Hi Hans, hi folks. The most important menu in SketchUp (SU) is the last one on the right, "Help". The most important item in this menu is the second from the top "Help Center". This is your access door to a lot of useful informations. Explore all of this and you shall get answers to probably more than 95% of your questions. For the remaining 5%, come back here, many people will help you in becoming a proficient user of SU. Just ideas.

@jprokos said: Do any of you think there is a ruby plugin around that will stop SketchUp from creating a new file every time it's run? John you can't use rubies until Sketchup has loaded the window [that you don't want], however you can write an applescript or automator or similar (keystroke macro app) to launch SU> click on the File menu > click close, > click new or recent files... you could then choose from the last few. I've got scripts that I've wrapped in an apps in my menubar items, so you can get to them anytime. there is a slight problem with this approach when some of the rubies load other bits on startup. This is because it slows the loading and macros can't tell when to click so you either need long delays [1>2 secs] or wrap all of the offending rubies so they when you want them, but not at every startup. If you have a search for sumac in the forum you'll see some of my apps that start SU differently for different things, i.e. paste script into console. it would be trivial to adapt one to open on the recent items menu. john

Nice to meet you. Have a nice time exploring around. When you're stuck just ask.

@unknownuser said: You can export a view of your model to .jpg There are plugins that also export to PDF, SimLab for example. http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/3D-PDF-from-sketchup-main.aspx Thank you. All works like a dream. Grateful. Hans

Oh I see you posted here too: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=38086&view=unread#unread Just one post is enough.

Hi Allan, Yeh I started a week ago and I'm hooked on this program its brilliant. I would like to show you what it looks like now, nothing startling but i am quite pleased with what I have learned - some real nice people on this forum. I'll attach only a jpeg - it's very basic. - Thank you all for the lessons - I'm sure this is only the beginning - I'm thinking of homes with furniture showing and photoreal renderings in the future. Allan, If I were you I would move - how can you live where Everton and Liverpool are domiciled - Move to London near the emirates - I am a fanatical Gunners supporter. Have a lovely weekend - off to watch Rugby now. Hans[image: AJPi_hbergfinalcomplex.jpg] NB please do not be shy to critique - thats how I'll learn.

I think scaling was the issue ...thanks so much, folks.

@gaieus said: And you can save this new template under file > save as template in newer versions of SU (Alan is such an old user he never checks these things any more) True....so very true.

@tig said: Out of all of the cars in the 3dWarehouse you have chosen one that is no ordinary component! If you select any part of your model [except the car] and use Scale you get the yellow-box and several green-handles to use when scaling... so there's nothing wrong with your model or its setup, or your Sketchup [probably]. Now... if you select the car and use Scale you get the yellow-box and no green-handles this is because it's a 'Dynamic Component' - with Pro you can make special components that do things when you click on them or adjust several aspects of themselves when you change one parameter. The author of your imported car made the component to do things like swing the various doors open when you click on them, and show balloons [!] when you click the roof... [Activate the Dynamic Components toolbar option] With a dynamic component you can constrain how it scales by limiting it scalability in the three axes - here the author has prevented scaling in ALL axes - i.e. it's a non-scalable dynamic-component If you'd rather not get another car you can make this dc one 'ordinary' by simply exploding it [right-click context-menu] and then ***immediately use the still selected objects to form a new 'collection' - i.e. a group if you aren't going to need a component or a new component if you will use multiple copies of it etc... ***Note that the dc car contains some other dc sub-components that also have their scalability curtailed so you need to add a step here - after the 'explode' and while the exploded sub-components are still highlighted do another 'explode' on those, THEN make the still highlighted geometry into your 'collection'...[attachment=0:n9nmq4px]<!-- ia0 -->Capture.PNG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:n9nmq4px] Here's the result - scaled up to absurdity... Hi Tig, You have no idea how much I appreciate you devoting your precious time to assist a novice like me. I am not much of a theoretician, but rather a hands on doing sort of person - I learn more by doing than reading. again, much appreciated.. Kind regards Hans

@tig said: If it happens with just a few faces it could be z-fighting where there are coplanar faces inside groups etc and then the display has to decide which material to show, and it varies depending on the angle - this is fixed by either erasing one of the clashing faces or moving one a few mm away from the other so it doesn't happen... That's what I would think, too. See attached example. [image: 8dOh_z-fighting.png] z-fighting.skp

I think there is no API method to set any image file as thumbnail. Jim has a script that uses standard Ruby to extract a thumbnail, so it could be doable to write a script for replacing the thumbnail in the skp file, but manipulating binary files is a bit risky and errors could lead to corrupted skp files.

@unknownuser said: Right click on the roof plane and choose "Align View". Right click on the roof plane and choose "Align View". Right click on the roof plane and choose "Align View". Right click on the roof plane and choose "Align View". Right click on the roof plane and choose "Align View". Good one Dave. Oops.... Didn't noticed you answered before. You were faster typing, because I'm sure your post wasn't there when I wrote mine.

thousand thanks

hey guys. i am desperate to get my section cut so i can render it with vray for my exam presentation but the bug splat thing is not letting up. it starts cutting through my model but as soon as it starts cutting things from the clipboard it bug splats..... any suggestions?

