandsen said: ... 2. The introduction of SECTIONAL VOLUMES. By this I mean that any closed volumetric geometry can be designated as a SECTIONAL VOLUME. Where a SECTIONAL VOLUME intersects with other geometry everything inside the SECTIONAL VOLUME is hidden and sectional cut lines are displayed at the intersection of the SECTIONAL VOLUME and the intersecting geometry.... you are reading my mind!!! this would allow for many fantastic results, once accessible from within ruby, this could be very helpful for shaping - like now it's possible to use a section plane as a virtual push/pull but in any direction, having complex cutting geometry available, we could quickly take out parts of a building with visual feedback... and of course you could achieve this by nesting group with individual section planes, but it's very complicated to move them planes

we can always hope!

thanks a lot Boofredlay and lapx! these are both such cool tricks. I didnt know either of them. thats one of the moments, when I know, why I visit this forum every day!!!

You can create a group (or a component) of a single entity from the Edit menu (not the context menu though). Further more components of single entities can be created with the toolbar button and by using a shortcut. I'd call this inconsistency.

Plot: I realize there is potential for a slowdown, probably similar to that when you go to Xray mode, but when the model is "finalized for presentation" that could very well warrant having specific Scenes saved with this view mode turned on; it would certainly facilitate the print-output or when there is a need for a closeup which examines specific details. The surface appearance can change depending upon edge-length and detail, model scale, and the smoothing/softening properties of the intersecting geometry. Part of the idea for the suggestion, aside from doing the actual physical intersecting, was to eliminate tweeking smoothing and softening properties by merely superimposing non-smoothed "virtual-edges" representing the intersection. Bob: I use a similar method already. But with more "organic" or dense geometry, the method can be time consuming and not conducive to making fast changes at later date; it some cases it might involve reconstructing the original geometry (or retrieving early versions of the model). Regards, John

anglaret, you made me think of nice idea: SketchUp often remembers things - like if you move something a certain distance; if you move it again, it will snap to that earlier distance, if you near it. wouldn't it be nice if the offset tool remembered the last selection of lines it was used with and highlight them as soon as you hover over one of the lines (the originally selected ones or the newly created ones, depending on where your cursor hovers). another really cool thing would be to be able to create repetitive offsets by typing in 3 * for example (or the other way arround: 3 / ), just after creating the offset (I thought it was possible. but by trying I just discovered it is not - would be so handy though )