Thanks for all your advise. In fact i think your right, it's too hard and a mistake to try to make a bolt like. I will think to do my object on another way. Thanks Mac1 for the example. Matt

@ben ritter said: What about making the slab a semi-transparent material? I may try that but in some situations I cannot do that for other reasons.

The best thing to do is install the Sketchucation Plugin store which you can do without even knowing where the plugin folder is. Download it from the link at the top of the page and install it using Window/Preferences/Install Extension Then once you have that you can download all your plugins fresh and updated. There is even an addon to the plugin tool (easily auto installed via the tool itself) that will open your plugin folder for you. The other main option is to use the Extensions Warehouse which you will find within Sketchup, Window/Extension Warehouse. Once you get going with those any manual installs you might want to do you can do by clicking the Open Plugins Folder from the Sketchucation submenu. It is strongly recommended that you install new plugins rather than copying your old ones across.

If you are talking about Fredo6's Bezier Spline it is a very complex plugin and can do many things. You may want to look at the tutorials for it. You can certainly add as many control points as you want. Even a simple double click on the orange line will add another point. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=100509#p100509

On the other hand there is the Forum section called Gallery, you can post your renders there for people to view and comment on. You'll find it here http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=81 Click Post a new topic and create your thread and attach your images to it using the upload attachments tab.

@denm said: Maybe there is an add on out there? There is a stretching tool in FredoScale... (like an automated version of Daves suggestion ) [screenr:1m6gumfs]S2UN[/screenr:1m6gumfs]

With Lumion and large files just break them down and import as separate .skp models. I did this for a gas platform and a processing plant in situ, with LPG tanker and pipes for days - gives you a quicker work flow as well when elements need updating/changing. Good luck. I am currently designing for UEFA events - most probably same pitch (so to speak).

Thanks Dave. I actually noticed you beat me to the punch before I even finished writing my post! I actually quite like the way the layers work as well, but it take me some grinding, awful mental gear changes to get there.

Be sure to click only once on the surface, double click will select the edges too... see here

Thank you TIG for this workflow. When I'll get more experience probably will it go even faster. I changed the default settings X-ray and on the "front-material" I gave the blue and on the "back-material" I gave red. Now much easier to work in this mode. If the model only needs a little sort out your plugin (SolidSolver) copes better. Thank you again

Thanks, called " JF Add Layer"... exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Welcome Jimmods, Thanks for joining us!

In order to get a radius, the edge must be an Arc or Circle as shown in Entity Info. You're showing a Curve. Replace the curve with an Arc. If the curve is circular, you could manually locate the center using guidelines or I think Chris Fullmer has a plugin that can identify that center if the curve was originally an arc. See CLF Arc Centerpoint Finder in the Extension Warehouse.

Yes I deleted all the su folders in the program files folder. should there be any others to delete?

thank you for the response, I looked over the link you posted and almost everything was set to those parameters. do you know if a "powerfull" pc would help the sluggishness of sketchup -more ram faster processor or do we all experience this when our models become very complex? -PAt

@massimo said: Well if the objects are quite simple as you show you can try this one. thank you very much for quick reply this plugin is what im looking for this solve scenario 2

@box said: You need to rethink your modelling workflow. If the rest of your engine is built the same way your model will be so bloated as to be unworkable and unprintable. You have used 360 segments in a circle that is meant to be 3.3mm that isn't going to work. A default circle is 24 segments, 50 is pretty damn smooth, 100 is overkill, 360........... Anyway, the segment count is creating your tiny face issue and the huge files size. You need to work out how you want to 3d print this and the tolerances involved with the specific printing method. Work with fewer segments, work with all geometry on layer0 and move groups to layers for visibility not construction. Always keep layer0 as the active layer. When you look in the entity window of an unopen group it can say Layer63, but when you click into the group and look at the raw geometry it needs to say Layer0. That's all I have time to write just now. Thank you "Gilles" and "Box" for your advices. I will work on it and report here about my results.

The thing with the face of the circle is that Follow Me is both additive and subtractive. If you watched the video I linked to, you'll see that I placed the circular path below the profile so it wasn't touching. This way even if the bottoms of the chessmen had be flat, the face of the circle would still be formed.

Welcome!

I don't know, warfury. I've never heard of that problem before. Maybe your virus software is behaving badly?