I stand corrected - I can see that as a good application, and also do-able. I was thinking resistors and capacitors, etc. But that won't change my answer much. Panels can be looked at as simple batteries, no? So you have a layout of panels connected in series or parallel. Assuming the panels are SketchUp Components, you can loop over the Model to find their quantity and location, and probably determine the connection based on position, type, and neighbors. Components can store attributes like their electrical characteristics which can be retrieved and used in the calculations. That part seems fairly straight-forward. The shade analysis might be troublesome. There are no built-in methods to determine where a shadow lies. We can get the model geometry, and the sun position and angle, then do some ray-casting; but I wouldn't know where to begin making the calculations.

In such a case, SU is trying to guess where you want to place that rectangle. As there is nothing else in the scene yet, it will infer to any of the major planes. To which one, will depend on your view. Most of the templates come in a way that you are looking down mostly. If you orbit your view to something horizontal so that the horizon will be lower than your mid-screen, you can get that inference. Yeah, Chris beat me but essentially the same.

Theres a plugin called SU animate that does just that, if you are willing to spend a few bucks. I'm currently looking for a different alternative for your problem, a way to assign a different transition time for each scene to make turns more "smooth". Finally theres Chris's camera recorder plugin where you can walk around corners and everywhere yourself, you need another program to convert the data export into a video file though.

Hi Gaieus, Thanks for adding me to the woodworking user group. I'm learning my way around the forums. This is great, hope to contribute.

Maybe just one additional thought if the topic is bumped anyway; when you make a group and later (when you do not need it) explode it, there won't be any (noticeable) traces of it in the model. An exploded component will however remain in the file and you can still access it in (and insert it from) the Component browser. This way, if you are not careful enough and keep playing with various ideas and download several components (of uncontrollable file size) from the Warehouse into your model, even if you discard them, they will make your file size really huge. Therefore you always need to purge your model regularly (although be careful NOT to purge whatever is needed) See example below: [image: PurgeComponents.jpg] There can be unused components, materials, styles and layers in a model. The first three can considerably boost the file size (styles only if you are using some sketchy style with high resolution watermark background image for instance). In every similar dialog, there is the option to purge them OR you can do it altogether under your Model info > Statistics tab. Lately the 3D Warehouse warns you of unused items (such as above) and offers you to purge them before uploading. This is cool IMO - otherwise one would import Sang or Bryce like a thousand instances after each other.

Wanted to share in case someone else was experiencing this... Environment: SketchUp 7 (7.1.6859) Mac OSX Snow Leopard Problem: Despite following the directions explicitly... could not manage to print a true 1:1 scale. Ex: I drew a 100mm x 20mm rectangle... Printed at 1:1 scale... Measured... longer side was at 104mm. Went through this over and over again. Read and re-read the directions...forum postings, everything...Nothing helped. Solution: In the File->Page Setup (Remember this on a mac...may be different for PC) I HAD 'Format For' set to 'Canon MP620 Printer' and 'Paper Size' set to 'US Letter (borderless)'... Sounds reasonable right? Well guess not, because as a last ditch effort I decided set 'Format For' to 'Any Printer' and 'Paper Size' to a custom '8.5 x 11 Borderless' that I made via the 'Manage Custom Sizes' option in that same menu and BAM problem fixed! If I set 'Format For' back to 'Canon MP620 Printer' and the 'Paper Size' back to 'US Letter (borderless)' problem returns again! So, I'm not sure what the scoop is but obviously something screwy with the Canon supplied profile. So moral of the story? It's definitely worth giving this fix a try if nothing else is working... definitely did it for me. -Mike

@gaieus said: Hi Henri and welcome! I have seen some really interesting and beautifully detailed clock (and watch) models made in SketchUp! It will be really interesting to see some nice examples from you, too, if you wish to share them. One tip already; a watch will obviously contain very tiny pieces. SketchUp has problems with creating faces that have edges at the scale around a millimetre so the general workaround is to model in a larger scale and only when finished, scale the model back to its normal size. Say it would be comfortable for you to model in millimetres at this scale. Instead, set your template to metres but work as usual - count the values as they were millimetres. This will result in a model scaled 1000:1 but in no time at the end you can easily scale it by 1/1000. (I also added you to the French usergroup so you can see and post in the French forum when you are logged in). @unknownuser said: Henri Salut et bienvenue! J'ai vu quelques très intéressante et admirablement détaillés horloge (et regarder) les modèles fabriqués dans SketchUp! Il sera vraiment intéressant de voir quelques beaux exemples de vous, aussi, si vous souhaitez les partager. Un bon truc d'ores et déjà, une montre sera évidemment contenir des morceaux minuscules. SketchUp a des problèmes avec la création de visages qui ont des bords à l'échelle autour d'un millimètre de manière générale la solution de contournement est de modèle dans une plus grande échelle, et seulement lorsque vous avez terminé, à l'échelle du modèle qui retrouve sa taille normale. Affirment qu'il serait commode pour vous de modèle dans millimètres à cette échelle. Au lieu de cela, réglez votre modèle en mètres mais le travail comme d'habitude - comptage des valeurs comme ils étaient millimètres. Cela se traduira par un modèle réduit 1000:1, mais en aucun temps à la fin vous pouvez facilement l'échelle de 1 / 1000. (Je vous ai également ajouté au groupe d'utilisateurs français afin que vous puissiez voir et d'écrire dans le forum français quand vous êtes connecté in). Blame the translator.

