@unknownuser said: do any apps actually support this and/or does anyone/industry use that? if i understand correctly, you want to see 27' - 3 5/8" written as 27' 3.625"? I don't know about other apps, I only use SU. I used to use ACAD, but so long ago, I don't recall what formats it used. I "grew up" in the aerospace industry, first as a field mechanic, then manufacturing inspection, then into aerospace project management. Then onto other fields, including programming, s/w development and s/w project management. That's over a 40+ year career in 3 separate fields. Airplane parts were always measured in inch and decimal inch, even the big parts. (Now they are metric, but I don't think in metric, even in Canada) Very long parts such as wing spars were measured in feet - inch - dec.inch. So yes, I want to see 27 feet 3 5/8 inches as 27' 3.625. That is the way I type it into the VCB, but it always displays in Entity Info or Dimensions in the fractions format. And in most cases it shows as ~1/32 rather than 0.030 as I defined the dimension in the VCB. In my mind it is not so big a deal for SU to show that format, so I cannot see why John and others before him are resisting so much, unless the NIH is a factor. (Not Invented Here) John, You said "Not sure what you're hoping to achieve here, but I am trying to answer your questions. I think I'm going to stop for a bit and show your post to some other folks to see if they can help me understand what you're trying to do. It isn't at all clear to me what work you're doing with SketchUp." That is EXACTLY what I'm trying to achieve here. Instead of trying to explain away why some idea isn't being considered, without thinking it through, please get the "grunts" to mull it over and say that it is feasible, or, is not for a specific reason. You are not dealing with the general unwashed in these forums. In my experience, I've had managers attempt to "explain" why something could not be done, when, with my technical background I knew different. And any of the folks who have at least a few months working with SU can say the same. The best answers I ever heard were "I'm not sure, but I will get back to you" and this is what you finally said. I will await your report. As for what I'm doing with SU? Well I have had ideas in many fields formulate in my head over the years. Now in retirement I have the time to put them into 3D. I have a mountain of pencil on paper sketches of many things, based on my past experiences. I used ACAD for years but only in 2D, so I could never realize some ideas fully. SU changed all that in incredible time and ease of use. I never touched ACAD from a week after I discovered SU-V6. As a result, I now have a patent in the mill, and 4 more in preparation. And because of those proprietary models, I cannot show them to the SU community. However I have posted (a few years ago) an early rendition of my big freighter on the previous (now defunct) forum, and if anybody wants, I'll repost it here again.

@dave r said: Late last night I got the DXF files back from the PDFs I submitted to CometDocs. Unfortunately the single lines were all doubled so they weren't usable floor plans. Ah well. It probably works for some. That's the problem with many pdf site plans etc; that lines with a thickness (which is often all of them) gets converted to double lines. When I get pdf files I usually load into PS, with a resolution like 100 dots per cm. Then it's easy to get it into SU with the exact size/scale maintained. That's OK for us metric guys anyway, which according to a report I just read, is every country in the world except Liberia, Burma and USA

Thanks Dave. For some reason I can't edit the VCB.....

@jean lemire said: Hi folks. Try Window Menu --> Model info --> Components. Uncheck the box labeled "Show component axes". Just ideas. That's only to display component axes when you are outside the editing context. This new thing in v.8 is actually when the model axes are (temporarily) adjusted to the component axes when in editing mode. Confused me a bit when it was new to me, too, but to be honest, it was very easy to get used to (and I like it this way)

If they are components, you can do that in the Components window ->Rt click ->Select Instances If they are Groups (or components), Thomthom's Selection Toys will work: Rt click the group -> Group Copies -> Select all

Ahhh........I see. I haven't found anyone willing to pay for my models yet, so I just give them away ( I tried to sell one once but was ripped off). Anyway, thanks for the help. Cheers,

thanks gaieus,and did u just disable me from pming.?I apologize man!

It's difficult to provide a single solution without knowing what the format of the data is. Here's some suggestions. if you have XYZ data (or polar co-ordinate data that can be converted) then Didier Bur's excellent pointscloud ruby script (Didier's site is http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/) will import spreadsheet data and provide some level of triangulation/skinning. I use it mostly for terrain/ DEM data for which it works well. If you have the contour data for the illustrated diagrams in digital form, then TIG's suggestions are the way to go. You may need to tweak the interpolations. If all you have is the graphs, you could import these as images, trace each and then scale as required and follow TiG's suggestion. Another program that is good at accurately digitising images of graphs is Engauge (http://digitizer.sourceforge.net/). The interface is not slick, but its very capable. Hope that helps. If not, SU may not be the right tool - you may want to look at dedicated data visualisation programs. I haven't used these much, but GGOBI (http://www.ggobi.org/) integrates with the R data/statistical environment (http://cran.r-project.org/), or OpenDX seems well regarded (http://www.opendx.org/). I know nothing about Axiis (http://www.axiis.org/) but it might be another option.

