Thanks, Pilou, I tried the Ruby on a couple of the stones in the model and it looks like it will work pretty well. I may have to experiment a bit to get it just right. Thanks again, Tom

Yes, plot-aris seems to be right ! After many experiences on this fact during my works, the zoom is completely dependant on where is the cursor ! When you're too far from your model and you point on a empty space with the cursor, the zoom is too slow...point on a part of your model and is getting faster. When you're closer to your model, if you point on a empty space with the cursor, the zoom goes too fast and the "camera" goes behind your object...still pointing on your model and the zoom will be slower until the camera goes behind it ! But that's right, it's a little boring sometimes when you're working on small parts of a big model, or in wireframe mode !!

I'm wondering if you had some invalid geometry that was automatically fixed upon saving the file, thereby deleting it. I am guessing this because the first screenshot is not perfect, looking like there could be something invalid there. And the missing box has happened to me before where SU descided a line is invalid and it deletes it, there by leaving a hole. Its easy to fix by redrawing the needed lines. Chris

Have fun. Credits... a long time ago for this sample...I'm not sure who was generous. Billard.rar

hang on a sec, i just checked it again and it was a 5mb picture hehe and again thank you all

Thank you, James, I watched the video before but had forgotten it, as I had not come across a way to use it. Now I can. Still I don't know how to "clone a face". There is no clone in SU Help. If I simply make a copy with the move tool the resulting object is the same as any other in regards to how the texture works. I got what I wanted. I did edit a copy of the texture. Then I put it on a rectangle, and set the texture to projected. Then I sampled it with the paint tool and it evenly covered the warped shape. I didn't like the angle, so I rotated the texture on the rectangle and reapplied. Thanks.

52 MB sounds drastically big for a model of an office, unless you've modelled every paper clip. Did you purge the model of all unwanted components and materials?

@brooksl said: I don't understand why the Rectangle and Rotate tools should not respond to the arrow keys being used to force an inference similar to how they do for the Line tool, Move tool, or Tape Measure tool: Locking an inference http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=70142 ...I think the Rectange tool and Rotate tool SHOULD respond similarly to the arrow keys by settign the inferred plane Perhaps the reason the rectangle tool doesn't work with the standard inferences is that it requires two directions rather than just one, so any single inference is not enough. They work for a line (an edge), as it may be defined in one direction, not so a face (a rectangle) which has two dimensions and thus two directions.

hello everyone, i need the same tool as describe, but to make another shape: i must draw line (i have the length),circle arc (i have the rayon and the angle of courbure), and slope (i have the length up or down). all my data are in an excel Can i use it automatically to make my way? thx u 4 adavnce

Th only options are to click on the object you want to orbit around with the wheel (sometimes you may need to pan into a better position for this) and to use the Alt key to temporar get rid of "gravity" orbiting.

Thanks Thom.

camionero266- If your issue was that you couldn't get your .skp thumbnails to show up, pleas look at the end of my last post. I got it to work, and it's not hard to fix it. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=13097

Remus, sometimes you should read more carefully. (<-Wicked wink) Ken probably knows how to assign shortcuts - what he is aking is how to import them! (Sorry Ken - I have no ida, I'm on PC)

Welcome

Are you printing straight from SU or are you creating an image file from the model first? I suggest you create a image file (Jpeg) and then you can check the text size on the image

Wow, that little trick ("option click" on my Mac) is great. Thanks. I would normally start with the floor plan, but in this case I don't know, and don't need to know, the exact size of the building or its height, just the critical dimensions around this wall, chimney and roof. I figured it would be easier if I could just draw the important stuff and let the rest sort itself out. Best, Jim

Unfortunately even when the option Jame mentioned is turned ON, the continuous line drawing wont go on when you have just finished to close a face for instance and there is no way you can force/encourage/suggest/hint SU to continue drawing.