@mbeauvais said: I am trying to render a scene from SketchUp and continue to get error 183 no matter how small I set the exported image to be. I have 157GB free on my hard drive. Windows 7. The file is large 205MB, and there are many components and materials in it, but it has been purged many times to try and minimize it's impact. The rendering software is Indigo, and the skIndigo plug-in. But I can't even get Indigo started because SketchUp gives me the 183 error on export. We are running SketchUp 8 pro. I have seen many forums on animations, but not on single image renders. If you can point me to a thread that covers this type of problem or if you have any suggestions, please help. Thanks, M I'm not exactly sure what error 183 means but for a scene this large, I recommend trying out the new SkIndigo 3.0 beta which is greatly improved for exporting huge scenes: http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=11055 SkIndigo does not yet support Image export. You should explode any image components if you want them to show up in the render.

thanks!

Have you tried using the Autodesk FBX converter TIG suggested?

I suspect it's because the 3ds version doesn't save out the soft property of the edges. Certainly useful to know what formats preserve quads when transferring into SketchUp. Think I'll add a routine into Quad Tools to convert triangulated quads separated by a hidden edge into soft edges. Seems it would be a operation often required if people want to take quad meshes from other applications into SketchUp.

First release is out there: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=39442

@driven said: I tried boolean helper [ruby] to upscale 1000x then jpp to 250 inches seems to work... you do have some stray geometry that might be throwing it off... or try thomthom's shell john Stray geometry??? Where? EDIT---------------------- I closed the 8 slots on the base unit and put a temp cover on it to form a solid. Using SI I found some extra lines and corrected them. Then scaled up 10X. This time SU crashed at about 75% along the JPP progress scale.

@mitcorb said: Hi, rock1: Look in Plugins Index, red button at top of this page, navigate to author "-BTM", look for link to Sculpt tool. This might help. awessssssome!! didn't know such an awesome freeform deformation tool existed

View > Hidden Geometry OFF. Double-click surface to select the surface and the edges BUT NOT the 'smoothed-edges'. Use Make Group to add it to a new group - it will be automatically be made a copy because the originals are needed by the surface. Edit the Group. View > Hidden Geometry ON. View > Component Edit > Hide Rest of Model You can now see what you are doing. To make the base I did two meshes and then combined them. Draw a line across to make two halves. Select it and Divide into say 10, immediately use Weld.rb to weld it into a 'curve' of 10 segments. This is the 'profile' Draw two short edges away from the apex of each end. Select the outline's edges from one of these to the 'profile' [~1/4], use Weld again to make it a 'curve' - this will be a Rail. Repeat this for the other three pieces of the outline. You now have a straight curve - the profile - and four 'rail' curves - we'll now process these two at a time. Use EEbyRails, pick the profile-curve then two 'rails' on the same side, finish by picking the 'profile' again [i.e. there's no 'melding-profile' for this type of surface!], answer the questions with 'No' unless the mesh faces 'up' - if it does 'reverse' the faces. You now have a mesh of ~half of the bottom face. Repeat to make the other half. Select the two groups and explode them. You now have the bottom-group, explode that and it will heal with the main [original] surface. Select All and group it, so Slicer has something to work on... Note: your surface is quite small so I recommend you first scale up the group x 8, make the slices at 1", then scale everything down by x 0.125... Sketchup has problems with making very small faces BUT they exist no problem when scaled smaller...

@mitcorb said: I note that you have posted in the VRay subforum. I do not have any experience in VRay. Perhaps a moderator would want to relocate this to the appropriate subforum? Thank you very much for the explanation! and the link too! Yeah I noticed I placed this in the wrong section..doh

in my racing simulator rFactor, there is some type of formula or script that runs during the game, and when we have a wreck it morphs the models. in the settings of the game or actually the game files themselves, there is variables where you choose different vertices and then determine how far they can be moved in a wreck and in what directions. wonder if a similar plugin could be made?

I've noticed that tools are sometimes grayed out on my toolbars, but when I click them, they activate right away. So why are they grayed out in the first place? Most tools do not display grayed out. I'm not using any plugins, btw, just the free SketchUp.

I thought perhaps Geosketch from Cogent3d.com would have some relevance. This is what I mentioned, but couldn't remember. Another part of the name is TacForge. It is not a simple tracer.

Glad that worked. I don't think I ever discovered which one came that way. If I remember correctly, sketchup.rb used to live in the Plugins folder but it was moved to Tools in V6 or 7. I suppose the plugin was from before the move and having it included was no big deal then because it would either not get installed or would overwrite the original file.

@aerilius said: @jgb said: cannot boot any PC after WinXP destroyed the boot sector It doesn't boot the Windows XP CD (repair cd)? If the boot sector is not physically destroyed, there could have been a chance to try to type the word "fixmbr" into the recovery console. I was following the MS procedure to "Replace Motherboard" when I got BSOD as WinXP was finishing the "repair". Then I fixed that BSOD, but WinXP continued to get BSOD every reboot for various driver issues, until I gave up. It will now NOT allow me to reinstall as it always wants to complete the repair, which it can't. The "new" HD has Win-XP Pro on it and I am clearing it out of the old users non-essential stuff then I will start pulling my old stuff over to it. I suspect I will have to re-install most of it, and other issues are delaying me or just making life miserable.... but the new PC runs like stink. Except I am a bit disappointed with the NVIDIA GPU. My old 256mb ATI card of 7 years ago produced a much crisper image in SU than the newer 500mb NVIDIA, even at max resolution and with the best setting for anti-alias. But I can live with it.

Thanks for your quick help!

Cheers, Massimo!

Except in cases where the clean up after a conventional intersect operation would take a long time, I prefer to use Intersect. The example I used with the Google guys was a table drawn with separate parts like I always draw them. I would make a leg component, copy and flip it for the other three legs. Then draw the aprons and stretchers between them. Once the model look right, I'll go back and insert the joinery. I could draw the tenons on the ends of the aprons and use Subtract to cut the adjoining mortise. Of course that converts the leg to a group and the mortises are not cut on the other legs. If I want to maintain the related nature of the legs, I have to make the group back into a component with a new name and then replace the other leg components with the new name. If I want to use the original name I'll purge the In Model components library and then rename the new leg component to the original name. Or, I could open one leg component for editing, trace the base of the tenon with the Rectangle tool, push the inside in and have mortises in all four legs.

I think what most people have been trying to politely say in most of your threads is, If you try learning the basics first you will do so much better. Trying to use a plug in before you understand how to do something manually will only slow you down in the future.

TIG Texture Tools You owe it to yourself to get that one Brodie. Saves a ton of time. Especially for tweaking wood grains.

The Googlers say most numbers/statistics in 3dwh are made from the Search Index. I don't know the technical reasons but I think it's similar like the Google Web Search index which is never up-to-date and complete. For example, alos the number of models per user fluctuates. @hellnbak said: it should be required to be broken up into smaller independent companies. Do you think about a certain (imaginary) company called "@Next" ?