As Pilou points out, there are lots of tools to use and which one you need will depend on what you are modelling - or what part of a model you are working on. Your best bet would be to follow a tutorial such as Marian's car thread: viewtopic.php?f=335&t=37611&hilit=tutorial+marian#p331991 Alternatively, pick a subject to model, open a WIP thread and then ask questions about how to model specific elements.

Maybe GhostComp from Fredo6 will be helpful for such task?

Other 3D software can do the job possibly, but I like to have SketchUp do the thing. I've added some more information to my profile, good point! @mac1 said: Harmpie; Add your profile so we know what resouces you have. What you need is a program having a ambient occlusion filter, don't recall clanup having that. If you have Pro the shell option may do it but don't know for sure, free here. The only others I know are possible Blender and MeshLab

If you look at this model you will find out I only used pencil tool, arc tool, circle tool, pushpull, follow me, intersect, move etc... No voodoo here, just try to understand the shape and draw step after step. Plugins are good and I often use them as time saver or laziness but good understanding of native tools makes the difference. Always have fun.

On the page you see the first page of Catchup if you hover your mouse curser in the lower right bottom of the page you see some new icons apear for save to PDF or print. In Chrome.

@unknownuser said: I've discovered that 1 segment of my segmented polyline is a bit smaller than the other 31 parts. Is this because I use version 8? Or do I just need to update? http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=414333#p414333 you have an old version of BZ__Segmentor.rb see this post. to drop into the BZ_Dir_14 folder http://sketchucation.com/forums/download/file.php?id=90404

Hi Luis, hi folks. This is a really big file that may be pushing your system to its maximum and beyong. Saving such a big file may take more time than the delay you gave to Auto Save. Try disabling Auto Save to avoid waiting for the computer to save for 10 minutes every 5 minutes. You get the idea. If this doesn't work, try cutting all the geometry from this model and pasting it in another new file. Select All, Copy, Open empty file, Paste and then save. Make sur to show all layers and unhide all geometry to avoid leaving stuff behind. If this doesn't work, try copying items one at a time from this model to a new SketchUp file, saving each time after adding to the new file, just to be safe. Maybe you can also purge this new file after each addition to get rid of unneeded stuff. Another possibility is to copy this huge model. Then, in one copy, delete half of it and in the other, delete the other half. You can even envision cutting in more than two parts. Smaller files migth prove easier to purge. Then, when all these parts are clean, assemble them in only one file. Just ideas.

Glad we got it sorted.

Mike, Here is the file. You may need help from others as I don't have experience in some of this geometry--so you might combine these methods with exact layout methods. I took the dimensions given as being on the axis. I did the whole model at 100 times scale and then scaled all of it down (including earlier steps), but I made a new method for some of this at the lower scale and that worked OK. You may want to keep it all at 100 times scale until final output. Save copies of various steps in case you need to backtrack. I put dimensions in the above picture via LayOut but can dimension with SU or draw temporary lines or guides to check. Just SU dimensioning is difficult for something like this. I also know NADA about requirements for 3d printing, so others can help you there. You mention other things that need to be done to the shape. I have to see if I understand those first. IDK if this shape can be made a "solid" but that could help for more "cutting". Also you mention being able to resize. Might be done. I think perhaps the pitch of the spiral changes if you keep all the other dimensions and change the diameter--if that's OK. [EDIT: It is not shown in the file. I used the standard method shown in the above videos to create the first spiral: draw a circle (save a copy below for your cylinder etc.), explode the circle, pull up one vertex on blue axis with the move tool. Keep one angled edge, erase the rest. Radial duplicate the angled edge in a complete circle by the segment angle, and move-duplicate all enough times straight up for a complete revolution, choose (triple click) one spiral and erase the rest. "Recurve" the spiral into a curve and scale down to correct vertical interval. If the above videos aren't enough, I can show this too.] [EDIT: I'm posting a better method, showing minute steps. The outcome is a solid group. And noting here that Screw.rb turns out to work well with this shape and saves a lot of work...but here's the more or less "native" version.] @gilles said: With no plugin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT5r3AQZBnw? With plugin: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=122603#p122603 Have good days with SU. TUBE.skp

Yes, you can merge/weld/glue all edges in blender, and also remove duplicate surfaces, here is a clip that i recommend watching and forward to 06:48 where blender is used to do exactly what you are trying to achieve but i recommend watching the full clip to understand how sketchups geometry differs from other applications http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-cTQ0dXuk Hope this helps

This is something iv being working on, all models in the ninja game are created in sketchup and imported into unity3D game engine http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=333&t=47572 there's even a webplayer there for you to test out an earlier version of the game, still WIP and has come on alto better now, will be posting updates soon

Thanks, cotty! Don't know why that didn't occur to me!

@isacchini said: Hi, I'm Italian so I apologize in advance for spelling errors. There is a section specifically inquire about the dynamic elements? Hi Nicola, Welcome to the forums. There is a forum dedicated to Dynamic Components, and I see you have already found it.

Read up on the context-menu Texture tool in the Help files... You can relocate any of the the four pins and then reposition a texture about their locations relatively straightforwardly...

Nice work c-man. Andy's right. why is the pilaster on the left a shade darker than the rest?

Thank you for your reply. It's nice to know that this problem has a name. I just realized that my problem is actually mathematical not with sketchup -- you are right, I am trying to have two planes occupy the same space! No wonder sketchup can't decide. I started making this model because I had trouble visualizing it myself, and then what comes up with sketchup is so close to looking like something that "should" be regular that I thought I knew what it was supposed to look like -- but five wedges arranged around a point cannot alternate between two colors. Those wedges are both colors.... So I think what I will do is change the coloring to two lighter colors and then explode the model and paint the faces where they intersect a darker color. In hindsight, the issue now seems obvious, sigh..... but I appreciate that you helped me get the answer, even if I didn't really ask the right question.... very interesting....

No need to feel foolish if you learned something. For more LayOut questions, you might find it useful to go to the LayOut Forum.

The more easy is this one Weebly

Find Chris Fullmer's Shape Bender tool in the Plugins Index... - read its download/installation/usage instructions very carefully... Please note how you must also get/install the ' progressbar.rb' helper file that you must download and install separately...

Thanks Pete !