A Welcome Message to New SketchUcation Members

jackjack · 24 Jan 2011, 04:46

Hi all

My name is Revy, from Indonesia.
recently I've started to use SketchUp as a hobby (computer case design, etc)
Hopefully with this community i can improve my self and also share to others

Thanks all

Gaieus · 26 Jan 2011, 22:29

Hello Binu and welcome. There's lot to see here indeed.

Please, do not write in all CAPS however.

forrrest · 27 Jan 2011, 15:10

Hi All,

Been using sketchup for about 6 months now, only just discovered the power of plugins after I was trying to join 2 curves by hand and though 'there must be an easier way.........' now seen the the light

RafaDesign · 27 Jan 2011, 22:08

Rafa here from Cape Town. Mainly interested in stadium and sports venue design!

Look forward to finding out about plugin-ins similar to the soap, skin and bubble plugin.

Rich O Brien · 27 Jan 2011, 23:23

Welcome to SCF!

Drafter X · 31 Jan 2011, 14:22

Drafter X here.
My new online identity is incognito as I get a new business going while still finishing with my current employer.

Hoping to use sketchup extensively in the new venture.

Rich O Brien · 31 Jan 2011, 14:50

Sounds mysterious, welcome to the madhouse

keen_builder · 1 Feb 2011, 03:49

Hi All

Im only very new at this type of program , I build scale models of cars and trucks and found this program to be a great help in design to 3d in stead of just on paper , Ive learnt alot from trial and error , But have yet to learn how to make a curved pipe like exhaust or roll cage , I know Plug Ins are a big thing so Im looking into how that works , I look forward to seeing some of your work and chatting with you all over time

Many Thanks
John

Gaieus · 1 Feb 2011, 08:14

Hi John and welcome!

Let's have a quick look at the Follow me tool here. I am not sure an exhaust pipe would exactly look like this but you can get the idea. Download the skp file and do as instructed in the image.

Pipe.skp

keen_builder · 1 Feb 2011, 09:28

Thank You Gaieus , after reading several posts on this forum and useing the search button I was able to find some very helpful hints on how to do this , Im not very good at reading long pages unfortunately so I have had to learn from trial and error , now I have started to learn curves and pipes , I can further my education with this program .

The wealth of information that this forum holds is incredible and look forward to learning so much more .

Thanks again for your help

john

Gaieus · 1 Feb 2011, 09:45

If you are planning to make many of these pipes, some plugins will be invaluable. First of all, to make the whole curve (created of several arcs and lines above) into one polyline, there is the Weld plugin . If you weld curves together, you can select them at one and also the resulting pipe will be smooth all the way long.

Then there is a tool, Tuba along path , to make these welded paths into a pipe just by one click.

Finally, to create pipes with quite irregular diameters along their path, there are several lofting tools like Curviloft for instance.

keen_builder · 1 Feb 2011, 12:43

Wow !! Thanks so much for the Help , Im really starting to enjoy this program now that I can make pipes and such , Im currently working on a manifold and a off road buggy frame .

Thank You again for this Help it is very much appreciated

harnstein · 1 Feb 2011, 17:41

@gaieus said:

..Tuba along path..

Sry Gaieus, couldn't hold it.. Hope you don't mind..

shura · 1 Feb 2011, 20:57

that's a good one harnstein. by the way, your username is too, are you german?

harnstein · 1 Feb 2011, 21:05

yep, alex

almost next door, berlin tiergarten, nice to meet you

Gaieus · 2 Feb 2011, 08:15

Yep, that was a good one indeed!

Ha! I still remember that Tiergarten from the time when there were two Berlins!

harnstein · 4 Feb 2011, 08:56

thanks-

berlin, it still appears to me like they are still two

greetings to hungary and congrats for your 20.000 post!

now lets welcome the new users here again

Gaieus · 4 Feb 2011, 09:34

@harnstein said:

greetings to hungary and congrats for your 20.000 post!

Holy smokes!

mingjae · 7 Feb 2011, 05:50

hello, this is my third question and it looks like no needed to make anew thread,
so I post the simple question here, hope you guys can help me to solve the problem

This is it:

above is the Top view, I rotate it to match it with the coordinate in Google Earth (i dont know exactly the degree I just rotate it),
if I go to Right view, then the Picture Plan is on A, how to make it to see in B?
Should I do it manually? create a line in origin X direction (i've change the position of the Axes)and measure the degree and then rotate it?
2nd: where is the north?

thx

Gaieus · 7 Feb 2011, 11:38

Hi Joe,

The so called "standard views" are always aligned to the original world axes (or global axes) of the model no matter what the alignment of your building or what a new set of (temporary) axes you have. This is a much debated "feature" and many people think it should be changed but for the time being, we have to live with this.

There are two solutions:

You can align your view to that plane B by navigating to (somewhat) that view then right click on the face that is parallel with that plane and "Align view".
Note that this only works with faces (not groups/components). Once you are in such a view, you can create a scene and get back there next time without this workaround.
Make a component of your whole building adjusting the component axes conveniently (parallel to the building's walls). Now you can always export this component by right clicking and "Saving as...". After you open the component (a new file), it will inherit its axes from the component axes in the model.
You can always "reload" the modified component in your master file: just right click on the original model and "Reload".