Take extra attention to the crease tool Especially when in the video, he is creasing that tip vertex (endpoint) of that pyramid.

Thank you to all of you..I'm sorry I got a little sideways..

@TIG: It may not be the size of his file. I had the MySQL Too many connections 1040 event last night, so it may have been something to do with that. Then again, maybe not.

Aah, got it. Thanks.

A friend's SU model and Kerky render: http://www.orbangabor.hu/hogomb/

@unknownuser said: You can get it here... http://78.47.159.221/CatchUp_5_2011_10.pdf You can get all editions here... http://sketchucation.com/catchup/ Thanks for the link, it appears to have been a firefox issue: I had just upgraded from 3.6 to 8, so a lot of my plug ins and extensions weren't updated yet.

@thomthom said: @gr8fzy1 said: A while back I discovered that I could turn off the anti-aliased textures and doing so seemed to let my computer run a little faster. Odd... goes against what Google recommends for better performance: http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=161352 @unknownuser said: Enable 'Use Anti-Aliased Textures' (Window > Model Info > Rendering) Thanks, the Window>Model Info>Rendering drop menu was what I was looking for. My computer isn't all that powerful, and besides, it says that if I experience blurry textures or strange display effects to uncheck the box. And my textures do blur into almost gray blobs if I have my modeled angled on screen too sharply.

I see... maybe I try the 2D graphic export.....

Thanks andybot, good advice.

All great tips. Thanks loads.

ArcGIS creates the model in the kml file, not a separate collada file (I think). If that is the case, try this plugin: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=38009

Wasn't there a 1001 shadow tools plugin that crated vector objects for shadows?. If you do go the hybrid approach that gives raster shadows, could probably get good vector object using Adobe Illustrator.

In addition to right clicking to update a component, you can also save a component to its own sketchup file. You can then have multiple versions of this component and load in the one you want. It also allows multiple people to work on a project at the same time. You can flip a component along its x, y or z axis to accomplish a mirror.

In entity info, SketchUp shows only a checkbox "cast shadows" but not "receive shadows" (both are available for other drawing elements). It seems impossible (except of turning edges off).

I was having the same issues as you guys, thanks for all your efforts, i think a simplification is acceptable as long as the profile of the hills are roughly the same would be great

@unknownuser said: And a little tut for use it [image: http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=45676&stc=1&d=1224337660] Thank you MAN..

Thanks TIG, but that method takes removes the information (the tags) from the dxf - I'm hoping that there's a way to import each block's attribute data into a DCs attributes. Seeing as your script parses the incoming data stream to create the 3D text, would it be possible to create a text block for each icon, from each Autocad Block? Certainly it does what it says on the tin though, thanks and yes, you're right it does run for a while - for my data it was best to do it in batches of 100 icons at a time: [image: screen cap showing imported tags on top of icons] bjornkn, this would work well as a complement to Alan's method above, thanks.

tibet The 33+MB model size is too large for this stage of your model especially if is part if a larger model. You should get rid of all the high poly count groups because many of those can be made a single component. I have the model reduced to about 888KB. In terms of your question I am thinking you maybe getting your self in a box. If you look at any "typical" spiral stair case the railing is on the out side. Your approach would tend to funnel the user toward the side where the tread width goes toward zero. In addition the slope for a rail would very high ( Towrads infinity ) there since the run goes toward zero at that inside corner. If you want a spiral case make it a classic approah where you can model a "reasonable" hand rail. If not go to a more conventional single mid landing approach at the 90 turn. Check the 3d ware house for some ideas. BTW Howard Leslie has two DC stair builder skp files you may find useful to get some ideas. Sorry could not quickly find the URL Just some thoughts Got the link http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=289&t=29484 A concept thought and different layout approach http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=cb5b0fddc3e546d848da91396cd7935f

A kind of "structural glass" ("vetro strutturale" in italian) maybe?

@chedda said: Select your layer or create a new one then paste it in from another window Well, I was hoping that it can be done somehow automatically. I'll group the component's content and put it on a layer. It's about LOTS of components... and is very time consuming to manually select/create, and so on... And there is the risk to lost consistency. All models must have same layer structure. Thanks all for clearing this out to me !