Thanks TIG, I tried those out but didn't work. After an hour looking and continually updating my Lumion model I discover it was attached to the ground floor wall component. I exploded it and re created the group now its gone. Pretty weird, haven't had that happen before especially when it wasn't on outliner as well.

What are your OpenGL preferences in SketchUp?

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=40025#p354050 http://sketchucation.com/resources/pluginstore?pln=FredoTools

@hellnbak said: Just another old fart's brain fart. Anybody know of a cure for cerebral flatulence? Don't know,..... but keep distance from any 'Explode' tool!

Thanks TIG, this sounds great, I will give it a try.

Thanks for the response. Most flat map projections of the earth are unusual projections. Such as mercator or divided near the poles at the latitude lines. But, yes global maps with cities are pretty easy to come by. I've attached a good one for the use. Can you point me in the direction of wrapping it on a sphere? Funny thing is that I would think that this is quite common - such as news bureaus would need a global 3d map with cities. But I guess most of those use google earth now. Sorry for the size of the map! Thanks [image: cTmI_mc-eur-072945_150_ai_2.jpg]

@shannakae said: Also, i did not know about the Tab button for options.. is that true for all of Fredo's plugins? Yes another good example is with FredoScale

@aerilius said: But: SketchUp does not recognize the opacity in transparent texture images (because it's separate from the opacity slider), so you could apply a material with a completely transparent png image to all entities of which you want to see only shadow, like in this example. I have the exact same problem with pipogianni, I am trying to get some tree shadows from png tree images (with transparent backrounds) in my model, without rendering the png tree plane itself. I only want the shadows, so I can add the trees later with photoshop. The example that you posted here seems to manage exactly that, but i can't figure out how. ! Can anyone please explain what am I looking at in this model? How are the two lateral shadows created without the smiley faces being displayed?

Yes, there is always glue. I am definitely expecting to shore up these joints with glue if necessary. I'm not an engineer, so I'm not sure if glue alone is a superior method of joinery with ABS. Do you think so? I would expect that a dowel that was then glued would work better. The snap idea came out of the possibilities of the material - really it seems like a component that could just be added to the edge of a wall or end of a protrusion, on which one could add another part. Both sketchup and 3d printing seem unusually appropriate tools for this kind of a feature. No connector? Just drop one on there before printing! Also, I am trying to figure out the best way to use these materials and their potential. Since a print taking up most of the 6x6x8" bed is taking on the order of 30 hours; I kind of want to utilize the parts to their highest potential. Has anyone seen anything like this out there in downloadable components? Anyone have further advice - would glue alone be superior? Or can anyone critique my designs? Thanks!

Soap Skin Bubble is hosted on the author's website but there isn't a version of it that will work on 2013 yet. At least there wasn't the other day. The author claims to be working on an update but who knows when it will come. You can create complex surfaces with TIG's Extrusion tools and Fredo's Curviloft, though. Also Artisan and Vertex Tools.

Liking the new avatar TT - congrats on the new job!

@jiminy-billy-bob said: You can also change the default material color in the "styles" window. Thanks for the reminder. That tip will also come in useful going back and forth between the two programs.

@dave r said: Sorry, I didn't realize the problem was that you couldn't find the toolbar. I thought the plugin wasn't working. I'd have suggested that you pull out the toolbar if I'd known. I didn't even realize that WAS the problem.

Alright, thanks!

@chris fullmer said: This might not be completely relevant, but Chris Dizon from Trimble wrote a station point importer that is pretty cool. http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/total-station-point-importer Chris Thanks Chris! It's interesting that you post this because I was just this week in Pittsburgh meeting with a Trimble guy. He was at a local distributor giving them a class and he agreed to meet with me to discuss Trimble total station purchase options. We talked extensively about Sketchup integration and he said "Chris just wrote a point importer that's really nice." I said "Fullmer?" he looked confused and said "Umm, no. Chris". I decided him explaing his Chris and I explaining mine was not worth it, so I said "Well send me a link to it." Which he forgot to do. We are trying to decide between a Field Link which uses Sketcchup and CAD or an LM80 which doesn't but has a really easy point entry interface. If I can use Sketchup in the same way I used to use LM80 then it's a lot easier decision which to buy. what I need to do is a two step process. Take points shot with an RTS and develop new points based on the shot points. I.E. "From point 3 turn 90 degrees (based on a line that is drawn from point 4 to point 5) then move 4 feet and make a new point. Step Two: Load those points, that were both shot and created, into an RTS to be staked out. So I am rambling. I'm sorry. Thanks for your information I heard about it but didn't know where to find it. Thanks!

Could you post some example files? Or at least screen shots of the before and after?

Good to hear it's working!

In the end it turned out that there was a mass of dust that had basically become compressed into a block of felt, obstructing the cooling vents in such a way as to be -very- difficult to see save from just the right angle. So, mystery solved. Thanks guys!

Ok So my system is a bit better but still not performing good and I now have to restart every 30 mins or so instead of 10. I wiped all sketchup 8 and 13 files. Reinstalled 13. Then added the sketucation plugin mananger and like 3 or 4 plugins that I need. Simple stuff like center point, dxf export, and something else. Complexity of the file does have some bearing on it. A simple file just lasts longer before it starts to get jerky on the zoom and then slowly degrade to unusable. Doesn't matter if I'm using it or not. I can just leave it open and come back to have it almost locked up. The rest of my system doesn't have any problems. Just sketchup. I swapped the graphics card back to the better one and the issues is on both of them. Direct Diag doesn't show any issues. Everything is active and I don't have any problems with anything but sketchup. As for my memory, 500mb is labeled as free. I have 3gb and have maxed out my windows 7 32 bit system. Windows 7 will just eat all the memory that is left so I technically have like 2 gb free with windows eating it all for transitions and other crap that it will dynamically stop using as my programs need it. Driver is up to date. I've tried rolling it back and it doesn't change. SU 8 had the same issue. That is what prompted me to upgrade in the first place. So far, I'm not impressed with SU 2013. It's also the free version. I have not run a memory test but scheduled windows to do one the next time I reboot. Resetting the workspace from within the preferences menu fixes it once or twice but then it gets all weird and requires a full reboot. Other then a known issue with the video driver crashing during flash video, My system runs fine and doesn't have any heating problems any more. Games run fine for hours. The only program that is screwy is sketchup. Could it be the sketucation plugin? I didn't have problems before that was installed. It's the only thing I can think that changed around the time that the problem started and it has been in every instance that I have tried. It was stable for a bit without any plugins but I can't do actual work without my dxf exporter so I generally only tested it for a bit then installed sketucation and the dxf exporter. I might try a fresh install without that plugin.

All, thanks for the posts/links. I will look into them.