Well that bug has been a big pain in my rear end for years when modeling.

Hi everyone, Thank you for your responses. Scott gave me some insight on how to construct the equiangular spiral manually, in segments. It's tedious, but works very well to create the desired shape. Thank you, Scott! In the meantime, I found the Spirix plugin, which can generate true LOG10 conical spirals, among many other shapes, very quickly. https://sites.google.com/site/spirixcode/home It has a lot of interesting parameters to generate complex coils, twists, etc., with mathematical precision.

I wasn't suggesting Sandbox at all. I described the process in one of your previous posts and Cotty has done described it as well. Plugins are great but you do yourself a disservice if you choose to use them instead of learning how the native tools work. It's good you got the path direction sorted.

TIG beat me to it but since I did it... It works just fine for me. I imported it in inches because that was what the importer was set to. If it is supposed to be in mm, TIG has hit on the reason for the problem. [image: GTxP_Hook.png] Hook.skp

The problem is VRay. The latest version of VRay is not compatible with the latest version of SketchUp. That's why the software crashes. It will take from 1 to 3 weeks before a compatible version of VRay will be released. This is absurd. Why releasing an update of Sketchup if not compatible with VRay? At least, the risk of problems after the update should be mentioned. Considering that I have SketchUp both on my laptop and IMac, and considering that I want to keep the latest version of sketch up on my laptop, is it possible to install Sketchup 8 on my iMac with the same licence? Is it possible to have one licence and install two different versions (SU 2013 and SU of SketchUp on two different machines without creating conflicts? Thank you. I.

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!