My first thought was to do it as a solid. Took about 10 mins with a bit of annotation, but I reckon this was about the same as it would take me with beam components. Uses SU Pro solid tools, but it could be done similarly with some plugins? Cheers - Mick [image: 0cQb_structure.jpg] structure.skp

Wow, incredible speed and wisdom in forum response. Thank you so much for the advise. Tony

@neodimium said: Yes ROGER, I feel atraction... if you by ferrous mean girls. Hahaha Interestingly Im playing with two neodimium rings right now! Anyway... Everyone call me Neo (from my real name Neno), but Neo is toooo short. This is neodymium at work. I inserted it into the head of my cane. In the US it works great as all wall corners and window frames have ferrous metal beading to make the plastering of wall board (gypsum board) fast and efficient. [image: SsqR_magnetic_cane.jpg] In Thailand it did not work as well because of different building methods, but I was still able to find a place to hang my cane. [image: sMVn_Cane_Fan_sm.jpg]

Hi, Thanks for the advice. I should have mentioned that I have made everything into components already. It does help though, to put the components into layers. The warning mentioned is "Constrained on 1 from point." It shows up as I am about to complete a line. What does it mean exactly? I've reviewed my geometry and found little slivers of added thickness in the walls caused by not using the push/pull tool correctly (most likely). Once the extra lines were removed so the faces were on the same plane, the redrawn lines resulted in the faces appearing as expected. SketchUp is soo smart and I'm not.

first, learn the basics by doing simple stuff. just give yourself a task and try to do it. SU is really intuitive. when u hit a brick wall, use the search function on this forum.- also read this thrad http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=12706 and this one http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17315&p=360018 over and over here is a thread with .gifs of some good plugins http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=16909&hilit=plugins - but dont use too many plugins before u have the basics down. here are all plugins in one thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=250026 for archviz i mostly use Fredos Round Corner, Joint Push Pull, Selection Toys, CleanUp³. I have many more plugins but rarely need them. but it really depends what u are doing with SU. terrain generation: sandbox tools for a rendering beginner, i would recommend free maxwell. u basically just press a button and get a photorealistic rendering.

Hi, Thanks for all your help so far. Speaking of that same complex shape, I have been able to draw it to some specific dimesnsion using beizer curves. However, the edges did not become a face as I had thought they would. I have tried to trace it using the freehand tool, but this is extremely difficult and the edges are really rough. i also tried turning drawing a polyline around it, but it gives a whole different shape altogether. Any suggestions, please? This is really frustrating.

Hello Justus and welcome! If you go to the first post in the topic, there is the plugin attached. It is free. Note that there are instructions how to install (and additional plugins to download)

@unknownuser said: Looks like the faces are reversed? @gilles said: Yes they are. Select a white face, right click choose orient faces in context menu. Thanks guy's, that fixed my problem! Learned something new!!

@maskeight said: Hi all the community, I present me: I'm maskeight and I'm from Italy, so sorry to much for my not good english! Welcome. I am new too.

Well, as you see in my edit comment that method is another way to do it. But I suggest you post in the thread I provided, so that the author can guide you. There may be some other factor causing the fail.

Then change my units to millimetres.

I also have one - I gues after a while everyone will cretae his/her own [flash=640,480:3e0grkv6]http://www.youtube.com/v/VvI6A7Njw4k[/flash:3e0grkv6] As for softening edges... select all and right click > soften/smooth edges. A dialog will pop up where you can pull the slider to the right until you are satisfied. This will soften every edge with the same degree. softening selectively can be done with the Ctrl + tool

I think CS2 Extended is the lowest you can go if you want to make use of 3D features. As mentioned, Gimp is the best freeware. Retail alternatives are Paint Shop Pro and CorelDraw. Corel is itself fairly expensive (although you could go back several versions here to save money), but it is an entire suite...so you get the equivalent of both Photoshop and Illustrator, plus some other goodies. The painting bit...Photopaint...does pretty much everything that Photoshop does (including using its filters), while Draw itself is a match for Illustrator...good for presentation layout, other business graphics, as well as useful stuff like converting 2D vector files with bezier curves into segmented curves (a controllable number of segments) ready for import to SU.

Another one I've just noticed is: DAE Viewer 3D https://market.android.com/details?id=com.afanche.android.ATView3D_DAE&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5hZmFuY2hlLmFuZHJvaWQuQVRWaWV3M0RfREFFIl0. Only $3 CDN vs $15 for SightSpace 3d. Unfortunately my rooted Nook won't run Glovius.

See http://www.smustard.com/script/Stereo as a possibility, BUT not use why it's not currently downloadable - it used to be... Lumion might also have some capabilities you'd like...

Yes, if you use the Full Color Sandstone material from Shapeways. It requires only one texture in Sketchup (combine them first if you have two or more) and converting to VRML in Meshlab to make it work, here's a tutorial. Its quite a bit of messing around, but it does work. i.materialise will take your Sketchup file directly, but since their pricing promotes big projects, it will cost more than Shapeways.

Fredos curviloft http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=28586&hilit=curviloft&start=660#p248195

Thanks Michael Thanks Pete. Practice practice practice.

Gai - thank you so much! And I did need the intersection for the cleanup - pic attached. [image: o4TH_cube_with_cutoutsMedium2.jpg]

Cool. How do I get the plugin to work on my mac?