The goal of my suggestion above was to remove all SU free and Pro and then downlaod, install SU free. You post indicated you did not get rid of SU Pro. Make sure you use the add / remove programs function and delete any thing associated with SU, run registry cleaner maybe even several times, download and install free. If that odes not work use the windows explorer ( ref start, serach) and do a wild card search of any su files ie * Su pro*, key; etc and maybe you can find the problem file. You will have to run combinations although the suggestion above about the file would be a good start

go: Window -> Styles -> Edit -> Edge Settings set the color to 'By Axis'

Well: I tried create very new skp file Applied two textures and the second one (= the last one) is again invisible in game !! This never happened before, so something must be wrong with my Sketchup or 3DradExporter !! Does anybody know how to fix it? Thanks for helping! Kaja

Hi, you can try these two depending on what you're going to bend: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=144180#p144180 http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=147395#p147395

Thanks to everyone for their responces,they help a bunch. bent nail

I have a little tutorial on a shape similar to Daves here: http://sketchucation.com/resources/tutorials/36-intermediate/147-inner-bevel-with-a-bit-of-trick Of course, it is not as complex - and the different parts are not separate components but to imagine a basic technique you can develop further...

@brookefox said: I failed to mention the wireframe, edges only selection as I thought it was clear. Seems it was not, but as you say 'line to tube' doesn't require that. Here's one with the non-radially faced sphere (dome), in which the faces are more approximately equal on the surface. If it is desired that the grid be regular before draping then take the faces only and drape the even grid from '(sandbox) from scratch' or other and drape as Pilou showed. Once draped of course the grid is distorted (except in ortho plan view). can you please explain how you made those constructions beam ? step by step ...

I did as you accounted..... i think. I made the small cylinder made it a component slid it trough, selected both cylinders, 'intersect faces'-'with selected' got rid of the two plugs. Like a charm. [image: WLGX_Plug.jpg][image: ugXh_intersect.jpg]

So you aren't pasting an image, you're copying and pasting geometry? That's an important difference. Are you using Copy and Paste? If you want the copy of the geometry to be next to the original, use the copy function of the Move tool. and move the copy in the desired direction. Hit Ctrl on PC or Option on Mac to invoke the copy function. Your second image doesn't show enough information to see what's really going on. Where do you want the 3D text to appear? I'm guess you aren't really using the standard top view but I can't be sure without seeing the SKP file.

Thanks for the feedback so very new to this!!!! But having fun, I realised the inside was a mess but didn't know had messed up the inner circles,was trying to use the protractor tool to get the shape I had made for the 120 deg, cut outs!!! Hope to have more of a play over the weekend!

We have it...the Duh thread, make it sticky

Thanx for the link Dave!

Hi MitchB, please have a look at these links: http://www.articlesbase.com/computer-forensics-articles/how-to-fix-explorer-exe-application-error-1224270.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/84229-35-explorer-application-error-instruction-0x020 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/explorerexe-application-error-the-instruction-at/51dc55a1-0522-44c5-a732-a59dbfbdd260

Thanks Dave. Bid has been submitted and approved. We are building it. I love my job and Sketchup because we can see all the projects details and then watch it come to life. On top of that I get to build some of it when I have time. I'm building a career from Sketchup and this is my life. I'm grateful to the creators and wizards of this program. Have a good one fellas.

okay, thanks!

Thanx for the advice,Dave,I'll work on it tomorrow.The .skp file ended up a whopping 38.5 MB.I'm going to check on the reversed faces and I'm definitely going to delete all the textures and start over.It took me about 3 seconds to get your "dirt missile outfit".Skydiving is still the biggest thrill you can have with someone strapped to your back.

You can try my Add&Align Component plugin. You can find it on my blog.

It's built into the Materials Browser context-menus, but that only selects faces in the current active context that use the chosen material, ignoring any groups, instances, edges, text etc using the material. This one-liner copy/pasted+<enter> in the Ruby Console will select everything using the material specified by name - edit the 'mname=' to suit the material you seek... mname="Material1";m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;s.clear;m.active_entities.each{|e|s.add(e)if e.respond_to?(;material) && e.material && e.material.display_name==mname}

View the SKP in Monochrome mode, using a Style with a distinctive default back-color - perhaps 'bright-blue' - compared to the default front-color 'off-white'. Then you will be able to see the orientation of the faces' fronts and backs without any applied materials getting in the way. The direction of a face's loop determines the face's 'normal'. A 'flat' counter-clockwise loop produces an 'up' normal, and vice versa. This applies both in Ruby and manually made faces, However, any face that is made 'flat', on the ground z-0, will ALWAYS faces DOWN, irrespective of its loop direction. This is to assist in a subsequent PushPull which is usually 'up' and gives the expected result it the extruded face is facing downwards... Wrongly oriented selected faces are easily 'Reversed' using the context-menu, or in code with face.reverse! If it's a mesh with some wrongly oriented faces use Monochrome mode and View > Hidden Geometry > ON. Select one face that's correctly oriented and context-menu 'Orient' to flip all other faces to match. If there are any edges with more than two faces then the results will not be perfect because more that two faces sharing an edge cannot all be oriented the same way - topologically impossible? There is no simple API equivalent for 'face.orient', but there are some method examples around, using 'edge.reversed_in_face' etc and 'face.reverse' etc... Most rendering apps are particularly sensitive to visible back faces, and will usually render them without materials/textures - i.e. 'blank' - either transparent, black or white. remember that materials applied onto a group/component-instance [rather than onto the faces within it], will appear to be applied onto any default-material [both fronts and backs] although in that case the faces actually still have no material applied, but 'exploding the container' will transfer them across. Monochrome mode helps see this too... My FixReversedFaceMaterials etc and some other similar tools [e.g. by thomthom] are designed to flip incorrectly oriented faces that have a material applied to their back only, and assumes that the back is facing the wrong way, flipping the face and the material, keeping UV-mapping of textures correct too. There are also some 'forced' options etc that might help when both sides of the face have materials and you want to flip and swap materials across too...

After you edit the component and add a centerpoint, before exploding all the instances, delete all the geometry of the edited component (thus all of the instancing) leaving the component content a single guide point - otherwise all those small pieces of geometry will remain in the model as stray geometry which will cause all sorts of issues later. @sketchymick said: ...it relies on the imported points actually coming in as instances of the same component... which I'm not sure would happen... It's easy to fix it if it is not the case. First create a component with a single guide point. It will appear in your component browser just like the others. Now select all the other components (in the entity info box you can see that the "definition" is greyed out as there are three, different definitions selected) and right click in the endpoint component in the component browser and "Replace selected"... [image: ZAtC_replace-1.png] ...after which you should end up with this (see that the "endpoint" definition name appears in the Entity info box showing that now all are of the same component definition): [image: 1acB_replace-2.png] The only caveat is if your original components component axes are not in the center of those small circles/crosses. But even that is not a big issue if they are very small as the difference will be minimal which is all right for a topo I presume. [mod=Note:kveuhw7v]I named my component "endpoint" but it should have been "guide point" - sorry for the misleading naming...[/mod:kveuhw7v]