Well ... it looks like what I'm describing is already in place when you turn shadows on : The color of the face is not determined by the angle between the camera and the perpendicular to the face, but the angle with respect to the sun. You can tilt your view, the faces don't change color. Still, I'd be interested in coloring the faces in "false color" based on the sun angle. Anybody would know where to start? Thanks. Paul

Thanks to everyone who passed on some suggestions on creating "draft". I discovered the perfect solutions to the problem. I found the plugin "Chamfer_Along_Path" allows me to cut the necessary angle not only on straight edges, but, curves as well. Using "smart extrude" maintains the chamfer as I extrude upward. I was able to ultimately create the entire horseshoe with SketchUp. It was converted to .stl format and submitted for 3D printing. I do have one issue that gives me problems of alignment which I'll post in the Newbie section...Bob

@unknownuser said: Any reason why you're still using v6? Jeff Thanks for the nudge. Due to recessionary cash-flow cessation I was trying to get by with SU6, since I don't use it often. But I was having so many challenges, your question caused me to throw caution to the wind and take the plunge. If I drown in debt, it's all your fault. SU8 does seem to be somewhat faster, but I just had another Select-Tool-fail event. SU is not autosaving in the background, and the CPU is not busy. It acts like the selection "call" gets stuck in a traffic jam from SU to the OS. Eventually, the jam clears, and the intended selection is highlighted or deselected. Other tools work OK, and I can minimize the page. Other programs don't have this problem. I'm just throwing this out to see if it's operator/hardware at fault, or some glitch in SU. For now, all I can do is find something else to work on until I get control of the clicker again.

Hi Gord and welcome to SCF! If you are thinking in flash panoramas, there could be better solution than compiling still images. There are several ways to export either cubic or spherical panoramas. Have a look at this one for instance.

@unknownuser said: Hi Kristof, Maybe one of these will help. http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Serial.html Bep Oh you Rock! thanks... and only $12.00

Thanks for the response. I kept playing with it. I didn't think it was right. I'm not sure what was different, but I started from scratch and all is working good now. Something must have tied one component to the other. We can let this post end. If I can take a raincheck on some help down the road ... Thanks ... Bob

I used Pixero and Fredo's work to be able to create a sequence where my camera flies all around a room. Now I'd like the plane to be in the camera's field, first as a fixed item, and later moving (while staying in the viewfield). Most efficient way to do so is to attach the plane to the camera, as you can do in most animation tools. But I understood this would not be easily feasable. Another way is to get for each frame (from a script maybe) the camera position and orientation, add offline my plane wanted relative position and orientation, and then update my plane's coordinates for each frame. Maybe using ProperAnimation plugin... But as I've just discovered SU, I still don't really know how to get these position + orientation infos... Plus I don't know if it is possible to set offline Proper Animation coordinates for an object !

Thanks Jim for saving me some time. That worked real quick - once I entered each group or component- two clicks and all moved to another layer I knew there had to be a fast way. Sketucation once more to my rescue :O) I will have a look at Thomthom's selection tools too- Thanks for the tip Jeff.

From Wikipedia: Reflection symmetry Main article: reflection symmetry Reflection symmetry, mirror symmetry, mirror-image symmetry, or bilateral symmetry is symmetry with respect to reflection. More fuel for the fire.

Yeah, there is lots of info scattered around here about it. Its hard to give a specific answer to a general question. So if you browse around, you can read up the various renderers and other plugins. OR if you have more specific questions about things, its a little easier to provide accurate responses. But you definitely came to the right place for anything SketchUp related. Have you been using the software long? Are you looking just for rendering plugins, or are you wanting geometry making plugins, and general workflow enhancement plugins type things? Chris

Thnx! I didn't know what to do first. Downloaded the 2D fillet tool but couldn't manage to get it right. It's done now!

Hi George and welcome. Feel free to ask any questions (even if they seem to be dumb) about general things here in the Newbie Forum (after all, this is why we set it up). We also have a Woodworking Forum (I have just added you to the Woodworkers Usergroup) down on the main index - any special questions could go there (there are some nice and helpful folks there, too).

Why not draw the lines across the top as you show in your second image and then use Push/Pull to push the angled portion down to eliminate it? That will leave you with the faces on the ends of the remaining walls. You could also draw the cut lines on the bottom of the walls and simply erase the edges in between. No plugin needed for either method.

If you have a planar surface, as in the 'top' of your plateau, that is missing vertices you can use SU's native sandbox tools to 'add detail'. This will then allow you to use Thom's tool. There are other means to adding vertices to planar surfaces but it's best to understand SU's native tools first IMO.

It's been raised before - see here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=271261#p271261 - there's a work around...

The path is a component and the profile is a component. FollowMe only works on a path that's 'lines' and a profile that's a face. You can [as previously explained] simply explode both components back to edges and a face. The face will now 'extrude' around the path and the result will be in the shared context [here it's the 'model' but it could just as easily have been inside another group etc..] So for example if you want to make the 'extrusion' inside the path-component... First edit the face-component, select the face and Edit>Copy it to the clipboard. Now exit that edit and edit the path-component, use Edit>Paste-in-Place and a copy of the face is now added into that context. Still within the edit - select the path edges. Still within the edit - now run FollowMe and click on the face. The face will now 'extrude' around the path inside the component... This method leaves the original face component unchanged. An alternative, if you don't want the face component to remain, is to go back to ### Select the face-component and Edit>Cut it to the clipboard. Now edit the path-component, use Edit>Paste-in-Place and a copy of the face-component is now added into that context. Still within the edit - select the face-component and Explode it back to be just a 'face'. Still within the edit - select the path edges. Still within the edit - now run FollowMe and click on the face. The face will now 'extrude' around the path inside the component... This time the face-component is no longer there.

YES THANKOYU IT"S HELPFUL. NOW I CAN ADD COMPONENT LIBRALY! AND EDIT MATERIAL IN MODEL EASY WAY. THANKS JEFF.

Sorry, I am new to meshlab, also. I just downloaded the other day and all I have been able to do is read some of the information from the site and from Wikipedia. I know from other reading that somewhere along the way during transfers, this polygon problem will pile up on you. I think you were talking about coplanar faces. I took this to mean you have a bunch of superfluous edges subdividing faces. There are some render apps that do not tolerate triangles and others that do not tolerate quads. Frankly, I am bumfuzzled. But, since this topic is started, you will almost certainly get more qualified advice.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/25890/printing-templates-two-approaches http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/24733/printing-to-scale http://www.srww.com/blog/?p=117

Never mind on this one, I just noticed that version 8 is out so I'll upgrade and reloading should fix the problem. Thanks all the same! Scott