@plot-paris said: I am a great fan of drag-and-drop actions (even if I am no mac fan ). a cool option would be just to drag a material and drop it onto another, which brings up a prompt if you want to replace the material with the dropped one... cool, isn't it? Very!

Thanks for the info. I can now recreate what you have done. I just draw a curve, and close it, no welding, the arc stays an arc. I then use extrude to create the surface and afterwards the texture works fine. What I was actually doing to create the extruded shape was rather different, and it might have something to do with it. I create an arc just as a guideline for a follow me. Then I create an Upright Rectangle, and follow it along the arc. The reason for this was of how my Ruby script work. I have to create a lot of components that follows basically the same curve, ie curved panels, with mouldings, etc. It seems that in that case, the resulting follow me creates the "segments" somewhat differently, and hence the texture problem. This might mean some rethink on my approach.

nice tool. seems to be quite simple to use

Hello Anssi Thanks for your two sents. NEver heard of that problem. But it´s not that either. The model is entirelly created in SU and is pretty much build around the point of origin. Oh well. I got the pics in the end. Can it be that SU is still a pretty buggy app?

cd to the same dir as sketchup.exe. Run- regsvr32 ThumbsUp.dll It should say succeeded. If not, I seem to recall that since the dll is not 64-bit, it won't work in 64-bit Vista.

Edson, I expect that since those are all ruby add ons that perhaps the programming, especially with respect to MAC, may be flawed.

My ancestry is Welsh (many generations ago,) so you're right. 'Taffy' is the anglicanized slang spelling of 'Dafydd' (Welsh for David.) 'Goch' is Welsh for 'red' (and, yes, I have red hair.) Good catch, Bob So, the 'perpendicular' thread WAS the one of which you were thinking. I still think it would be a nice feature if the 'circle' cursor could be dragged along an axis, similar to the 'protractor' and 'rotate' cursors. It sure would make drawing a surface perpendicular to a line (axis) a whole lot easier. -Taff

Success! Thanks again

@remus said: Adam, what makes you think inferencing does take much computing power? i would have tohugh its quite computationally intensive to find the mid, end and direction of very line in an SU model. It would, so you don't do that! Typically one creates some spatial structure that can narrow down the potential candidates very quickly. LightUp uses kd-trees to do it, I suspect Mr.Google will have something similar. The end result is you actually find mid, end and direction for only handful of lines. Adam

I came across this yesterday when I exported my model to Illustrator for editing. When I selected individual segments to change the stroke size, other segments were also altered. I was using the direct selection tool which should have isolated the segment I wanted to change. It seems that when an image from SU is exported it is comprised of compound paths and groups. The way to make the image behave like it should in Illustrator is to do the following. Select the entire image (select all). Under Object, select Compound Path and Release. Again select all and under Object again select Ungroup. Now every segment is isolated and can be edited without effecting any other one. This will also allow you to group together segments in a way you want. I don’t know how many will find this useful but it will work if you need to export to Illustrator. Have a great holiday weekend. Tim

let's see if this even works. http://www.reddirtdesign.com/bob2.htm Olo does this vid make sense? Basically you import an image file position it above the plane and explode it. Then sample the image and paint bucket on the surface.

Every video format has pros and cons, but you have to understand first what video format your client can watch. On windows OS you can sure open an uncompressed AVI file, but this is not the best format to atach to an email, since it generates huge sized files. You can easy create a DVX or XVID avi file: there is plenty of free applications that can do it automatically, but be sure that your client can open such formats. There is even some free program to create FLASH videos. Flash videos can be compressed and are platform independent. Every good internet browser can play them, with the flash plugin installed. In such cases, if my client has a minimum of computer knowdlege and skills, I suggest to install Sketchup. Then I send directly the .skp file. You save a lot of KB or MB and this is sure the best way to watch what you created. Moreover, your client can fully explore your creation.

The "Extended" version of Photoshop CS3 also has the capability to assemble an image sequence into a video, and then export it as either MOV or any other available format. Since the imported sequence of stills appears as a single video layer, you can resize it or apply (some) filters or layer effects to it before rendering it out to video. Or you can rotoscope individual frames (haven't tried it yet, but sounds neat). Or you can layer multiple video layers and control their transparency at various points during the timeline. Of course, PS CS3 is a much more expensive option than Quicktime Pro.

No prob. I guessed so and thus my reply above

Yes, I got the same impression, Lewis. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone figures out a way of parsing the 3Dxml file to 3ds or whatever before too long. I thought the Convention was excellent...well, apart from cancelling the shuttle buses and causing queues for the taxis that took hours to clear. Thank God for the T. Sorry I missed you too. I haven't been to Boston for years...well before the Big Dig...Wow! but it's changed some. It always amazes me how quickly the thing gets dismantled. They were rolling up the carpets past our booth within 5 minutes of the final whistle. When we went back Sunday morning the entire place looked like the last shot from the first Indiana Jones movie...just a giant hall filled with packing crates.

Also - have you tried to see if Hypercosm could work for you...??

Remus, thank you - I've been blind finding the keyboard shortcut from that list. Abot my second question, I'll post it in the Ruby Forum. Just to explain what I mean with similar faces selection: in Wings 3D, the subdivision modeler, by selecting similiar faces, the program let me select all faces with the some shape and area (not really the some, but with a tolerance that tends to zero. That's why it's named select similar, instead identical - in some complex models it selects unexpected faces sometimes). The selection cares about the bounding geometry too. Here a couple of screenshots to explain it better: the red highlighted faces are selected. This works with the edges too. This saves a lot of time, when editing complex geometries: in sketchup I had to select manually the faces with ctrl + left-click. [image: QVKd_wings3D-select-similar.jpg]

Anssi, I think the question is regarding exporters available in SU Pro and not SU Free. Emulating existing SU functionality that would normally only be available in the Pro version and making it available for Free users. There have been a few functions emulated for Free that is normally only available in Pro, another (apart from those already mentioned) is the ability to set location and set the North angle.

Yep.... it is called layers_materials.rb - http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/en_ren_page.htm ...... although it will pick random colors to be applied to the layered geometry. If one wanted to match the colors that are in the layer system, one will have to do it manually. It is a nice script and could be the solution for you. CMD

Attach the model (and the image file separately as well) so that we can look intio it - if possible.