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" ?

@jean lemire said: Hi folks. If after searching the help, you are still unable to find it, use Menu Window --> Preferences --> Extensions. Use the check boxes to enable the utilities. While at it, why not enable all of them. After that, close SU and restart to make sure that all extensions will load completely. You do this only once, normally. With the extensions enabled, the contextual menu for an object, will show, as the last choice, "Point at center" for circles, polygons and arcs. Just ideas. Cool!! thanksman

I just cleaned up some toolbars I don't use.... I have a bunch of plugins that don't have toolbars that I really wish did though. [image: http://i.imgur.com/A8b4Yl.jpg] [image: http://i.imgur.com/bml2il.jpg]

Check the direction of your faces. Ensure that you got the front side of the faces in the correct direction.

Thanks for your help! I knew it had to be in there somewhere. Mark P.

Sorry, just found Boo's tutorial , will have to try and work out how to use subdivide and smooth !

[image: pataan.jpg] Call it dumb luck, but I came across this post: http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_thread/thread/ca7d0ba921af4611 Then I tried opening ArcScene, selected the tin surface, then added the face elevation with graduated color ramp from the symbology properties, and exported it in 3d vrml (.wrl). I then imported it in Blender 3d and exported it as collada (.dae). I don't know much about Blender 3d and I can't figure out how to display the imported data but just the same, I when I imported it to SketchUp, the surface was there together with the colors. Not as clean as the surveyor's version, but it is almost there. pataan.rar

Just did a test on a sphere with 15K faces, rendered in Twilight on High with a porcelain template applied. Rendered by it's self with one sketchup open -- 48 sec. Same sphere copied to a second sketchup and both rendering simultaneously - both finished in 1 min 20 seconds. Twilight showed both sessions using all 8 cores in my machine. Whether rendering one scene or both, cpu was maxed out. Not sure, but on a lower spec'd machine, perhaps turning down the priority setting when trying to render two sessions simultaneously could help prevent a bottleneck in the ram. (My specs are i7 960 CPU, 12 GB of ram, Nvidia GTX 560ti GPU, running on an Asus Rampage III extreme mobo.)

It is very very fast. I'm not 100 percent sure but I know overall my system was using close to 5gb with just SU and Podium 64 running. It really takes advantages of as many CPU threads as possible, It is still going to be limited by SU in terms of geometry it can handle and I tried rendering a scene that had over 1 million polys worth of 3d plants and it just couldn't handle it which isn't a big deal I just replaced one component with a 2d plant and it dropped the model down 90% and rendered quick. For a quick one click in SU solution it is pretty good. I'm getting into Thea for more complex stuff.

@unknownuser said: @unknownuser said: ... the whole thrust is to expand modelwork at the expense of paperwork type processes. I'm not exactly sure what you mean chris Just that this type of thing is about passing around labelled models (think cans of soup in supermarkets) rather than documents like ortho drawings and voluminous specs that need interpretation to be usable. In this case, if it catches on, modelers like you will be much in demand.

Inundated with help! That looks to be just the thing. I'll give it a shot on monday. Thanks for the help. -Brodie

Nice work bro. That should finish the model off nicely.

Thanks Solo, it works now. I also just found the same solution in this thread : http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=33676&p=296276&hilit=material+uneven+surface#p296276

I have Microsoft documentation on replacing the motherboard and re-installing XP. So far I have done a few conversion things, such as: getting my wireless router back up with a new host MAC addr; Redefining the default printer (temporary) and reading my mail on Yahoo rather than Thunderbird. I am waiting for an answer from NVIDIA regarding how this affects the display drivers, where my HD has an ATI driver and the PC has an NVIDIA card installed.

Ditto. I was going to say my ratings disappeared as well until I was wise enough to see Aerilius' post.

sandbox is sucj a fantastic tool... i a doing a major complicated counctry side countours and its pure magic. One feature which would be handy is when its processing to make the contour, a STOP button to cancel the process if needed...

@bjornkn said: As I typically leave faces/lines in Layer0 and put groups/Components on named layers I would never start messing around with temporarily moving them to a temp layer. I might make a temp group from a selection of obscuring groups/comps and then hide it, or put it on a temp/hidden layer. But I would explode it asap afterwards. The proper way is to keep ALL entities drawn on Layer0, group/comp them as required but is best to group/comp EVERYTHING and assign the groups/comps to named layers. No stray entities floating around. I learned this the hard way. And you are absolutely correct about grouping the interfering groups/comps and assigning that group to the TEMP layer. That is the way I do it, just didn't think of it last post.