@gaieus said: Hi Al (and Rich), I don't think 3D PDF would become outdated soon. PDF is one of the most cross-platform and even cross-browser format (when embedded), can be easily sent by email or carried on a small drive since you can (almost) make sure that wherever you go and take (send) it, the other end will be able to see it. thanks for the comments Gai. PDF will probably survive, of course. But they have replaced the U3D format we use with a proprietary format. However, we suspect they will always have to display U3D, because otherwise legacy PDF files would stop working. We struggle with U3D because it never really worked properly. But Rich has made some improvements this past month and we will continue working with it. I think will will add an embedded html page creator to the existing plugin - using PDF first. The advantage it that it will be fairly easy for people to modify the page we create for their own needs. (It is much easier to modify a web page than to create one from scratch). This should work pretty well with embedded PDF and PDF is well supported. Also, we never learned as much about Flash as we should have. Perhaps a Flash/Collada option would work as an option. The O3D/Collada route is interesting, if Google gets behind O3D. Unfortunately, my experience is that Google often releases an interesting software application - usually in Beta mode - and then never decides to continue it. (Witness Google Desktop). On the other hand, if they do get excited about something they throw a lot into it - (e.g. YouTube). We are hoping they see a future for O3D and want to go comewhere with it.

Try running it under virtual machine - such as VirtualBox.

hi mead, thanks for you answer. i bought it in December 2007, it's a white one. it's an OS-X 10.5.8, 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2. Ram 2GB 667MHz DDR2 and the monitorchip is a GMA X3100. I have 36 GB available. So as you said, it's more than probably that's monitor-chip fault. it's weird that su 7 (this is the version) doesn't work whilest cinema4d works ok. well, i should change the chip for working smooth with it. thanks a lot

Since you're talking about animation export, I did a small test yesterday with Pibuz's warehouse. I made this video to answer a question about post-production motion blur in another forum, but I got an interesting result in render times: [flash=640,505:1e3wj8kn]http://www.youtube.com/v/iNVqKh2k164[/flash:1e3wj8kn] The reason for this seemingly absurd result (Twilight being almost as fast as SketchUp) is the same you noticed: During animation export in SketchUp, CPU use was just 25%. This is because the Core i5 has 4 physical cores. Who knows, perhaps when desktop CPUs with 8 physical cores arrive, we'll see biased raytracers become faster than SketchUp's native renderer because of its lack of multi-core support. Please note that I'm not complaining about SketchUp; as has been already mentioned, it's a modeler, and has never been marketed as a render solution. BTW, in the Twilight test I used an HDR as the sole light source, that's why you don't see hard shadows. Of course, you can use both HDR and Sun at the same time in Twilight. The variation in frame height was my mistake, before you ask.

This would be a case of think like a carpenter. The carpenter doesn't need the hole to exactly fit the sink, the sink just has to fit in the hole and since it has a return around the top edge, it will cover the parts of the hold that don't match the sink. The lazy man's way: First, hide the sink. Double click on the top until you get through the different groupings to where the top most surface is highlighted. Draw a rectangle on the surface of the top. Push pull the rectangle through the depth of the top. Turn on Hidden Geometry under the view Menu without exiting the sink top group, you will now see the ghosted view of the sink. Using the move tool or the push pull tool, move the sides of the hole until they are under the apron of the sink edge. Once that is done click out of the group, right click on the hidden sink and unhide it, turn off the hidden geometry under view and you are done. This uses very little geometry and represents what the carpenter will really do (they may put a radius in the corners but not always). Hope that was clear.

@hpw said: When it is possible to write a small ruby to draw text in SU, then it should be a easy to make an AutoLisp-utility to write such ruby out from AutoCAD. I used such approach to restore block-infos on SU components which get lost during import. It is indeed relatively easy for Ruby to parse the 'Text' data out of a DXF [then you won't need AutoLisp] and then to make bits of '2D Text' from it in your SKP... It's just having time to do write it that's the pain...

@remus said: If you go window->preferences->openGL then select the setting with the highest anti aliasing, that may help. it worked, and looking awesome. Thank you!!

Hi Mike, hi folks. Make sure that the values that you will import are not too small. SU has problem creating faces with edges smaller than about 1 mm. It is best to import using meters as units and/or scale the points after import, if you want to make surfaces with them. Just ideas.

if you want to render the image, just use a normal map (or bump map) with blurred black stripes on white background for your material. If you want more detalied effect, and your rendering engine allows it, you can use a displacement map. If you don't want to render the image, you can just make a texture with desired visuals... Trying to model that, will result in lots of polygons and SU might just not be able to handle.

Fixed it. If I extrude the face by a cm or two, then apply the texture, it works. Then using the push/pull tool, push the face back to it's original height/ position.

Hi Antonino, It will be interesting to see how you get on with Multitouch. I see that the app producer, Will Henderson, has a good sense of humour also. http://wcrawford.org/2008/02/28/everytime-i-think-about-you-i-touch-my-cell/ I must add it the the List of Mac App that I have goinge here. Mike [image: mKpn_WillHenderson-MultitouchMyCell.jpg]

thanks a lot da solo! http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=134aa94b551277b3e7c82ed4b8f0c380e04e75f6e8ebb871

Good - also thanks for the fix tip!

yes, SketchUp 7.1 on a Windows 7 laptop. (although I discovered a few minutes later, that I didn't have textures enabled. when I redid it with textures, it took about 20 seconds...

Well Dang! I guess I really need to learn how to use FredoScale. Thanks!

Hi Sildeman, Have a look at some of the car modelling basics among these tutorials: http://www.sketchucation.com/intermediate-tutorial-index/ Indeed, such "organic" shapes are not easy in SU but with some prectice, you can get ever better. Also, here is a tutorial about placing 3D text on a curved surface - you will get the basic idea and from there on, can do it on any kind of surface: http://www.sketchucation.com/creating-3d-text-on-a-cylinder-in-google-sketchup/

Hi Poonam, This is definitely not a LayOut question. Edit - are you referring to the QHull plugin by the way?

Thank you to you all..Fredo> Wow! Great video and tool..

@honoluludesktop said: I have notice that the warehouse is beginning to accumulate a lot of very good stuff. I have noticed this also. It is certainly improving with time and has a lot of excellent models on offer.

Wow! NO WONDER! I downloaded the WRONG file! Man, I can be such a dunce! I didn't pay attention to the file name origninally. sheeez! What a moron. Got it now! Works GREAT!!! FINALLT!!!! :heart_eyes: THANKS A MILLION GUYS!! fitZ