As Rich says - provided the RBZ comes from a 'reliable' source [like SketchUcation, Smustard, Trimble etc] then you should be able to trust its 'integrity' and install it without worrying one iota. All installed plugins RB/RBS files will have the ability to access files and folders on your computer, and even add/change/delete data - but that's just how plugins work ! SketchUp is covering its back with this message, which effective says, "Because you are adding this Plugin using our installer, please be aware that it will have the potential to do things to your computer..." - so it's then your informed choice... not theirs. So unless your RBZ is from a 'suspect source' don't worry about it. Downloading plugins from an Aryan-Race or Muslim-Brotherhood web-site is not recommended... Just be sensible in what you do... Indeed, I could write a simple .RBS plugin in a few minutes, that you could download and install manually [and therefore without the RBZ installer warnings], which will then do some legitimate task day-in day-out, but which also acts like a Trojan - deleting all of your plugin-files [and itself] [or even worse!] every Friday 13th! BUT of course I don't, and neither will any of the dedicated group of plugin-authors, who give much of there work to you freely or at least inexpensively... We must trust in people's overwhelmingly good nature and honesty in such situations - we can't be paranoid [even when 'they' are out to get us ] - it is the way to a world I don't want to be part of...

@ksau said: Here you are... Nice! Thank you @ksau said: Friends of mine will get married on Friday in this building (the town hall of Aachen, Germany). I want to print and illuminate the building like I did with the cathedral, see above, as a present for them. Nice idea!

I donn't know Podium, so only my first impressions: one bench seem to float in the air there are only sharp edges, some bevels would help to increase realism the ground in the reference image seems to be much more reflective

You could turn on backups along with autosave. doubles used file space though.

On Mac you only get one row of tools across the top. You'll use View>Customize Toolbar and drag icons to or from the toolbar as desired. Otherwise, under View>Tool Palettes, you can choose the various tool palettes you wish to display but they will be floating, not docked as in the tutorials you've probably seen. Those tutorials were probably done on windows machines which can handle multiple rows of tool bars across the top and they dock above the drawing space.

Since there are only flat faces, pushpull should work too to make the holes without the need for a solid ...

@chrisdarmanin said: i know what you mean, autocad is very accurate as per this article http://www.oocities.org/wpsmoke/accuracy/accuracy.html and each file has the same accuracy That was interesting to read!!!!! Even though I don't use AutoCAD, it is interesting what can be done in 3d.

Change the permissions for the Plugins folder to Read and Write.

Sorry a little late to the party, but I ran across this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qge1YH7A4gI Now that looks almost just like this- [image: rokbox.jpg] So might be some ideas there.Just thought I'd throw it in.

You are trying to learn the basics here Please forget Xref Manager for now... it does reload external SKP files into the current Model, listing any that have changed since they were last reloaded etc... BUT using Reload from the context-menu reloads external SKP [Components] too [just no check to see if it has changed and therefore needs to be reloaded] IF you have a SKP that is used as a Component within another Model, and you know that the SKP has changed then Selecting an Instance of that Component within the Model and using Reload will update it to match... So for example you do housing developments and have 6 commonly used house types. You make 6 separate components as individual SKP files, these are stored in a 'Library' of your house-types. You a SKP Model for a Site A. You load and place the houses onto the Site A as desired. You repeat this for another Site [B] as well. Later on you decide to change something about the style of some of your standard house types... so you edit their individual SKP files and save... At this point the equivalent house components in your Sites' Models are 'out of date'. But perhaps you want to leave those on Site A in the old-style - maybe they are getting built like that already ! But you'd like to use the newest version of the houses on Site B... Simply open the Site B Model and select one of the houses you'd like updating, and right-click context menu 'Reload' - the Instances of that house are now updated to be the newer one. If you save the changes Site B now uses the newer houses... Of course if you have [ill-advisedly] Exploded an Instance in the Site Model it is now loose geometry and cannot be reloaded ! Also if you edit a house component in the Site Model it is now going down a separate path from its original SKP in your Library... Although if you want to revert to the original Library you can Reload that back in, overwriting any Site specific changes... OR if the changes are such that'd you'd like to include them in your 'standard' one, then you can do a context-menu 'Save_as' the changed version - either saving as anew version or overwriting the original Library version - thereby allowing you to use these SKPs in other Site Models as desired...

Is there some specific NPR style you're trying to emulate? There are tutorials out there but your request is a bit vague.

I suggest that it is best to have 'snapping' set to be OFF in Model Info > Units. Start the PushPull 'drag' and then type in the desired dimension + <enter> to make it 'extrude' that exact distance. OR click the cursor onto any object that is at that known distance away - e.g. other geometry, a correctly offset guide-line etc...

Just for the record: I reinstalled SU 2013 and directly after installing (before running SU at all) I ran "winetricks ie8" and now the overall GUI experience is better. Don't know whether that makes a difference or the fact that I had SU 8 installed between the installations, but, well, it is better now... Magic Winedows...

Push/Pull and Offset distances are not remembered from one SketchUp session to the next. If you've closed the SketchUp file and reopened it, the offset and push/pull distances from yesterday have been forgotten.

hi and thanx to all of you, i just contacted chuck vali and will buy the script, since this one is really fantastic and even the free version managed a really complicated mesh. regards stan and thanx again for helping me!

@wo3dan said: @racksat said: ... Check it out and give me some feedback!... Nice model! There are two lines (series of edges) that somehow appear to be profiles and that need to be fixed into (hidden) edges between face segments (so no thick profiles). They border the surfaces between flat highest floor level and curved surface towards the middle leveled bowl and further down, between this curved surface and the flat floor of the middle leveled bowl. (I hope the description is clear). Thanks for input, found it!

Some renderers don't render back faces even if they are painted with materials. This is one of the reasons it is a good idea to stay on top of the face orientation in your model as you work.

@dave r said: See if this helps. Thanks Dave, that was ideal. I updated my profile - just downloaded make yesterday. That post would be very useful as part of a sticky about differences for Mac users, seeing as even the Trimble tutorials don't seem to cover them. Cheers, Paul.

You're welcome.

H folks, it now seems to be fine. I had the computer off overnight, not sure if that has anything to do with it working now. At the time clicking on the file did nothing then clicking on the S/Up icon in the dock and clicking open then choosing the file also did nothing. I tried clicking both files that are on my desktop but neither worked. (I presume, as a newbie, that the file with the tilde(?), that is the S on it's side, after the file name is the backup file??) If you have any ideas as to what may have caused the disfunction I would be happy to hear them. For what it's worth I'm using a Mac OS X 10.5.8. Thanks again for your prompt replies.