The "Duh!" thread (aka the Doh! thread)

Gruff

More of an Ahh! than a Duh!

Discovered that ALT-Push/Pull will move a loose planar face in the face normal

I find I need to create duplicate parallel faces offset from the body a lot.

To do this I use CTRL-Push/Pull to make a copy extrude.
Rotate the model view 90 degrees to the face normal
then use a right to left select window to select the extruded side faces,
then press the Delete key.

I'm left with a face normal to and inline with the original at a distance.

Ecuadorian

@gruff said:

Discovered that ALT-Push/Pull will move a loose planar face in the face normal

Thank you! I had been foolishly using the "move" tool for that.

plot-paris

wow, cool. didn't know about that eihter. but what I would even more like to see is a push/pull like this:

Ecuadorian

+1. That would be my #1 wish for SU8.

pilou

@unknownuser said:

but what I would even more like to see is a push/pull

Not really and exactly the same and a push pull but the Plug Protrude make this at each click
Of course you can change Height and Taper at any moment

halroach

@solo said:

Now that you mention that, I have an embarrasing one for you, my kid who was 11 at the time of me teaching him the ins and outs of SU when one day I was teaching him how to map textures to a sphere and I asked him to get an image of the earth to map from our server texture folder, he opened up the folder on the second monitor and dragged it onto the sphere, I exclaimed 'What on earth are you doing" and before I could complete my setence with the all to fimiliar 'you dumbass' the texture was mapped onto the sphere, sure it was not UV mapped correctly but I had not known that was possible. Being a wise-ass he replied "like every karate movie, the studend with enough practice becomes the master"
I had to create another cartoon character that day to show him who's boss.

Huh?
When I drag images into a model, they come in as pictures, which I can place and explode if I want them to be used as textures. Do they automatically come in as textures for you?!?!?

Gruff

@plot-paris said:

wow, cool. didn't know about that eihter. but what I would even more like to see is a push/pull like this:
[attachment=0:2sngi41l]strange_pushpull.jpg[/attachment:2sngi41l]

Similar to that I'd like to see some way of locking the move tool do the same thing to an edge of a face. Allow the face to only stretch normal to the side of the line. Say you had a square face 6"x8"
Grab on one of the 8" lines and pull out making it 12" x 8".

Basically I need the face to larger than the original facet.

plot-paris

another one, only outside SketchUp...

did you ever try to explode a folder somewhere to copy it's content to the next higher folder?
I have a shortcut applied to exploding in SkechUp. and I hit it repeatedly, wondering, why the folder was still there.

actually, that would be a great thing to implement in an operating system: selecting a folder and exploding it, being left with the files within all selected. or the other way around, grouping things (select several files and hit the 'group shortcut' to put them into a new folder...

kwistenbiebel

@plot-paris said:

another one, only outside SketchUp...

did you ever try to explode a folder somewhere to copy it's content to the next higher folder?
I have a shortcut applied to exploding in SkechUp. and I hit it repeatedly, wondering, why the folder was still there.

actually, that would be a great thing to implement in an operating system: selecting a folder and exploding it, being left with the files within all selected. or the other way around, grouping things (select several files and hit the 'group shortcut' to put them into a new folder...

Yeah
SketchupOS 1.0 !

MartinRinehart

@arail1 said:

My Spacebar doesn't deselect - disappointed.

There are glitches, here. On a PC for example, Move tool selected, press spacebar. You are still looking at a Move cursor, but the least mouse movement corrects the cursor.

Gruff

One more Duh!

When viewing a model in XRay mode.

If you hold down shift whilst using the 2D drawing tools the new 2D geometry is forced onto the nearest face (closest to your eye.). Even snap points to (Behind) geometry is projected to the nearest face.

The sort of meets my needs for construction planes that I am comfortable using in other solid modelers.

The only painful part of it is that you have to continuously hold down the shift key. It would be nice if Caps lock toggled the feature.

plot-paris

@gruff said:

The only painful part of it is that you have to continuously hold down the shift key. It would be nice if Caps lock toggled the feature.

true, some sort of permanently locking a movement direction would be awesome at times (appart from locking it to the three main axes via the arrow keys)...

GoldenFrog

My DUH moment was when i realised there was an arc tool. Needles to say, that was my first day using SU. Hehe...My other one was when i learned about the follow me tool. Great DUH there! But, I've greatly improved since then

xrok1

@plot-paris said:

@gruff said:

The only painful part of it is that you have to continuously hold down the shift key. It would be nice if Caps lock toggled the feature.

true, some sort of permanently locking a movement direction would be awesome at times (appart from locking it to the three main axes via the arrow keys)...

Wish granted!

my duh moment just happened, i forgot to attached the jpg to this post the first time.

Gruff

@unknownuser said:

Capture.JPG[/attachment:1ouv5aid]

I do not see that dialog anywhere in my 7.1 std SketchUp.
Is that a Pro feature?

Ecuadorian

@gruff said:

I do not see that dialog anywhere in my 7.1 std SketchUp.
Is that a Pro feature?

You set up that in Windows, not in SketchUp, in "Accesibility" options in the Control Panel of XP. But I'm not sure about its usefulness in SU.

pilou

Wanted to now all plugs by Tig
Just today thinking to use the search Advanced engine
[PLUGIN] + TIG + Title ONLY + Ruby Discussion
= 3 pages of true gem ! Something like 75 brains storming
Of course you can make that for any other Ruby Gurus: TBD, Fredo6, Chris Fullmer, Didier Bur, Jim Foltz, Thomthom, Matt666, Whaat, Wikii, Gohch, CPhillips, Kyrill2008, Morisdov, AdamB, Todd Burch, Rick Wilson... sorry for the forgotten
I must find an another tricky method for find all Gurus
(and will be added at the list as soon as)

xrok1

@ecuadorian said:

@gruff said:

I do not see that dialog anywhere in my 7.1 std SketchUp.
Is that a Pro feature?

You set up that in Windows, not in SketchUp, in "Accesibility" options in the Control Panel of XP. But I'm not sure about its usefulness in SU.

you can lock the shift key for inferencing, which is what Gruff wished for

jeff hammond

@gruff said:

When viewing a model in XRay mode.

If you hold down shift whilst using the 2D drawing tools the new 2D geometry is forced onto the nearest face (closest to your eye.). Even snap points to (Behind) geometry is projected to the nearest face.

good one!
i didn't know that

Gruff

New Duh. (Sort of)

Select a face then right mouse and select Align Axis. (Let's call it AA2F) We've all seen it but did you know that what it creates depends on how your face happens to be oriented to the screen?

In a nut shell AA2F aligns the Axis to the lower left most edge.

Draw a hexagonal face. Choose the top view and use AA2F. Rotate the view of the hexagon
reselect AA2F. Your Axis will shift position around the hexagon vertices.

This can actually be used to your advantage when dealing with a face that has different features dependent on different edges. As a case in point see the attached Guitar head where I needed to align and create features parallel to either outside edge as well as the center line of the whole thing.

Guitar Neck Test