Dave: Thank you for the detailed explanation and examples. That is very helpful. Broomstick: Thank you for sharing the file. I'm not using Vray, but I am sure I can modify the file if necessary to work for my purposes.

I took a look at getting Didiers's Layer Names to Materials ruby working. I posted a new version in this thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=36715 [image: Pd88_ConvertLayerNamestoMaterials.jpg] convert_materials_to_layer_names.rb

Obviously there are some drawbacks to being super vigilant and not wanting your computer clogged up with unwanted cookies

IF you export a 2D dwg it is all on one layer, as lines, with no arcs/circles etc. IF you export a 3d dwg it retains its layers and has true arcs/circles etc. Just experiment - there aren't THAT many possible permutations

no, crummy I know but no there isn't. I wonder if a plugin could do that but that's a different forum first part no, no sure I get the second part of the question, there are a couple of plugins that offer more specific control of info on the camera, this is one http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=21047. The plugin CADup http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=35096 will create a series of 2d drawings from your model if that's what you are after. Which version of layout do you have? v2 and v3 have dashed line options under the Shape Style dialog (for lines drawn in layout, v3 can control the scale of the dashes which is key. If you put the model in vector mode you can explode it and alter the line work of the model but it is no longer referenced to the model but you could overlap it with other instance of the model that is still referenced. I'm not sure about the method you are alluding but another option is to put the model in vector mode and to a scale, then export a pdf, import it into illustrator and everything comes in nicely so can use layout to get sketchup models into illustrator. There is a plugin that will replace a complex shape with a basic shape(proxy or placeholder), but I haven't tried it but the author suggests you can go back and forth between them in the menu. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=179977#p179977. There might be another version out there as well. Hope this helps

Wow Rich & Marian I'am blown away by these brilliant interpretations. So, Rich I downloaded Fredo's Curviloft and did just what you said, viola! That is soooo smooth and pretty simple to understand the way in which you can achieve this through the drawing of the connected curves. You're right, after this just spend a little time and round it up a bit. Marian, nicely done as well. Your process ended up pretty smooth and not leaving a whole lot to fine tune. I guess it depends on how critical and precise one wants to get. I will now take some time to attempt your process and get back. Awesome, thanks a million

Hi All, Hi Fredo I don't have the pretention to modele a ship. I only exercise on spline curves. In fact I exercise on curves because I would "design/dessiner" (for the fun) eyeglasses. In the beginning I underestimated the task and it appears to be a big one. No books related to that and no one talk about it: a secret or so. I imagine that specialize softwares exists but are not offer for sale. Eyeglasses are spline curves by excellence. Thanks for your answer. [image: ax6N_Frame-ClassicBezier.jpg]

There is a free tool called weld.rb available at Smustard.com It lets you selected connected edges and weld them into a 'curve'. Arc etc are already curves BUT this lets you combine arcs and other lines into a single 'curve'. Most of the EEby... tools need you to select 'curves'. Even if you want one straight side you need to Divide that edge into 2 or more pieces and then make a curve of its parts using weld. A 'swept mesh' is what you get when you use a tool like EEbyRails - the faceted surface the mesh, and it sweep along the rails...

in America AAA is for American Automobile Association but many companies who want to appear first in the phone book directory choose this as their name. it used to work for web directories as well. it can also be used to draw a picture of pretty mountains... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

i have my standart modeling tools assigned to mouse buttons in combination with "shift", "strg" and "alt" (the mouse buttons no.3-5 have assigned the function keys "F3", and "F8" and "F10" assigned) I can select them without thinking. It's more like finger gestures that happen automatically. The resulting combinations are at the moment: F3..........................pointer/select F3+shift.................push/pull F3+ctrl...................mirror selection (plugin) F3+alt....................line F8..........................move F8+shift.................rotate F8+ctrl..................scale F8+alt...................rectangle F3+shift+ctrl..........tape measure F3+shift+alt...........circle F8+shift+ctrl..........fredo scale - box scaling F8+ctrl+alt............follow me F3+shift+ctrl+alt....paint bucket F8+shift+ctrl+alt....offset and some keyboard only: ^............................reverse face X............................toggle x-ray Q............................remove all materials H............................toggle hidden geometry G............................make group G+shift...................make component v............................field of view z............................zoom extends T+shift+ctrl............uv-frontface to backface T+shift+alt.............uv-backface to frontface T+shift+ctrl+alt......delete backside material and some standart shortcuts like shift+ctrl+v............paste in place T............................top view . . .

My experience is that HQ renders take a long time to cook. Vue does not give you free render nodes if you wanted to distribute rendering to other computers. Vray does allow you to render on up to 10 machines for no extra cost. I guess it depends on how much of work is landscape related. If you are mainly rendering interior and exterior architecture, my personal advice is that Vray is the best plugin for this.

You can try something like this free good one BBFlash Back Express I have not seen your file because I suppose that is not in SU6 format ?