@tig said: I first saved_as a R12 DXF [25Mb!] - which retained geometry etc, imported it using mm as the units, *NOT retaining the CAD origin... and it came into the SKP pretty quickly. *Some of the DWG's geometry is pretty far from 0,0,0 Here's my v2013 SKP version, looks like everything is there ? I zipped it because it's 5Mb. TIG You're a star. Thank you again for your time and skill. Talk about a convoluted path to getting the thing to behave itself. I am pressing on now with the model at full speed. Have a great day. Patrick depth3d

@lorenzos said: ... because I can not buy the license anymore. yes, we can (sell) you a SUP v8 lic., just drop an email with the platform and your full address to our sales. hth, Norbert

Yes. This is basic stuff in SketchUp. Put your components into a folder or folders and choose them as "local collections". Add those collections to favorites so you can quickly get to those libraries in the future. Place the component axes and origin to make inserting the components easy.

Well that me leads to another conclusion. VisTools locks the hidden geometry. So going to give it a try. Very frustrating to use the laptop. Program has a long way to go before if can complete with other programs on stability. Thanks for your insights. Ken

John, this may be a long shot but... Do you ever move or realign the model axes? Is there an option to 'Reset' when you right click on the origin? It may not be the problem in your case but I have seen models in which the user moved the model axes and didn't get them aligned accurately. The result was that many parts of the model were drawn just slightly off axis. It was difficult to identify until I found components that were drawn before the axes were moved and then found the Reset option for the axes was available.

You might want to get on the face orientation thing and correct all those reversed faces before you get much farther along in your model. They are likely to cause you headaches later.

No problem ! Try to keep things near the Origin . Also when it happens like this you can always move back the camera with the Previous camera view button !This is one of the few default icons I have kept in my toolbars(I could have assigned a shortcut, but well) .

Maybe you'll just have to bite the bullet and buy the Pro version of SketchUp.

Thanks Turns out my vendor (who is using SolidWorks) was working in a larger scale and reducing to my required size. I asked my vendor to make the DWG export unscaled, and it imported nicely

very nice。 thank you！

@bustedclock said: Actually, I've only tried zoom extents a couple of times, but it seemed to distort what I was looking at. I guess, or I think (not sure which!), that it zoomed the whole component to fill the screen. That's what Zoom Extents is supposed to do. The one from the Context menu zooms in on the selection so if you have a face or an edge selected when you choose it, the view will zoom in to it. As to the distortion yousee or think you see, perhaps you would find it easier if you reduce the camera's field of view. Select the Zoom tool from the toolbar or Camera menu and type a new value in the VCB. If you wish, you can use focal length instead of degrees by typing mm after the number. @bustedclock said: A way to one-click (context menu?) change camera to the opposite end of the component. Not like flip along axis because I want the whole model to flip even though I'm working on a single component. Also, not the camera-view menu/buttons, because I don't necessarily remember which side of the model I'm working on. Heat of the moment, and all that. You don't really want to flip the model do you? It sounds more like you want to Orbit the camera 180° from its current location. Would that be correct? Well, 180° might not be the right amount. Maybe it is 90° or 110° along the length of the component. How do you determine what the angle should be? It sounds to me like with practice in using the existing navigation tools, you'll find you can do quite well with them. Use the center mouse button/wheel and combine it with Shift for Pan and I think you'll find you get along just fine.

So, something is wrong with your SketchUp installation, or your Keyboard or its key-mapping ! Using Erase+Ctrl+Shift works fine for me in unsmooth/unsoftening edges. I have the latest v2103 [although that should not matter as it has always worked faultlessly] Have you considered doing a 'Repair' or failing that fixing things a 'Reinstall' ?

Thank you Charlie....that worked perfectly!

have you an image of a "porous object" ?

Did you happen to uninstall SU8 and install SU2013? SU2013 has a slightly different folder structure.

Or open up the ruby window and type Sketchup.break_edges=false (case sensitive). It'll return "false" but the lines won't intereract and break like they did.

By the way, for all the punters... I ended up using Fetchapp. It works quite well. Apparently hosting a downloadable sellable SU model on your own site is a complicated HTML coding exercise, so I didn't go down that path. Even more baffling is trying to set up the unfathomable Paypal Digital Downloads account. (Paypal need to lift their game with the user-interface of their products. For a company of that size,.. what they give you to work with is just woeful) Anyway Fetchapp, different story, very easy to use. They host your model for $5 a month. No other fees. You can easily create a standard Paypal Button that links your Paypal account to your website. FetchApp provide the HTML code, you copy and past it into your website program (I used Muse). I'll let you know if it works if I ever sell anything

When there's an update to SketchUp it is sent out as the whole package. They don't send just those parts that have been updated. When you install the updated version it writes over what it needs to.

this is a quote from Dave R :"Go to Window and click on Extension Warehouse. In the top right corner of the window there'll be a search line. Type in Ruby Script Examples and you should go right to it." I haven't upgraded yet so I can't verify it, but I hope it helps

Are you talking about textures? There are plugins to modify them... (e.g. SketchUV, Thrupaint, ...)