Ray, you are going to need a UV unwrapper like Ultimate Unwrap 3D. You are probably also going to need your model completely made of triangles, No problem if exported to 3ds. UU 3D is only 50 or 60 bucks, depending on the version. Frankly, SU Pro ought to have incorporated these features long ago. http://www.unwrap3d.com/

Did you use the internal pdf export function of sketchup, or do you use some external pdf creator? I have encountered some problems too when used pdf export function of sketchup. If I remeber well, archicad installs a virtual printer to save file as pdf. You may try to "print" it as pdf, instead as exporting it. If it doesn't work, try some other pdf creator, there are some free programs too. I personally work well with cute pdf. but beware! If you print it as pdf, the standard sketchup's output is a bitmap image saved as pdf. This means, you are not able to edit the edges as vector entities. If you want to export the lines as vectors you have to chek the use high accuracy HLR option in the print preview panel. This allows you to preserve the line thickness too, but you can't export faces, texture and shadows, only the lines. You will be able to edit the lines in illustrator, but you have to redraw the surfaces and fillings. The result is precise and you shall not loose parts of your drawing; moreover, you can watch the preview, before saving it as pdf. /matteo [image: ULqm_print-preview.jpg]

Now I remember I encountered the some problem about 2 years ago when exporting some hi-res images for print. It happened that some surfaces come out triangulated, with a wrong oriented texture. I believe it was a memory problem. There is a resolution limit, when exporting a picture, that depends from the amount of your memory. When you reach this limit, sketchup is not more able to export an image. My opinion/experience is that when you get near to this limit, the output may be somehow weird. A workaround I've found was to move slightly the camera and retry to export the image. Sometimes it worked. Other times a "broken" face come out good, but some other face was weird. In most cases I had either to reduce the resolution of the image output, or edit it in photoshop to correct such strange output. /matteo

I've never seen a good explanation for how to remove a lightsource like that. I want to try that out. Thanks modelhead, Chris

For me export quirks like incomplete files etc. often happen when I try to export to a network drive, and exporting to the desktop or a local folder then helps. Anssi

I go to window from the top menu, then shadow settings in the drop down menu, it opens a menu file, there is a checkbox for display shadows, we uncheck that box as instructed, under it is time and date sliders, under that is light and dark sliders, then we have written, display, under that check boxes for on faces, on ground , from edges. And nothing else, this is version 5 of sketchup, either Im on the wrong thing, or in my version the setting is some other place, or it is in version 6 only. mine is this [image: Shadow-settings.jpg] not this [image: dczk5s33_38f666cdcj.jpg] EDIT I found it, its in Display settings for versions of SU older than 6

There's a few choices here...some quite cheap. http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/05/24/screen_sharing_tools_the_best.htm

@sketch3d.de said: ...problem can regularly be avoided by using a video card with a driver optimized for and supporting the full OpenGL stack as e.g. the nVidia CAD series 'Quadro FX' instead of gaming cards optimized for speed only ... and slow low-end solutions.... Norbert, Regarding the Quadro FX cards, nVidia even has a "partner certified driver" for SketchUp. (The driver is currently available only for XP.) I was pleasantly surprised the other day, when I installed new Quadro driver Note that, when your system reports that a newer, updated driver is NOT available, you should question from whence that message comes. Apparently, Microsoft is providing this assessment. How do they know? If I check Windows Update, it says no newer driver is available, yet nVidia had one. I suspect that Microsoft will always be behind on it's driver update notifications. Do yourself a favor, and actively search for one on your own. (I have the mobile version of the Quadro FX, and couldn't be happier with this new driver.) I'm sorry that I can't report that will help Vista users, including Verrou. However, the adviceNorbert provided, regarding 'fast feedback,' is typically the most-effective fix for cursor and marquee-selection problems (XP and Vista, alike.) Turning off 'fast feedback' doesn't slow down SketchUp as much as disabling 'hardware acceleration.' Hopefully, the feedback setting alone should resolve Verrou's problem. Taff

