True: scenes aren't designed to control visibility. but they can. If they just had the ability to "freeze" I wouldn't have that minor annoyance in my workflow. The way I prefer to work is simple really: -Build to my heart's content -Select all, unselect desired component(s), hide, Add new scene -Document in Layout -Build more, add more scenes when necessary I never need to Unhide because there's always a scene that has everything that I can create a new scene from. Not trying to step on anybody's toes. Your workflow is just as valid as mine

Martin, the problem with softening exterior edges is that you end up with strange shading typically shown as a diagonal shadow on the surfaces. If you don't want to see the edges, it would be better to hide them with Shift and the Eraser tool. Hiding them won't create the appearance of the shadows on the surfaces.

Thank you very much for your reply. I was not able to find the right ruby during search on the site. I received all messages with the words i was looking for. Maybe a suggestion for the site to change the way the search engine works? Or maybe i am definately failing with my internet skills! But thank you

@majid said: in sketch up to "select connected faces" that is a built-in right-click menu option Oh, man. I couldn't see the forest for the trees. There is such thing as too many plugins. Thanks Majid, I'd used a hotkey so long I forgot completely where/what it was in the menus after re-installation. Palm, meet forehead...

nice help. Thx

Instances do not have their own entities - it uses the entities of its definition, so.. ins = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0] entities = ins.definition.entities will give you the entities collection for the instance.

It seems that even if I choose to apply the report on the selected components it reports all the components. http://screencast.com/t/MzBhMjZmMj

Nice

thx TIG

got it - merci

There are ways of calculating volumes but these are not so fast... You could get the shape's 'fixed' volume value, and after moving a vertex recalculate its volume, and then scale the shape about that vertex so that its volume reverts to the 'fixed' value... Surface are is perhaps even more complex, but if a shape has a 'fixed' surface-area then after moving a vertex recalculate its external faces total area and again scale the shape about the volume to ensure the total surface-area reverts to the fixed value... Lots of thinking needed about scaling in 3D affecting volumes and surface-areas disproportionately....

i test, thx IT'S, OK. really thx

Any chance you put the files in the Plugins folder? Your post doesn't indicate that you did but that's where they are supposed to go.

oh! thx

Hi Thom: It just depends upon how colors are used in a model. I would invision the user having the choice to review or to do a one-click "auto" replace.

Thomas, What I'm thinking of is being able to quickly repair (or modify) a model so that the component axes of all original instances of the components would be aligned with the global axes. My last remark was intended to say that you would select a set of components in a model and if there's an original instance in the selection, its axes would get changed to align with the global axes. Last night someone sent me a cabinet model. He had drawn some of the components laying down on the ground plane and then rotated them up into their proper position. When a model is drawn that way, it appears that materials are randomly applied and it is difficult for some to make sense of what's happening. Also, as you know, if the component is made laying down but used standing up, every time it is inserted into a model, its orientation has to be corrected. Correcting the axes orientation up front would eliminate the need to do that correction later. Thanks for your thoughts.

Works ok. Thanks again.

thanks a lot ... u r so brilliant

tx Remus, once in a while, under workpressure I post a question I should have solved myself. I am now at home and its good to know that monday on the office I can quickly solve this issue. Really nice this forum is populated by helpful people and reply on a post like mine as well. Francois

It seems that I have more and more updates to do, and not enough time for it now