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, ...)

@box said: I may be wrong, it often happens, but I think you'll also need to group the dimension with the component or it won't stay with it if you move it. With Dave's methode, placing the dimension outside the component's context but inside a gluing component, the dimension sticks onto the parent component. It will move along with that single component instance but there will not be any nested components involved. Example, see attached model. dimension component gluing to component

You could write a short script to iterate all of the components in a model [or perhaps load them in turn from a folder, into an empty SKP] and then export their thumbnails into a specified folder, naming them after the component definition...

@glitchdesign said: Hi, I found this thread because i have the QL helper issue too. I've tried the ql manage steps listed above. I can't say for sure if .skp is the only thing that makes ql go nuts, but there's no doubt that it is a trigger. I've never come across anything like the quicklook generator posted above, will it help specifically with this problem, or is it more just for being able to view files before opening them? Where should i put the .qlgenerator file? I'm afraid i'm not too experienced with this stuff... So far as I know, nobody ever conclusively proved the cause of this problem, so there is no guarantee of what will work. My theory was that it could be due to SketchUp not registering the .skp extension correctly with Mac OS X, which would cause Finder's preview to scan the file trying to decide how to display it and could clog up the quick look cache. I am sure that SU 8 did not register .skp, but I haven't checked on 2013. Unzip the qlgenerator into ~/Library/QuickLook and the ruby into your plugins folder (the path varies depending on SU version). You may have to run "qlmanage -r" from a console window before the quick look daemon will pick up the new generator. You also have to save a file once before you will get a preview image instead of the sketchup logo.

Thanks, TIG. I was curious if it was Dibac or BuildEdge. I do already have your SectionCutFace plugin and use it quite frequently. Thank you for your great work and thank you for helping me resolve this. -Mike

My olde TextTag and 2dTools Text tools already do this: thomthom's interface and font-list is just much better...

Thanks Dave - all is fine - I upgraded for $95 - well worth it.

Oh good finally, a solution to my color blindness... Thanks to you guys, another duh moment for me... Its time to further investigate what usefool tools under the hood I havent been using or knew exists at all. Thanks there DaveR for a helpful trick, Havent used make unique texture for years.