Thanks Chris... ...but that didn't solve it. I don't know why. I was looking in the "About Plugins" menu under the sketchup menu and noticed that i have a plugin called "3DS Export". I can't find this plug-in, does anyone know were it might be located? And is there a separate preference for this plugin, maybe that has something to do with the problem?

Well,if you want to change the dimensions,yes. I meant the size first - sorry for the misunderstanding.

Ah, acronyms. Thanks Paul. Ben

AFAIK there is a small fee for the switch (at least that's what I was answered about a year ago when I asked) but you definitely don't have to purchase the full license.

Sorry, I haven't forget it, I've got a very big "to do list" on my desk so when I've got a moment ... regards

Nice model gidon. I thought id jump on the band wagon with this little number: [image: 2789787101_317cbed680_o.jpg] Cardboard table.skp

@daniel said: I think I would add another step - to hide the lines. Interesting... I was thinking of some way to pump them up. Maybe I need to rethink how I visualize this! Thanks for the tip, I will take a second look. I did a metal hip a while ago and I had a hell of a time modeling that. If I can post the image, you will see I never healed the hip of the metal piece. (edit: looking at the picture I guess you can't tell and really it wouldn't show in a render--but it takes time to do something poorly--bugs me)I probably used push-pull and that leaves two ridges to fix. I have tried making this shape at the bottom of the hip to Follow-me with, but drawing that has been impossible for me so far (to draw the chevron shape perpendicular to the hip). Maybe I should have used push pull to depress the main portion of the roof instead of pulling the flashing (the borders) out. [image: iBZ0_metalhip.png]

Hi Mike I haven't tried it cause 3Dtoolbox demo can't save file And Cheetah3D demo can't save and export file too.

@julius said: NEW! Target: Path allows you to select a target path.[/u] <---so basically you pay the 7$ only for this. you are right. but unfortunately this is exactly what I need. honestly. a camera-aim path gives you a great deal of control over the sequence. only difficulty is to properly synchronise the two paths to achieve the desired change of focus at the right time. after a lot of trial and error I found out, that you best create two cubic bezier curves (fredo6's bezier tool plugin) with exactly the same number of control points. thus you can exactly see which point of the camera-aim path is connected to a certain point on the camera path... flightpath2 askes you for a speed (like 14 m per second). a scene is created at every vertex of the camera path and the transition times are set individually to retain the desired speed. however, I find it more useful, if all the scene transition times are the same - thus the number of vertexes on the path defines the speed (many vertexes, slow speed; few vertexes, high speed). unfortunately you need another script for resetting all the transition times back to default. you can get this script along with flightpath2 with the "presentation bundle2" for 16$ it is a bit unnecessary, if you are comfortable enough with the free versions. but you definitely have total control over your animation.

Ahh, thanks Mike. Well, I agree, that response from google is a bit underwhelming because that was the very first thing I tried too and it definitely does not work. I'll see if I can drum up a bit more support from them for you. I think this is a great bug that should be looked at. Chris

Sure, go to Window>Preferences and go to the shortcuts tab. Then click on export and save the .dat file somewhere like on a flash drive or a network location. Then do the same on the laptop, but choose import instead of export. Good luck Chris PS There used to be a bug where commands that already had a shortcut assigned would'nt get updated correctly. I don't know if that was ever fixed or not, but I think it was....

Ahh, true. If he is using the free version he won't have LO. Oh well. There is always the magic wand in photoshop or whatever photo editor you like. There are good free online photoeditors you can use now too. I'm still baffled why SU on a PC won't export a transparent png file automatically. I was always under the impression that it was something that the Mac OS facilitated. But now that I know LO does it automatically, it seems like SU should too. Chris

Ahh, I' starting to get the picture. Yeah, I guess that would be handy. I dont use podium Kerkythea or iRender like I said. I generally just set it all up in 3dsmax. So, that is just my 1 person workflow. And I really don't know what I'm doing in 3dsmax. So I'd suggest finding more input. Speak up people. anyone else out there that this would benefit? Chris

Well that is a little more comlex than I thought. I was jsut thinking straig jpg export from rotatig camera. I had seen the information from the other post. Very cool technology. I used to work in interactive panoramic photogarphy and saw this demooned two years ago. Its going to be some pretty amazing stuff, on the fly 3d modeling as you capture video. I'm sure Google is cooking up something as well, ieally using Google Earth as an interface for all of this content. Here are some old panos I did linked to Google Earth. Of course now you can do panoramics directly in Google Earth. http://www.fullscreenpanos.com/sphpblog/index.php?d=24&m=07&y=15&category=18 So things brings up another "protected" option for interior spaces. QTVR Pano (vs. object) export. In this you can spin and zoom but can't move camera position With the Ojbect it is just the opposite. Camera can move but target is stationary. I've already menteiond soemwere that this would be nice feature to add on to GE export in SketchUp. Low poly exterior model, but within that are links to panos from inside the building.

If you don't want to use jpg export then dwg/dxf export is an excellent idea. Can open in Illustrator and alter lineweights, styles colors, etc. I remember at some point needed higher resolution images so I just tiled my image and imported it in pieces. You shoudl be able to slice up an image using Photoshop or other apps that slice for websites. Then you can add back into SketchUp.

I've run into the same problem Chris has when I've been trying to help others get their models straightened out. I agree that forcing geometry to reside on Layer 0 makes much sense. pbacot, when I am teaching new SketchUp users about components and groups, I use an analogy to try to explain how they keep geometry separated. Think of a sandwich. A couple of pieces of bread and some stuff in between. Lay a great big dill pickle on top and the juice soaks into the bread changing the sandwich. Wrap the sandwich in cling wrap and the pickle juice can't soak into the bread. Assigning a layer to a component or group effectively turns that cling wrap into some of that new "cloaking device" fabric. Unchecking the visibility box turns on the cloaking device. The geometry remains where it is though on Layer 0. It's kind of a lame but it seems to get the point across.

So far it looks that only some users with nVidia graphics cards gets the best results. I got an ATI Radeon 9800 on my Ubuntu box and as with the rest of the ATI users SU on Wine is no go. I have an 8800GT and 6800GT on my main rig, but I only run Vista on that.

@remus said: xbjllb, the bug we're talking about is when you have a camera position mid animation that passes through shadows. It messes them up, to put it bluntly. What your describing sounds somewhat different. Though his solution could have some merit!!!

I like to use the arc, freehand, and line commands for tracing things! This works real well when you need to do a company logo but you don't the text they used to create it!

thats what I tried to do. perhaps I should learn tools before using them I was not able to snap the control points of a bezier curve precisely to the camera position points. perhaps I should have closer look at the tools provided by fredo. will let you know, if I have success with that. [Edit] ok, as far as I understand it, it is only possible to draw these bezier curves on a plane, but not in 3 dimensional space. so it doesn't work for me when I try to connect camera-positions that differ in height. please correct me, if I am wrong (I would very much like being wrong on this matter ) [/Edit]