I gave it a try, it's a typical stiff and edgy AutoDesk application and not so nice flowing as Sketchup. They may have some nice features, but it's 2.5 D working on planes. I still prefer Sketchup spiced up with Some really good plug - ins. My first impression was that like in other AutoDesk applications you have to focus on how to do it rather then just let the creative energy flow.

I had that feeling as well. Thanks for the confirmation.

Just an update to this. 'Repaired' the installation and now works.

Er ... It's not that who I want : I want to reverse face without losting texture like this: (This is a exemple this is a photoshop making) [image: 1832332.png] Front Face in white , Back face in Red [image: 1832331.png] [image: 1832333.png] [image: 1832334.png]

Thankyou for putting all the videos up!

I have updated it but it still has the same number!

Ah finally 'found' my model. Setting clip to a large amount and pressing numpad . did the trick, thanks guys!

You can soften the entire mesh in one operation. Just select it (you need to have both faces and edges that need softening selected) then just r-click and choose soften edges from the context menu. Rack the slider up until all the visible edges disappear.

Been swamped with work - finally checked it out. Another great one gang!

As others have mentioned, Alienware is overpriced. If you're a gamer without much of a budget, you don't want to build your own PC, and you like your PC to have lots of lights, it's the way to go. Otherwise, choose another option. You can build your own, spec out a dell, etc. If you don't see the options you like you might also look into CyberPowerPC. I ordered a machine from them for someone and it seemed to go well and they provide lots of options at a reasonable price. Like Alienware they focus on the gamer market but you have a lot more options. It's much more like building your own PC but you don't have to fret so much over compatibility, how to install a motherboard, and you get a warranty. I built a ShuttleBox PC awhile back. Also a good experience but the small case sort of limits your options a bit and can get kindof warm if you're doing renderings or intensive CPU processing. -Brodie

@wind-borne said: Thanks, I had tried moving script between Screenshot and Finder section. tell application "sketchup" to activate needs to be tell application "SketchUp" to activate Works now. I was trying the " Watch Me Do" to automate pick window, didn't work how I tried. yeah.. watch me do doesn't work out as good as it seems.. super slow and whatnot.. i'm now messing around with the idea of getting the icon image via ruby instead of a screenshot or GUI scripting sketchup.. ruby confuses the hell out of me though ..i'll make a post in the developers forum real quick.. those guys will help me sort it out..

@mike john said: I have a toy car I have designed and I want to give the plans away free in pdf. I printed each part of the car on a separate page from scenes using Sketchup printing to pdf. That gave me 17 pages in total which is fine. I end up with a file about 1mb which is too big for my needs. I then used Word to assemble the drawings using screen dumps of the drawings and Photoshop and got a much better sized file but the quality is not what I want. How can I produce a file like the pdf attached but better? What software can I use? I can't afford Sketchup Pro just yet. Also, about three of the drawings are full size patterns and this makes it harder for me. Sorry if this has been asked before but I am new and searches failed. Quite frankly I don't know what to search for. Mike John what do you mean by 'screen dumps' ? if you're referring to a screen shot then this is where your quality problems are coming from.. i think the best thing to try (without spending any $) would be to export from sketchup as 2D jpgs then bring those into word to compile.. an extra step you could do for even better quality would be to export from sketchup at a larger than necessary size then resize them in photoshop (or other) prior to bringing them into word.. for instance, say you want the final image to be 1000px wide… export them from sketchup at 3000 px wide, with antialiasing turned off, then resize them to 1000px in photoshop..

There is also the Sketchup Sandbox tools to create the grid.

Well, I was "hopeless" Anyway, thanks guys for the advice to me. Someday I will install my 3ds Max 2012. I just left it zipped because I'm still not using it (that I'm using Sketchup)

If your pdf is vector based and you've imported it into Corel you ought to be able to do a deal of pre-processing there to make it SU-friendly. This includes converting any bezier curves into straight line segments. Use the Add Nodes facility to get an acceptable number of segments on each curve, before converting to straight line. When you're done, export it as an early version dwg...like R14, or even R11. This ought to ensure that any overlooked beziers get converted to straight lines too, rather than simply vanishing. Then import into SU. I wouldn't recomend actually using the import as part of your mesh, but you will be able to inference off it very nicely. Pre-processing the beziers ensures that you end up with an sensible number of segments on each curve. You could simply export the whole thing as an early version dwg...but then each curve would contain 1000s of tiny segments instead of maybe a dozen or so.

Incidentally, if you want to apply the same material to all backs then replace the text back_material=nil with back_material="MAT", where MAT is the name of that material inside "". So for example, if you wanted all selected faces' backs to be 'invisible' you make a material using a fully transparent PNG as the texture and 100% transparency, use that as the backs' material and you can see through walls/ceiling etc when outside ! Soit dit en passant, si vous souhaitez appliquer la même materiau à tous les dos des faces, puis remplacer le texte back_material=nil avec back_material="MAT", où MAT est le nom de ce matériau à l'intérieur "". Ainsi, par exemple, si vous vouliez toutes les dos des faces sélectionnées d'être «invisible» que vous faites d'un matériau en utilisant une image PNG totalement transparent que la texture, et 100% de transparence, l'utiliser pour les dos, et vous pouvez voir à travers les murs ou au plafond , etc quand on regarde de l'extérieur!

@blazin8s said: How many cores do most of the Rendering Plugins cap out at? Not sure if they impose any limit. I'd be surprised if they did. @blazin8s said: Also, does Video Card affect rendering speed at all? Depends on the render engine - some support rendering with GPU - some doesn't.

Thank you Pilou!

@earthmover said: I was still having major issues with grayed out menus even with the latest update. What fixed it for me was removing all of the CadFather toolbars. i.e. Archiland, SCF Power Bar, etc. It appears there was a conflict somewhere in those. I just use the plugins I need from them separately. Haven't had a single gray out since I removed them. Figured I'd mention it in case it helps someone else having a similar issue. It's probably that removing those you came under the limit - not that any of them individually caused problems or conflicted with each other. SketchUp has a limit to how many UI::Command objects it can address.

a Xeon doesn't help much (SU is not aware of), 8 kernels don't help much (SU is single threaded), a Quadro FX doesn't help much (SU uses OGL v1.5), 16GB RAM doesn't help much (SU is 32bit)... simply because SU is not taking advantage of it. the fastest i7 (in the sense of clock frequency) and a mid-range GeForce delivers the best bang for the buck, nothing else. Norbert