@tig said: First off the car does seem a little 'short' - you need to scale it up, or get a better model. Next when you place a component like a car into the model you can use Move and pick a point on the car [e.g. bottom of a tyre] and then snap to something on the surface you want to place it onto - like the 'driveway' - and it then on that 'plane'. Subsequent moves can be constrained in any of the three axes using shift or arrow keys. When you've placed the car you have done it in an obscure way, positioning it so that it looks right in that view but of course when you change camera positions it's wrong - in fact 'flying'! You are not taking cardboard cutouts of things an making a montage, rather these should be proper sized objects that are placed relative to each other in the right relationships. BUT let's skip the car for a moment... So you understand this try this experiment... Hold you hand out at arm's-length in front of you, palm away from your face. Move it around until it obscures about half of something in the room - say the TV. Now slowly move your hand nearer to your face so it obscures more and more of the TV. When you hand is near your face you can't see the TV or other parts of the room near it. That's what you did with the exceptionally small car, by moving it nearer the camera you hid more drive-way until it looked the right size BUT it wasn't changing its size just its location. You accept that your hand's location affects how much it obscures from your view AND it doesn't physically change the actual size of your hand! I suggest that you edit the car component [double-click to go into edit mode] and use the Tapemeasure tool and pick the centres of two of the wheels' hub-caps on the same side and type in what the wheelbase is likely to be - for that kind of car perhaps '2.5m' ? This will rescale the car to be the right size. Exit the edit-mode. axis when you only wanted to move it 100mm is easily fixed by typing 100mm after the ~1m move but before you pick any other tool... When rotating an object the rotate-gizmo appears locked to the plane its on [or lock it by holding shift] and you pick two points to do the rotation by eye - the VCB shows the actual value OR as with Move you can type an actual angle so if you want the car rotating 5 degrees type in 5... Hi Tig, thank you very much for all your time in helping me- I'm geting there. thank you Hans

Celina I suspect you are not installing the files as directed. You say you put all of the code into Plugins - that's NOT what you do. You extract the files from the zip and files that come zipped in subfolders stay in those subfolders in side Plugins only the files located directly within the zip go into Plugins. You have reported similar problems on another thread and I have given more detail in my rely there... http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=335834#p335834

@gaieus said: I use Jim's Custom Toolbar plugin and it has some extra buttons otherwise not available in the native SU toolbars. Some of these allow quick style changes and these style settings can be very useful when trying to fix a screwed up model (or trying to find endpoints to snap to). Normally I do not use any fancy styles (and keeping it simple also helps with performance when the model is getting complex) Thank you for your interest. I have used Daves method and was absolutely delighted when I ended up with a nice clean edge drawing. thank you Hans

you can also try OpenSpace3D (free) Just export your SKP file and have happy walk

This guy Alex Jenyon use Sketchup with any restriction One tut here at SCF (scroll the page)

The 2dFillet tool in my 2dTool set works in 3d too, if also has a 'chamfer' toggle, if you fillet two lines with 0 radius it acts like trim/extend tool. There's also 2dAdjust that lets you pick several edges/arcs as targets and then several more to 'adjust' to the targets - either extending or trimming the line/arc as appropriate... There are also several other 2dTools in the fill set that mimic CAD like 2dHatching, 2dLineStyle and 2dText... My Mirror tool allows you to mirror a selection about any point/line/plane - it has some advantages over the Scale tool with '-1', or the flip-on-axis methods from the context-menu, as you can chose to make a copy as you Mirror - just like in ACAD. To tidy messy edges/gaps etc 'OpenClosedLines' is available at Smustard.com [$?] An alternative is to look at Thomthom's 'Cleanup' and 'Edge' tools ['free' - see Plugins Index link above...] which do various things that might also help... His 'guide_tools' also let you add cpoints in various ways. There are tools to add cpoints by picking points and of course there is a midpoint snap inference for any edge, so you can place a cpoint at the midpoint of any edge [if there's no connecting edge then draw a temporary line between the two points, snap to its center for the cpoint location and then erase the unwanted line]; however, if you must have this as a separate tool then http://www.smustard.com/script/Midpoint is a free download that adds this to the context-menu... You change the current axes using the Axes tool - this is equivalent to making another 'UCS' - you right-click context-menu over an axis to reset back to the 'world-axes'. Sketchup isn't CAD so you need to appreciate the differences - the main one is that Layers do not separate geometry - they simply show/hide what's on them; so draw all connected geometry on Layer0, make a group or component and give that a different layer so that if is seen/unseen. Other non-connected geometry is made in a similar way so you get no unpleasant surprises - separating say a face and its edges by layer is very risky as erasing a visible edge can also erase an invisible that that needed the edge - because you can't see geometry on another layer doesn't mean it's not reliant on some geometry that you can see and will can be affected by your editing/erasing of that - unless you use group/component to somehow separate this geometry and you then use layers to control visibility of those... You can also lock/unlock groups/instances so you can't accidentally edit, move or erase them - another usefu'