Easy and another time exploration is endless! [image: coque.jpg]

@dave r said: The downside to this window resizing is that it often scrambles toolbars. he's claiming mac so the toolbars shouldn't be a problem.. the reason your drawing is spilling out onto multiple printed pages is because you have borders set up in your paper preferences… sketchup considers these borders as part of the drawing which leads to the spill.. (bad sketchup! bad ) [EDIT].. well, actually, it doesn't consider the borders as part of the drawing.. so it will calculate the scale for the entire sheet of paper then once the print happens, the boarders have been added to the info provided by sketchup (i.e.- if you set up in sketchup for an 8.5 x 11 print but you have 1/4" borders designated, the printer sees that you're trying to do a 9x11.5" print so it spreads it across multiple sheets.. if that makes any sense ) go File -> Page Setup… then click the 'paper size' drop down.. if your selected printer has borderless options available in your desired paper size, choose that.. otherwise, click on 'Manage Custom Sizes…' and enter desired paper size but leave all the borders at 0.. it will prevent your spillage.. i have an applescript which will resize your sketchup window to the same aspect ratio as your chosen paper.. it will then zoom the drawing window to the maximum allowable scale for your paper size and drawing (i.e.- it will show the window as, say, 1/4" = 1' then give the option to zoom to a smaller scale if desired (if you go bigger, the drawing won't fit on the single page so that's not an option)) …. i didn't post the script publicly because i soon found out that older OS's need adjustments in order to work and getting that type of compatibility was harder (or definitely less exciting) than making the script work in the first place..

@gaieus said: Hi Gani, With the rotate tool (rotating a single "hole" around the center of that disk), you can make copies (so called "radial arrays") if you press the Ctrl key (same with the move tool - called "linear array"). Here is the help center article: http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=94896 Now if you make the first hole into a component that can also cut a hole automatically, all the copies on that same plane will behave the same way. Hi Gaieus: Thanks for your tip. It was very useful and I was able to do what I wanted. Gani -

@cameleyes said: Hey TIG, Many thanks for your help - that was the issue - a case sensitive HD. Not sure why that happened but probably my fault. Anyhow I've re-formatted drive and redistilled everything over the weekend and all working fine now. Many thanks for your help. Much appreciated. ugh.. good thing you caught onto it now (the HD was still basically fresh).. but yeah, always use the default formatting options with OSX unless you deliberately want to (and know the reasoning behind) make a case sensitive drive..

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=298614#p298614 will export selected vertices to CSV - there are some variants in the thread... It should do what you want directly, or perhaps with a little tweaking otherwise

@unknownuser said: ...a solidworks file will not import directly into sketchup so you'll have to export from solidworks a file type that's compatible with sketchup... Ditto with PSD. See what file types you can import into SU (free and pro) here: http://sketchup.google.com/product/whygopro.html Edit: maybe this page is better: http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36217

I wouldn't even consider Copy and Paste for this. I would only use Ctrl/Move (or Option/Move on Mac) for this kind of thing.

Sam: Thanks, I'll check it out... Steve

What about IDX RENDITIONER? What do you think about it?

It sounds you need to read each tool's download/usage notes carefully... They always explain how to activate the tool and what 'helper' files are needed etc. For example 'CurviLoft' is an Extension and needs activating [once] from the Preferences menu, you then need to active its Toolbar etc... However, it still won't work unless you have the 'LibFredo...' helper/folder installed, as the download page says [and there is a link to it too]...

Thanks Cotty. Quite a few of those are ones I made.

Many scripts make tools that auto-load into their menus/submenus etc every time Sketchup starts. Often they'll consist of one .rb file that goes into the Plugins folder, sometimes they might also use some subfolder files, like png's that are used for the tool's toolbar etc. Some plugins - usually the more complex toolsets - are written as 'Extensions'. These consist of a 'loader' .rb file and a subfolder containing all of the main .rb/.rbs files and other files like html, png etc used to make webdialogs, toolbars etc. The 'loader' defines the tool[set] as an 'Extension' - this is recognized as Sketchup starts and depending on how the extension is 'set' it loads or doesn't load the main code. An Extension can be activated/deactivated from the Preferences > Extensions dialog. This is useful for tools that might be infrequently used, because this will improve startup time because unneeded code isn't then auto-loaded unless the Extension is activated. You can activate an Extension tool at any time and its menus/toolbars etc are added to the current Sketchup session. If you don't deactivate an Extension it will continue to auto-load at startup every time until you deactivate it again... A deactivated Extension only ceases to be loaded after a restart. As well as letting you manage which tools load [without you having to 'disable' individual files in the Plugins folder, by moving or re-suffixing them etc] the Extension method has other uses... the new .rbz archive format tools [shipped with recent v9 updates] allows the .rbz file's contents of Extensions and their subfolders to be automatically loaded and activated at the click of a button... Many of us are in the process of making our more complex tools into Extensions, and using the .rbz format to allow easy installation/updating; however, it can be time consuming to recode existing tools, so progress is slow...

As free polygons tools maybe you prefer Hexagon (French product against Wings3D Some more easy and more powerful and more modern UI! [flash=420,315:2po2454p]http://www.youtube.com/v/usaxw0fkbLk[/flash:2po2454p]

If you make a subfolder [or even a subfolder inside a subfolder] of your SKPs within the Sketchup 'Components' folder then its contents automatically display in the Components-Browser...

@grizzler said: I've been having bother filling irregular shapes so I'm trying to come up with ways of drawing that solve the problem for me. ...when I completed the arrow it failed to infil the body of the arrow, yet when I deleted the infil on the sphere and arrowhead the body became infilled automatically. Looks like you have been shown a nice way or two to model your 3d arrow but I'm not sure about the stated problem of 'filling irregular shapes' and 'is this supposed to happen?' As was suggested if you post a model (or, less helpful, a pic with hidden edges displayed), someone can better see what may be going on. Better if possible to know what is going on than to work around the problem without a fuller understanding.

Hi Andly, Please, explain what "fragmenting" would be (especially with "colours" as they never fragment). My first shot in the dark would be that you are trying to apply an image texture to a component but it has some curved (?) surfaces where this image is breaking up and not following the surface. If this is the case, add the material straight to the surface / faces inside the component. Edit it (double click on it) first to get to the raw geometry and do the things there. Click somewhere aside to close the component.

That is big and long. Ken is right. Get rid of stuff you don't need and split the file into manageable chunks. Text won't show in SketchUp anyway so it can go.

@wo3dan said: .....work on the group that is selected. For it to work withing the group (not greyed out) you need to select at least one edge first.... I should have mentioned to select first, I know.

@inge1234 said: Hi there! I'm trying to create this organic shape for over a month now but it just won't work. I tried several plugins like the artisan, soap bubble, and some fredo tools. Is there anyone who knows a good method or plugin that can help me? Someone may correct me, but it seems this is a multiple step process with many variables, which is not to say it is difficult (surely looks tedious, but that is owing to the detail of your linked images) only that it would help to know what you have been able to do and what specifically your problems are. Also, how far do you want to take it? Post some pics of your work or a model, please, if possible.

@brookefox said: More specifically, if you are particularly interested in the surface or planar lock which this thread centers on, go to minute 5 of the second video listed above. In this case, you can even link like this below - watch the #t=05m00s part at the end of the video link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFfmIgJqlIw#t=05m00s Unfortunately this does not work with the simple phpBB embed code.