One caution to using high segment counts for arcs and circles. You can very rapidly bloat the file size and degrade computer performance that way. Keep in mind that once you've made a change in the segment count for the model, it will remain at that setting. While you might want a high segment count for the edge of a table or counter top, you probably won't for a bullnose or other rounded profile. If the curve is small, you won't notice that it is made of a small number of segments. You probably won't need to set the segment count anywhere close to 1000 for the appearance of a smooth curve. Maybe around 100 would be plenty.

Thanks Mike, its not actually my issue though, the initial person who posted was someone else. I saying that I think their problem was cured in a new patch released by SU a while back. Then I was asking you if you had a similar problem, or if you were just trying to help troubleshoot. So I see you're just helping, and not experiencing a similar dilema. So all's well that ends well. I am guessing thier problem has been fixed. If anyone else has similar troubles, make sure you are using the most recent version of SU available. Thanks Mike, Chris Fullmer

@watkins said: Dear Chris, Thanks for the explanation. I too came from the drawing board world, and then AutoCAD, but for some reason it took me ages to get used to 3D modelling (something about how my brain works). Even now I only use a fraction of Inventor's capabilities. For me Sketchup has replaced both the drawing board and 2D layouts in AutoCAD. I now go straight to Sketchup. I have been pleased to find that I can export from Inventor (as a .sat file) and then import into Sketchup via AutoCAD (after scaling up by x 100 inside AutoCAD). As yet I have not found a way to import Sketchup files into Inventor. Did you see my thread textures post? You might find the textures useful (they are in the Materials and Styles section). I have attached part of an assembly I'm working on as an example of how I use Sketchup. I've been doing solid modeling since the mid 90's and my experience is generally the more capable a designer is with AutoCAD the longer it takes to really embrace the power of designing in 3D. In the past it was always the 'young bucks' who came quickly up to speed while the grizzled veterans often times really struggled to get their heads around it. That's a very impressive model. The discipline you learned in Inventor shows in the model. I'm amazed at how haphazardly some models are assembled. Have you created a fastener library? What I see as a major drawback of SketchUp is the lack of technical quality hardware models. Saying that though, we certainly created a lot of our own in the early days of Pro-E and SolidWorks. Have a look at the stl exporter from Didier Bur in the Ruby section. I use it to export models into SolidWorks, but I don't know if Inventor supports stl file import or not. SolidWorks certainly doesn't do it very elegantly. chris

Yeah, the model would be fine. Also I'm not sure your path is a 2D or 3D curve (in 3D SU gets screwed).

@unknownuser said: Another way to change it is to grab you zoom tool and hold down shift. Now start mouse click and drag. This way you can change your field of view dynamically. This is also most often the way people incidentally screw up their FOV and not knowing what they've done (and how to revert it) drives them nuts

Craigd is the main google representative on these forums. If you look for him on the members list then send him a PM form there that should get you started.

@hfm said: A good thing to remember is that autosave will not work correctly when working from a usb. At least it didn't work for me I bet that's what happen to me because I have been taken my model home and sometimes I open it from the usb drive and forget to save it to my hard disk. thanks, mistery solved.

Thanks I got the Idea, and now it works agraz

I searched in the 3d warehouse and came across a couple which helped me a lot. thanks for the offer though.

Hi find the folder where the software is installed. Assuming it's Windows, it should be here: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Resources\en-US. and under Mac OSX (AWA Windows) the QR card is found under the Help menu. Cheers, Diego -

I cant remember, i just abandoned ship and restarted SU before i could test anything else.

Actually this is one of the SU things I really hate on OS X. Even when the previews are displayed, they are ugly and too small. What's with this funny little curled piece of paper with a pin in it anyway? SU files don't match the default OS X format for either documents with or without a preview. The non-preview kind of matches, but is a poor, crude substitute. Image files have thumbnails, so why can't SU files have thumbnails without this curled piece of paper thing? Definitely a 'could do a lot better' for V7 IMO.

@c.s.cameron said: SketchUp now seems to be running 100% with wine in Umbuntu Linux. Windows is looking like a thing of the past. Is there any discussion on this subject in the forums? Search did not give any results Hi Cork. I remember you from the old SketchUp forum. Yes, big thread here: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=9687 I just changed the title from Rubies and SketchUp on Linux to SketchUp and Rubies on Linux...perhaps that will help with future searches. One of my tasks for tomorrow is tracking down some issues with the 64-bit version of Ubuntu and SketchUp. By the way, if you have different registry settings or suggestions for SU-on-Linux, please do add them to that thread. Google (I've been led to believe) now directs people wanting help there, since they will not themselves support SU on the platform.

Thanks Diego - I missed that so it will be cool to watch it at least online!

Juju just send me a message with a link to the drivers I refered to ealrier: @unknownuser said: The drivers I was referring to are available from OmegaDrivers, it seems as though they have drivers for both ATi and nVidia these days. I remember when I had my Radeon ATi 9800 Pro 128MB (it was a few years ago) these drivers helped to speed things up, I can't think that things have changed much in assessment. How much they will help with SU, I don't know. However the drivers were always well optimised and stable. Hope this helps! perhaps these can be of use for you...

Thanks a bunch Dylan. I'm guessing my free time is no longer .. free. Got some watching to do. Again.. thanks Mike RL

What I wouldn't call a bug but a "featuer" I don't like is that when you explode something whose geometry on a certain particular layer, it will move that geometry to the layer active during exploding. This may cause things disappear when you turn the visibility of certain layers off (where now there is your geometry that has never been there).

Another interesting section animation I did showed 2nd floor of my house in perspective. Then I started moving the camera down and at the same rate moved the section plane down (from scene to scene). The end result looks like the section plane is stationary and someone is pushing the model up into the section plane where it dissolves. Ends up being pretty cool effect.

Which methods have you investigated?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/feb/08/architecture.china?picture=332441725 http://christinelu.com/index.php/Beijing-Olympic-Architecture.html These links are also pretty good.