Hi David, hi folks. Using Help Menu --> Help Centerand typing Section Planein the search box gives me a few results, one of which is: http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=94995 Just ideas.

model of stairs would help which includes your hidden layer/group.

Seems a tricky way for avoid to pay teams creation for make publicity of BlackBerry! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QGLkemFOwI&feature=player_embedded

This gave me fits for a while. I couldn't figure out why I could get some components to glue and cut and not others. It seemed that when component axis was at a face, the cut would work, but when I tried to move the axis to the middle of the component, it wouldn't. Then I read Thom Thom's post: It's all about having a closed loop of edges on the red & green axes of the component. The blue axis must be pointing upwards. That is it in a nutshell. To get a component to cut through the face it's glued to, there must be a continuous edge around the component at the component's axis, which is where it will glue itself to the face. Thanks TT. Check out the attachment. Component glue cut.skp

Thanks for your answers! @Gaieus I'm not sure, if i understand what you are saying... I have positioned the texture before i made the group (which is nested in two other groups) and after. But nothing helped. I have moved the faces now to a separated new group one level higher and then back into the group and it's working now. Or maybe a restart of sketchup has helped... i'm not sure. I have noticed this behavior from time to time, but not always. @Sonder I never apply a texture to a group/component - and i had checked this already, but thanks!

Charly, I went to a view looking down at the front door. I zoomed extents and saw the window expand to the upper right. I blindly window-selected in that upper right area. 2 edges were selected. I deleted them. After that zoom extents just shows the immediate building area. Peter

LightUp also pre-loads materials (and maybe components too?). I keep it deactivated until I really want to use it in a model.

@box said: Remember the flattery plugin is great for getting the folds right in the tinfoil hat.

Frascati, I can't do much in the way of helping with your modeling issue, but offer this humble advice. Do not delete this thread or any of your posts. They will serve you well in the future. They will be reminders of what the true source of your frustrations were and the solution(s) to them. Years ago in the midst of preparing final presentation boards for an architectural class, I realized that I had made a basic layout error causing the previous 40 hours or so of work to be completely useless. I sat at the drafting table looking for something or someone to blame, and could find none. I ripped the board off the table and stomped on it with a mighty fury. An exact replica of my gym shoe was left smack dab in the middle of it. I grabbed a beer out of my dorm fridge and made my way to the top of the "world famous" architectural building on the campus. While sitting atop one of the two massive girders supporting the building, sipping a cold one and looking at the Chicago skyline, I reflected on why I wanted to become an architect along with pondering what foibles and obstacles the architect who designed the building beneath my rear had overcome. I realized that perseverance rather than perfection was going to be my way thru. I literally went back to the drawing board and worked there continuously for about 3 days and nights and finished the work. It turned out quite well. I keep that screwed up "Strathmore" board with shoe print in a flat file in the house, it is a reminder of how close I came to letting my anger destroy what has been a really good life in architecture, and a good life in general.

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=193238#p193238 adds a Z value above a datum. That changes as the text is moved in the Z...

@pbacot said: Maybe a camera tool can create a plane that is correct to project onto. There is actually a plugin for that, but I forget the name right now..

I agree the leaders are weak. If they are going to be offered, they could at least use the profile style. I like my leaders delicate but this SU one has never been acceptable to me graphically. It's just for inside SU work (notes for the modeler or forum posts) for my money. I just stopped looking to SU for those sort of things. The text tool DOES do a lot of things my 2d CAD tool can't, like hang on to an object when moved and in all sorts of views, give component names or area or take on plugin info. As for the SCF One-Click Plugins, I think that will be getting huge fanfare and hard to miss.

That video in itself is a great way to see how Artisan can be used. Thanks for sharing, I learned a bit!

@sfto1 said: I searched thru the site for any info on accurately placing section planes, as opposed to eyeballing them, and I cannot find anything. Does anyone know if this is possible? Another method, general approach, to see where you are going with the section plane.... as a group: You can draw on a section plane, so: create a section plane and make it inactive (double click on it) draw two intersecting finit construction lines on the section plane (or one edge) select both construction lines (or the edge) and the section plane > make group. this group has a convenient grip, the intersection (or two endpoints) and can be placed, rotated etc. to fit in the geometry at the correct location/orientation. Best to do so in X-Ray. Right click the group > Explode > double click the section plane to make it active.

Try making textures, that should result in rectangular textures on each surface vs. skewed textures that other programs may not play well with.

Your design is really good, design-wise (and subject to personal taste). And one thing is for sure, we all are looking forward to see refresh and modernization of some sorts. Interesting is how you realized the paradigms of the desktop (WIMP) with the design language of the Metro interface (that Microsoft originally targeted for different paradigms). Though there are some challenges, namely SketchUp is a multi-platform software and tries to use user interaction concepts that are shared by all supported (and future supported) operating systems. Symbolic or monochrome icons work well for a small repertoire of items but how do they work with huge amounts of icons (see John's studies)? Actually John's screenshot collection is a good point to start, what if we share mockups how we imagine SketchUp to become modern (again) and to develop in future? Maybe we have to raise the bar by creating attractive and convincing "images" to underline our list(s) of feature requests?

@aarondietzen said: Hi all, So over in another area of the forum it has been revealed that there was a bug in SketchUp related to materials and observers. It looks like they will be fixing it in the near future. We have been looking into this an working directly with SketchUp in an effort to get this fixed the right way (as opposed to us creating a monster of a solution to get around the problem). It is great to see that they are on it! Thanks! Aaron Now we will see if Trimble's idea of "On It" is the same as Google's.

Jean, Your tutorials are beautifully compact. and Dave R, Your helpfulness is greatly appreciated also.

funso, I've moved your last post in a new thread.

Thanks for that tip guys. Big help! : )