.3ds file export has the option to weld vertices, but this will lose pretty much all smoothing groups and material placement. Or you can choose to keep material placement, but thill will make SU not weld any vertices. So its often not helpful. I think some people use .obj export maybe? Chris

@plot-paris said: and while we are at it: what is the easiest method of showing the framerate of SketchUp? is the time.test-thing command the best way or is there something like a small digit in the top right corner that shows the current framerate? At the Ruby Console, you can type this mouthful: 1.0 / Sketchup.active_model.active_view.average_refresh_time to get frames per second

@unknownuser said: What is your video card? Its an Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2. Is this one that severely affects the bug? All my drivers are up to date. @unknownuser said: You could also try turning off (unticking) Fast Feedback from the Preferences>OpenGL pane. I'll check on this one and see if its ticked or not. I appreciate everyones help.

Dear Dave, Sounds like an interesting method. Would you like to do a brief tut as I'm not sure I understand the technique. Thanks, Bob

cool. now at last I know what it does! I allways knew that something happens. but it didn't really soom extends or anything and I was to lazy (stupid) to figure it out. "center clicked point" makes perfect sense. thanks watkins for pointing out!

Two ideas come to mind. The first is to create the center line for the roof support tube and use TubeAlongPath.rb to create a second tube that has a larger radius to meet the sail. The problem of course is that you don't want the resulting faces too close to the tube component because at some viewing distance you'll get the Z fighting flicker. You could hide the faces of the tube under the fabric to prevent this. Another thought would be to draw the edges of the fabric directly in the tube component. Then the exposed parts of the tube would get painted tube color and the rest to look like the fabric. I guess it depends upon what you have to do with the parts later.

thanx guys. thanx hazza

Ahh you're welcome. Thanks for sticking with this thread. I hope it helps speed up SketchUp Chris

Just what I needed. Thanks Thomthom! -Brodie

hi Tekkybot, I think it really depends on what you prefer. I am definitely one who creates too many groups than sensible. as Alan said, you mainly use groups to seperate geometry (prevent it from sticking together) and for easier selection. I normally try to group geometry like in real life - if I have two pieces of wood, these will be two seperate groups. a nail keeping them together will be a seperate group again... of course grouping allways has it's atvantages and disadvantages. [image: groupinghe1.jpg] let me explain how I would proceed in a model with the above example: the house is a seperate group of course, like that I am not in danger of selecting any bits of it, when trying to highlight the table the table is a component (because it is likely that I will reuse the table in the model lateron...) the table top is a seperate group and the table legs are components (remember: repetition of the same element - components keep the file size down) the vase on the table is a component (again: I may want to reuse this one in the model) I put the table and the vase into a group. why? because if I now move it, the vase will stay on top of the table. this group is definitely arguable, because it is not too much effort to select vase + table manually and the model may become a bit confusing. with such a structured model it is very easy to select only the parts, that I really want to change. the danger of selecting geometry behind the object of interest is small. but what if I want to stretch the table a bit? first I have to enter the table/vase group. then I have to double-click the table component. then I can move the two table legs. and finally I have to enter the table top group to alter its proportions. if I hadn't put the table top in a seperate group, I could have selected and moved both desk top and legs at the same time. in such situations you have to choose, whether you want a extremely structured model of a more practical one. Alan's approach of reducing the number of groups will be more practical. my approach of seperating everything gives you peace of mind unfortunately a global selection function does not exist. I suggested it once, but not many people seem to share my wish for such a tool. so my advice. better greate one group more than necessary and explode it again later, when you are sure you don't need it.

Henk, There is n option to intersect with context which would avoid such unwanted intersections. But the way you solved it seems to do the job as well.

Many of us have already "forgotten" what newbie problems used to be for us. It's always good to have someone "reviving" these questions also for the benefit of those shier newbies who only lurk the forums for answers to their questions (I remember doing this a lot in the old @Last forums when I was learning the program). We actually started the Newbie forum to encourage people like this to come out with questions about the seemingly most obvious answers so just go ahead asking.