thanx guys. thanx hazza

I've been looking for this everywhere, actually! Thank you so much for posting this!! You did save my life with that. I'm an LO user and I haven't quite figured out how to work with a transparent background so I'm glad that I found your tutorial on that!

heres a screen shot of how my model is going so far. its my left studio monitor which is a m-audio bx5 [image: bx5ep2.th.jpg]

There are a couple of "services" not available for "guests" (those not logged in) like search, view/download attachments and of course, posting.

hi Tekkybot, I think it really depends on what you prefer. I am definitely one who creates too many groups than sensible. as Alan said, you mainly use groups to seperate geometry (prevent it from sticking together) and for easier selection. I normally try to group geometry like in real life - if I have two pieces of wood, these will be two seperate groups. a nail keeping them together will be a seperate group again... of course grouping allways has it's atvantages and disadvantages. [image: groupinghe1.jpg] let me explain how I would proceed in a model with the above example: the house is a seperate group of course, like that I am not in danger of selecting any bits of it, when trying to highlight the table the table is a component (because it is likely that I will reuse the table in the model lateron...) the table top is a seperate group and the table legs are components (remember: repetition of the same element - components keep the file size down) the vase on the table is a component (again: I may want to reuse this one in the model) I put the table and the vase into a group. why? because if I now move it, the vase will stay on top of the table. this group is definitely arguable, because it is not too much effort to select vase + table manually and the model may become a bit confusing. with such a structured model it is very easy to select only the parts, that I really want to change. the danger of selecting geometry behind the object of interest is small. but what if I want to stretch the table a bit? first I have to enter the table/vase group. then I have to double-click the table component. then I can move the two table legs. and finally I have to enter the table top group to alter its proportions. if I hadn't put the table top in a seperate group, I could have selected and moved both desk top and legs at the same time. in such situations you have to choose, whether you want a extremely structured model of a more practical one. Alan's approach of reducing the number of groups will be more practical. my approach of seperating everything gives you peace of mind unfortunately a global selection function does not exist. I suggested it once, but not many people seem to share my wish for such a tool. so my advice. better greate one group more than necessary and explode it again later, when you are sure you don't need it.

Many of us have already "forgotten" what newbie problems used to be for us. It's always good to have someone "reviving" these questions also for the benefit of those shier newbies who only lurk the forums for answers to their questions (I remember doing this a lot in the old @Last forums when I was learning the program). We actually started the Newbie forum to encourage people like this to come out with questions about the seemingly most obvious answers so just go ahead asking.

If I know something is curved, and not coplanar, I'll often just use the erase tool and hold down ctrl. That makes it soften and smooth all the edges that you run it over. It is a very fast and effective way to clean up parts by hand. You want to becareful to not smooth too many lines that are coplanar and should just be deleted though. Well, I don't know what would happen, but it seems like that would just add unnecessary geometry I guess. Chris

Henk, There is n option to intersect with context which would avoid such unwanted intersections. But the way you solved it seems to do the job as well.

I used half size cinder block, running bond pattern, with a bond beam on top. It works, but it kills my old PC. [image: gs-005.jpg] [image: gs-006.jpg] [image: gs-007.jpg]

Anssi, Thanks, I thought it'd be something I've heard of before. Have a great day. Ben

@plot-paris said: and while we are at it: what is the easiest method of showing the framerate of SketchUp? is the time.test-thing command the best way or is there something like a small digit in the top right corner that shows the current framerate? At the Ruby Console, you can type this mouthful: 1.0 / Sketchup.active_model.active_view.average_refresh_time to get frames per second

A lot of people dont use those forums, so they were separated in to optional forums. You can sign up to them by going to the UCP (top left corner of your screen)->usergroups->select the ones you want->click 'sign up' at the bottom of the page.

Ahh you're welcome. Thanks for sticking with this thread. I hope it helps speed up SketchUp Chris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2i_2VkLpQ this video just explained a lot

Thanks again for the feedback on my ruby scripts. Just FYI... The Taper Maker script will draw tapered offsets in addition to tapered extrusions. You access this capability by entering one of the following in the options field on the input dialog: "o" or "offset" or "offsets" When this option is used, the script does not draw a tapered extrusion along your selected path. Instead, it draws four tapered offsets (paths) along your selected path. These paths would be centerlines along the faces of the tapered extrusion "above", "below", "left" and "right" of your path. Here is an example of four tapered offsets around a path: tapered offsets.pdf This option facilitates using one tapered curve as the basis for another as in this metalworking example: taper on taper.pdf HTH

ok, im exhausted! i had the day off today, so i spent from 9:30 am to 8:00 pm watching aidan chopra videos, i must have watched twenty videos or more! but now i think im ready to try my hand at some more modeling

This is a great book. Can't say I've mended my ways, but at least I know more about the problem. It has exercises and, if I ever get around to it, they might help.... Peter http://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-Architects-Designers-Thorbjoern/dp/0393731332http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0393731332/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books [image: 4120T5XY2WL._SL500_AA240_.jpg]

Or simply thre Follow me tool?

If you set the profile thickness to 1 (which will equal to the edge thickness) than there is no purpose of the profiles at all - in this case you can even uncheck them totally. This would even enhance the performance of SU eventually (especially with bigger models of course).

@plot-paris said: one thing you can definitely do is switch off the "proviles" in the style window. the model will look nicer and you save some processing power... Thanks Plot, dd that and it does look better,, (so much to learn )