Depending on what files you have installed you might also find Thomthom's tools listed under a sub-menu in the Plugins menu ? Solid Inspector needs a preselected group or component instance to 'inspect'...

Hi Hector and welcome! This is called "clipping" and a good wealth of things can cause it. Review this "list" and check your model if any of the reasons (or fixes) may apply http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36261

@ely862me THX you very much 4 your help - issue fixed!

Thanks Dave it's a very comprehensive example regards Pedro

Sorry for the delay thats great thanks Ill have a look at them Keith

Reset the axes then you can rotate the model to the axes. First set the solar north so you can have your sun study.

this is the right plug in sorry http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44552

Here's a tip to cover that situation. When you draw guidelines parallel to an edge that are supposed to lay "on face" start your guideline on the edge, move the cursor up/down a bit on the edge and then pull towards the direction you want. Nothing new here. But, instead of leaving the cursor on face where you want the line to be, move the cursor to some alternate perpendicular (or so) edge on the same face. This forces the guide line to stay on face. At that point you can enter the offset distance in the VCB or move along that edge to the desired offset location. To test if 2 perpendicular (or crossing non parallel) guidelines are actually intersecting, place the cursor on one GL and move it to the intersection. You should see a little red X. That indicates GL intersection. If all you see is a colored dot, the lines do not intersect. The dot means the point at the cursor lines up axially with both GL's. This works with GL's and edges as well.

Thanks TIG for your help. Unfortunately the computer in question had a bit of a meltdown and had to be returned. Installed kerkythea on new system with no problems. Thanks again for response.

cheers guys

In case someone comes along and wonders why soften AND hide took care of it... The geometry had some coplanar edges which are what hiding got rid of. An option to hiding them would be to tick the box for "Soften coplanar" or better, simply delete those edges. [image: 263W_ss.png]

Now that you've got the hang of that try using the VCB twice. Place a guide line, then use the Move tool to make a second one (ctrl click move) type 1.5m enter, then 10x enter. This will place another 10 guide lines 1.5 metres apart. This works with most tools.

And that's the best part of working for family that you love. I can demand all sorts of things and threaten to complain to his mother, LOL and the boy (man actually) is a gem of a person, so after a little/alot/huge amount of nagging he generally comes through. Love what I do though!! Summer is the quiet time in the corporate event business, so I shall use any free time wisely to hone my Sketchup skills, such as they be. Fortunately again most clients, and probably to include yours with the TV, just want to get an idea of what the finished product is going to look like. It always amazes me how many people are not able to visualize and have to see it laid out in front of them, but then for the most part they are happy.

Thanks Renderizer, I will check it out. Sadly I am not a math teacher, and if I could do math I could probably rule the world. I think I had been sent out on a errand somewhere when those chips were being installed prior to the storks delivery. I am seriously bad. More accurate to say a math moron, and without a calculator I would be reduced to laying out pebbles on the sidewalk to even know if I had received enough change from a store purchase. That being said... it has not made anything that I do with the graphics world easy. I will take a deep breath and delve into this and have a look at the plugins mentioned. I have no problems with the 2D exports, they look wonderful. I will also do some Youtube searching (thank Heaven for Youtube!!!) and see if there are any videos posted that might be helpful.

Hi, might be interested in reading this forum topic about similar issue. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=48987 Cheers!

Thanks for the reply and adjustments. I've got a lot to learn, but it seems trial and error is the best way. When I create an STL from your file, and from another project I was working on, I still get: i.e. 137 faces exported (number varies) 0 lines exported (all are showing 0) 400 objects ignored. (numbers vary) I guess my questions is- which of the 3 pieces of info is for information only, or are any of these 'error' messages I should be concerned with. (I don't have a 3D printer yet to try these out as far as printing compatibility.)

@jerrymich said: I understand now what you are saying about the components being unique. So, if I make a change to one of the unique components, it will NOT make it on the other unique ones as it normally does on a change to a component. Correct? Yes, essentially. I general, when you make a change to one instance of a component, all other instances get edited which is incredibly powerful when used correctly. Make unique breaks the relationship so the unique component(s) is no longer related to the others. This is also very useful in some cases. @jerrymich said: As a general guideline, is it better to make components as you go and then come back and group the components? Thanks for your help Jerry My approach is to make all the individual parts as components and do the nesting only after the individual parts/components are finished. I see too many incorrectly nest components in models by others. You have some good examples of that in this model. For example, take a look at your "board#18" That component is made of a component called "board#22 and a bunch of loose geometry that looks like a drawer case maybe. I don't use groups for anything. I only make components. Others do use groups but in about 10 years of using SketchUp for woodworking projects I've never found a case where a group makes more sense than a component. You can do as you choose, of course.

You can use more than one projection face (it doesn't have to be a 3D thing, it can be just a face) but you'll need to paint the materials one at a time. You might actually get a more realistic look if you place the projecting plane vertically instead of at an angle. Are you trying for realism or are you just trying to insinuate the wood grain?

Dave has shown you how to use move and autofold beautifully, you could also use "scale" in this case too. I'll let you think about how. People sometimes miss the intricacies of scale. You don't just use it to modify whole pieces, you can use it on a single face to modify a shape. Scale one face of a cube and you can create various shapes with the variety of scale options. [image: F3AP_Simplescale.PNG] It's well worth pointing out that it's easy to get a bit plugin blind. Many of them are so good you often don't need the basic tools, but that can lead to problems. If you don't understand what the plugin is really doing you can tie yourself in knots unnecessarily. Being able to make your models in "longhand" is crucial. Using plugins to speed up and perform repetitive tasks is what we all should aim to do. I guess it comes from my time as an apprentice and then having many apprentices of my own, the rules were always the same, once you prove you can do it manually I will let you use a "Tool". If you are old enough to remember letraset, we had to show that we could do the lettering by hand before we were allowed to touch one sheet.

No trouble caused. Glad you got it worked out.