@davidboulder said: If you want to do it all in SketchUp. place the image in one window, scale, it and then use the eye dropper to paint to grab the texture to pain in other windows. Then one by one make each texture unique (I don't think you can do that with multiple selection). Once unique you can export the texture as an image. Now THAT's a tip!

http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41225 http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57586 hth, Norbert

you may want give DELFTship free a try too. hth, Norbert

Hi folks. Make sure that you disable length snapping in Model infos --> Units. It may create unwanted snaps on an invisible grid that may not match your intended intervals. Since SU can accept precise values and its inference engine is also precise, I don't use this feature. Just ideas.

That new CS5 "Content Aware" tool is just amazing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI This video is the most compelling use of Content Aware http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ScWu7pG7r0

TIG, true, white fog can work in many cases. For my elevations I want to keep a blue sky, and if I use a white fog my sky disappears. If I use a blue fog to keep my sky, I get a blue color cast on my elevations. Another technique I use is to create a rendering of my building as a png with sky and ground off so I can get a mask of the building itself. Then I can drop a sky in with Photoshop using the profile mask made from the png; but the reason I favor rendering out a fog vs. building mask is that I can get more control over the effects of depth and can also use curves or levels in Photoshop to manipulate the distance falloff effect.

@gaieus said: Hi mhyst, As Pilou mentioned for your wish-list post, try UV Tools: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=23725 It has a spherical and a cylindrical projection tool, too. Best would be to export the parts first and experiment with them "outside" the file then re-inmport them. Thank you very much. I'll try

These exporters install somehow separately (don't ask how and why as I don't know) and sometimes improperly so while SU seems to work just fine, they do not but it only turns out once you need them. I did not really know if it'd be a solution but have read it a couple of times thus the suggestion.

Yes, I do have it, but I thought it was the fixed version. I'll look for the offending UI:beep or UI::beep.

Thanks, all. Just when you think you've reviewed all the plugins out there...

True, section planes can display animation (for the information however; you also need to set up two of them just like with the drawers). YouTube - SketchUp: Creating section animations with scenes [flash=480,385:1avec9xk]http://www.youtube.com/v/-sQ-7dt95yw?fs=1&hl=en_GB[/flash:1avec9xk]

Adam, A point to always bear in mind when working with SU are its limitations when modelling circles, cylinders, arcs etc. Remember that circles, cylinders, pipework etc are made up of short straight line segments and are not really circular at all, but many sided polygons that "cut the corner" of the circles etc they are approximating. ........... When importing CAD data eg from AutoCad, the original geometry may be modelled as solids etc and have no problems at all in their original (CAD) form with respect to gaps, slivers, fit etc. When these solids are imported into SU, all the cylinders, pipes etc are approximated with many sided polygons. This sometimes creates gaps and slivers where the original geometry in its CAD format had a perfect fit with no gaps at all. Particularly noticeable if you zoom in. On the whole SU does a pretty good job when importing such curved CAD data - but it can only ever approximate the original. ............... Hope this helps Howard L'

I was actually going to use the Cad/ drafting process as an analogy, because in some ways it's similar. Like you I have to track my hours at work, so I can't just play, and I am expected to produce visuals of reasonable quality. My answer to this is to always have something on the go. So I'll do a set up before work with a focus on on issue I want to learn. Then let it render away, review at lunch, make some adjustments, and let it render again. In this way it's not like drafting, as once your have imported the scene, worked with you materials, and lighting etc, the computer does all the work. By keeping the scenes simple, I can at least move forward in the learning process, because I know I have a long way to go.

Another method is to create some frames in photoshop. A rectangle with a transparent interior and a frame of 50% grey. SAve these various aspect ratio files as png's and load them in sketchp as "watermarks" in the style area. Use the centred mode so as not to distort the shape. These will then appear as a transparent frame. You can also add other lines, crosshairs etc. so it has the feel of a real viewfinder too.

thanks for your reply+help I'll try them out

Try the right-click context-menu...

If you want to visually pick the materials you replace from the model, you can use this one: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=26013

OK - cheers TIG That works, but it seems to me it would be much cleaner if the incoming file would either just drop at the origin automatically, or you could type in 0,0,0 or even just 0 - don't see what the advantage is really of having it default to following the cursor around... rabbit

Finished Thanks guys realy helped I am geo modeling this so it is going to be basic! Roofs are not my forte... As a reward for helping me out you can see how far I have gotten [image: Roof finished!.JPG]

Several suggestions: Get the house model fixed before you do anything else. You should not have to draw the triangles to get the surfaces to form the way you have. Set the drawing axis to line up with the house edges to help you here; The roof surface measures 25367141.8 sq mm and the panels 1580x808 ( 1276.6 sq mm). That means if you have 100% packing efficiency you should be able to install 19 but the chimney prevents that so look at either optimization of the required number of panels based on you longitude where you are going to install and possibly reduce number required; Instead of installing all " vertically" the way you have try 90 deg rotation of some to see if you can get the 12 to fit ok Look at the combination of different panel sizes to get the wattage you need to fit your needs. If you check the panel supplier site I guess they would give you some options in this area. Good Luck BTW here is a small fix to your model http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=c0eb29754d7d46969f30f02514717f00