Find ExtrudeEdgesByRails [or the whole EEby... tools zipped]. I'd make it in two mirrored halves as it looks symmetrical. Use 'weld.rb' to make part of the outline a single 'curve'. Repeat for the rest of the outline. Now you have two curves that can become 'rails'. Draw a third curve (perhaps a very flat arc) to for a profile. Use EEbyRails picking them as prompted [repeat pick on profile unless you want it to end slightly differently in which case make another curve/melding-profile... It should make a mesh of the surface. Then process it as needed - here's a visual clue... I know it's not the same shape but I did it as quick example for you...[image: ZEud_Untitled.png]

Okay, the whole thing was just a side joke anyway. But say in "real life" when an architect makes $40-50 per hour and modifying a complex mesh through 3-4 hours, a $ 20 plugin which helps doing it within say half an hour (or even if one hour) is obviously a time/money saver. And maybe I would also need a car if I lived in the countryside and not just about 5 minutes walk for my regular corner bar (and less than a minute from the main square of my city).

Fat Pencil Studios in Portland does a lot of work with sketch-up. Your project may be a little small for them, but they are professionals.

Sorry TIG if I couldn't follow your line of thought. I was thinking like this: Assume that the user is drawing with the line tool. That's certainly a situation where drawing axes (and inference colors) are needed. So then the user would like to have an idea of the coordinate system. Have a quick look at 'a-a', then bail out by pushing Es... Eek. Escape also interrupts rubberband drawing. - Just to state an example of a potential conflict. But thanks for your nice contribution that I tried to improve.

Thanks again Chris, much obliged. I was aware of being able to hide lines etc but on my original problem (which can be seen in image #2 and #3 on the 1st post) SketchUp created a new face at the top of the arch. Anyway, don't worry about it, problem solved, thanks again!

A 'helix' is simply a 3D curve - so like anything else it can be Scaled in plan to change its diameter or make it ellipsoidal and in its height to change its 'pitch'... You can taper it in its height when making it too. It's so quick to do remaking another helix is easy enough... Here's an example of a tapered helix of two different sizes and a link flat-arc quickly processed in EEbyRails to give a helical weirdness...[image: lgwd_Untitled.png]

Hi Sarbot, I have already made one (with the first steps) for you at the SU Help Forum: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=94dd8c51d1053fcfe2d1c7fb74c7e53b [image: download?mid=94dd8c51d1053fcfe2d1c7fb74c7e53b&rtyp=lt&ctyp=other&ts=1265141885000]

[image: 9h1U_91C.tmp.jpg]

Thank you.

Not specifically in response to this post, but just a general statement about matching product colors. If you try to match a photo to its scene, the colors will not match, yet the overall appearance of the photo will often be judged OK. When as a "new" architect working with an "old timer", I commented on how I needed a color pencil to match the marble wall I was rendering. He smiled and said that I should be trying to render with less pencils, not more. An approach to I eventually came to embrace in line as well as color. I believe the same can be applied to CAD rendering. [image: ZvWO_Temp00.jpg]

Also, have a look at this exxcellent tutorial by our member, Eric (aka Boofredlay) here: http://www.sketchucation.com/creating-a-2d-face-me-tree-in-google-sketchup/

Here is a short video about setting your FOV in SketchUp: [flash=640,480:1bxfgdu4]http://www.youtube.com/v/nGCJ9UiXZQA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0[/flash:1bxfgdu4] If, for whatever reason it doesn't want to play for you embedded (as it does not for me ATM), here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCJ9UiXZQA

@chris murphy said: Being new to SU I would like to know, in general terms, the power of SU. I realize it is unlikely that it is an AutoCad Inventor, but can i come close to developing a residential material list if i put in the time to get detailed? I realize that may be months if not years in the making. I assume that a dynamic component is SU's term for parametric? Are they formula driven? using an Excel or the like? Can i get reports of quantities, Square footages, etc.? On the surface and listening to others conversations it seems like it could be quite powerful. Thanks for any responses. Chris Dynamic Components are 'parametrics' and have their own internal language - though you can also make simple parametric objects other ways too. The Ruby scripting language gives you access to many of SUp's API functions - base geometry, components and dynamic-component's "attributes" - and there are several 'proto' material reporters if you do a forum search... the woodworkers seem to use these the most to give cutlists etc but in theory if you model it you can schedule it and output as .CSV files etc for Excel etc...