Hi all, On testing the above on my Mac OS 10.6 I had the same problems. I did find if I enlarged the 1.5mm radius cylinder by 2 (to create a 3mm radius) I could create a simulated thread spaced at 1mm intervals. I then scale the cylinder back down (.5) to give me a thread spaced at .5mm. I need to show this detail as the items are shown at a large scale. They are being used in instruction manuals. Sorry! I did not see this topic had a second page. Dave R and Pilou have already covered this point. Dave R's point about using a copy of a component to do this task is a very good idea; Thanks Dave R.

@drummer said: ...Anyhow, all this is irrelevant now because I found a little something out, which none of you seem to have known before... Oh, certainly not, thanks for enlighting the guys here (who otherwise happen to have been SketchUp Beta testers for many years now any surely such subtle things like renamed ZIP files like KMZ, SKM, LAOUT, RBZ and such have avoided their attention...) @tig said: I'll now step out of all of this... I can't work with you any further... perhaps some other idiots in the team might try to help you... but that'll only ever happen if you get near helping yourself... Amen. I did so long ago...

Thanks for such a fast reply Tig. I set the Profile to ON and thickened up the lines a little. Gave me a much better idea of what was going on. There was indeed a line missing along the inner most edge of the section I needed to define. While I couldn't quite get the newly drawn line to go exactly where needed (slight offset), I was able to more/less achieve what I was trying to do. No doubt I just need to "play" with it a little more to figure it out but at least I'm now pointed in the right direction. Thanks again!

Hi folks. If the bar between the 2 leg has a rectangular or square cross section, it can be done quickly. See attached SU file for ideas. Horizontal bar between two slanted faces.skp

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. I've checked out the links that were posted here, and all I can say is WOW! I guess my question has been answered.

[image: 8FpH_testrender.jpg]Ah, got it! (I did say it's been a few years since I trod forum boards ;o)) So the image shows a model (by Alan Fraser @ FormFonts) imported into my Cad program and rendered (quickly!). The left image is the direct dwg import from SU, the middle and right models show the tinkering with settings from the fbx conversion. As you can see there is some smoothing occuring in the transfer, but not enough to make the model look any good! Anyone else have any suggestions? A

Hello and welcome! I see you have already found your way (and even posted in the French forum)

Hi, You can perform an intersection: http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2008/issue34-sketchup.html or you can use Fredo´s Tools on Surface and Joint Push Pull (search the plugins index http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=28782)

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=47652

From the other day, here.

Welcome Cameron, So the easiest way to do what you want is to get SketchUp 8Pro and send your drawing to LayOut. There you can easily set the scale to 1:1 and generate a PDF file which can be printed correctly. Barring that, you could make image exports and scale those in some application such as PhotoShop or maybe Inkscape to get the right size. I would draw a scale that can be included with your section slices so you can confirm that you've scaled the images correctly. A third option would be to create PostScript files from SketchUp using a plugin and print those. You won't wind up with a PDF file but maybe that's not that important.

I'll give them a try. Thanks!

Huhu that is the disadvantage to use new version of SU free! You will find free old version here (scroll the page) version take the V6 (it has more functions of file format than the V7, V8 free) It has DXF import inside!

I just use instant road now... http://www.valiarchitects.com/sketchup_scripts/instant-road

Thanks Gaieus, This will be my third post then I suppose, hopefully I'll be able to update my email once it's approved. As for a gallery post, maybe I'll do one of those at some point, but for now I'll just attach a file of one of the models I've done. It's one of the USS Enterprise C from Star Trek, and I used one of the plugins form this site to help me with the curved writing on the saucer section Enterprise NCC-1701-C

If you had unselected entities (even one) when you made your components, that little box would need to be ticked manually. If you select all connected entities (edges and faces) that box will get ticked automatically when you choose Create Component. BTW, Peter, to get an idea of how it works to draw as I suggest by making one component before moving on to the next, take a look at the video here. The video isn't really done as a detailed tutorial but it demonstrates my workflow when drawing furniture and other things will many parts.

[image: 220px-BernsteinBowls.jpg] The brick-bond version with the wedges rotated half-a-turn in alternate rings is indeed quite common, especially with two or more contrasting colored woods used for alternating wedges in a ring, which can give 'spiral' effects etc. However the 'stacked' version is also sometimes used with wedges that are mainly all of the same wood but with thin slivers or narrower wedges of contrasting colored wood inserted between every wedge in every ring and perhaps even between the rings themselves to produce a 'net' pattern... There are many permutations - even leaving out wedges to make a 'pierced' surface... Enjoy makin' shavin's...

What I mean is that after you match the photo and press "Done", do you also project the photo onto the model? Like below (please, disregard the example as it is really not a PM example but I only used it to invoke the dialog) [image: QlkJ_project.png]

The problem discussed above (my humble explanation) is that SU native system lacks a true compass-like function--in order to do some basic geometric manipulation. And since circles are only made of segments, they don't help. If you try to rotate to intersect a line you can't accurately do it, unless you already have a point right where it should intersect. The plugins can do it. Or did Dave figure out a way? I fooled with it and couldn't. I don't think it has anything to do with the behavior of triangles. When you move a point in Sketchup, it just moves and stretches edges however it needs to. That seems intuitive to me. So grouping (by making a group or a component) means the edges and endpoints cannot move independently and a triangle or any form holds its shape unless you edit the group (by double clicking) (OK, not entirely true- you can scale the component non-uninformly). The reason you probably saw a difference in rectangles is because SU will tend to resist deforming a face by creating more faces (unless you push the right buttons, e.g. up-arrow). SU will lock movement to be within the plane as a default; and this can be helpful in some situations--like boxy architecture SU was designed for .

What kind of cabinets do you make? Perhaps you could share a photo or two?