hi, as well as Jim's advice. once imported you can change it however you want. You posibly want the 'Smooth and Soften/Edges' options, available from right-click,while editing inside the group/component or Window Menu . but without a link or image it's hard to give specific advice. john

This my try with Shape bender and DrawHelix. This way with the first shape you can try multiple attempts modifying the line or and the path. [image: GBQL_horn.jpg] horn.skp

Hi dukejazz, thanks for a quick reply and valuable tips. i use protractor often, but somehow this option i missed among plenty of excellent D. Bur´s plugins i find (dim angle) http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=110 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! [image: zujcp1.jpg]

Well, that's not an easy thing to answer. Technically ANY "importer" does exactly what you're asking. It all just depends on what format your data is in. Have you created any standards for your data attributes?

it happened with me when I have Ram 2 GB but I changed my memories to 4 GB it is hide this problem

I tried out FAK today on Vista SU 8 M2 The tool (FAK [FollowMeAndKeep]) you refer too. works well with helix spring for a slide. Good ideal. I also agree with you all now about the curve problem. [image: eTt2_pic_0007.jpg]

I just had a look at my Okino setup. I have the Granite pack, but apparently that is only for importing, which is what I've used it for. Sorry, but then I can't help you..

Rectangle and 1/4 circle [image: rMPe_pic_0003.jpg] Select all Rectangle edges then follow me tool [image: GtQI_pic_0002.jpg] Use windows_soften edges [image: M1uo_pic_0001.jpg]

i guess in 3D apps with natural scrolling, your brain would have to detach from the camera and attach to the objects.. ie- scrolling back = pulling the object towards you instead of moving the camera back.. (and i suppose that's actually what's happening when using natural scrolling in 2 dimensional apps as well) i'm sure i could get used to that if i really had to but i'm so glad we don't have to in sketchup @gt5 said: For those users who wish to say they prefer unNatural Scrolling, fine, Apple allows the user to turn Natural Scrolling off--Google, however, will not allow me to turn it back on! i think you're wording that a little wrong or leaving out some info.. yeah, you can turn natural scrolling on/off but it's system wide instead of app specific.. when i first upgraded to lion, i thought i might try natural scrolling and it does in fact make sense to me but once i opened sketchup, i turned the preference off and never looked back.. so, you might have a better point if apple would allow app specific settings of scrolling but they don't so we're (the people that might want natural scrolling for browsers etc but not in other apps) sol.. the main issue i see with google making un-natural (who comes up with these names anyway?) scrolling necessary is that many people using sketchup also use other apps where they prefer similar scrolling so our systems are still set to unnatural scrolling.. the fact that sketchup is locked to our preference is irrelevant.. the only way i'd use natural scrolling now is if my other drawing apps would do what google has done -or- the real solution (imo) is that apple allows the preference to be app specific (in which case, google could undo the forced behavior).. tough call i guess but i think you'd be better off getting finger pointy with apple and trying to make them change their setup..

Eric Sorry did not read your post close enough. I was not " selecting everything in the problem area"

@unknownuser said: This is pretty much the case with SU vs. any program I've worked with. SU file sizes are always much larger (and the save times are much slower which compounds the problem). I just trying to bring in a very high poly flower/vase combo yesterday. The 3ds Max file is 26mb (pretty big for a flower but manageable). After I was finally able to bring it into SU as a .dae file and reduced the texture size the SU file (containing ONLY the flower/vase) is 244 mb. Obviously that won't be going into my scene any time soon - you can imagine the save times. -Brodie I agree in all that you are saying. A small file that takes a second or two to open in Autocad, takes more than a minute to load in SU. Imagine that this file is only max 5% of the finished drawing. This might give me a load time of 20 minutes.

Thats one of its big selling points...

Hi Jean Yep I found the same ,but was hoping for something a bit more detailed I know I'm being lazy and cheeky, maybe I have to draw it myself I was just hoping to do it quicker Time to get my Artisan head on Thanks Dean

@unknownuser said: scf is going to be dead now.. no more 'how do i install fredoscale etc

Thanks for the speedy responses, much appreciated guys. Just tried your test driven and got an animation out as a mov. Jeff, thanks for sending your settings. I now think that the problem with my file was in the settings - basically I had fiddled with something I shouldn't have. Have exported an email animation of my problematic file with the settings re-set and it works fine. Was trying to get the files size down but will do that in post instead. Thanks again

Hi Here is another WIP code this time wrapped up as a plugin. Still it works only for groups. Running: Select entities first, then use menu Plugins/SPP to execute plugin, click with a left mouse button on a screen. Observe status balk messages. How it works: Plugin works in 4 steps. It will search for all groups in a selection and make every group unique In every group it searches for a biggest face, and then rotates whole group so normal vector of biggest face is pointed up (0,0,1) Then the angle between X axis and main centroidal axis of this face is found, and group is rotated one more time, to match orientation along X axis. Last step is placing oriented groups along Y axis, with a separation between groups ( bounding boxes ) of 1 inch. ( to change it look for separation=1 in a script and change it there, I will code another way to do it later). Calculation based on : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_area#Area_and_centroid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_moment_of_area#Any_cross_section_defined_as_polygon Therefore it works nicely for a faces without inner holes. For a faces with holes it gives a slight incorrect result in step 3. This plugin is a part of a bigger toolset that I am making to use Sketchup for making paper models ( SPP stands for Sketchup-Paper-Planes), more will surface in a near future. Greets Matt Groups to XY plane

Yes, I know about painting a group and the "windshield phenomenon" (the default faces will take color and the colored faces will not), but I did not know that the group acquires its own default color. You learn something every day!

thanks Jean. lots of great advice. every time i think ive come to the end of sketchup's capability another door opens

Hi Kris Standard beachfront wood pile systems use 12" diam driven wood pilings about 12'to 16' max o.c. with 12x12 pile caps. The pile caps are connected to the pilings with drift pins and the system is cross braced both ways in all bays with 2x12 members. Seismic and wind loads are transmitted to this platform per engineering calcs and location requirements. The attached photo of one of my projects on the beach in Malibu should help fill in the blanks. Feel free to PM me if you need any more info. Cheers Dave [image: usWc_stader-3AA.png]

Hi All I used TIG's explanation and it worked a treat The cut marks didn't line up perfect so I measured the pieces together and then taped them together Thanks again Dean