@schreiberbike said: Thanks for all the information. In all my sketching up, I've just let the axes fall where they may and everything seemed to work. Now I see how complex this can all be made. Based on what I know now, I might have been able to fix what I messed up before, but it's too late. What is the advantage of being able to have axes point in all different ways? Another question: If I can make the blue axis line point to the horizon, what determines where the sky is? SchreiberBike, The advantages of rotated axes can be various things. It can help you to position components or in constructing geometry. There are more tools that do not act according to rotated axes (as with creating groups and components): paint straight from the material browser on faces is aligned to the original global axes. (unless painted on groups or components). Sampled paint can act in a different way. the smoove tool (without holding down shift) is always vertical according to the original global blue axis. Even when holding down shift the boundaries of the influenced endpoints is a vertical cylinder with chosen radius although the displacements are more or less perpendicular to the involved faces in the center of the circle) text labels on endpoints show X-, Y-, and Z-values to the original global origin, even with rotated axes. (most likely other features that I can't think of now). What will be the sky when axes are rotated? ALWAYS where original blue is pointing at. To reset axes right click on one of the axes and choose 'Reset' Wo3Dan

Some folks just got WAY TOO MUCH time on their hands.

Also, I know FormFonts has some kids on bikes.

Maybe you're searching for this topic?

@daniel said: You'll want to place the different components (legs, slats, etc.) on different layers, and turn the layers on/off as needed in the pages. Do you know of any video tutorial links that can show me how to do that? Thanks Geoff

Thanks Anssi Fixed the transparency and added the bent rim (= the flytrap LOL) New file uploaded... LOKKI.zip

Deep exploration would probably work best, however thats a rather expensive piece of software for just conversions. Try copying the model using the select all and pasting in a new instance of SU and trying again. Deselecting stand alone edges in options may also help. If the problem persists then you can email it to me at pete@solosplace.com and I will use DE to do the conversion for you. (but do let me know if you are going to email me as I am terrible at checking my mail)

Well, as I'm not able to create whole tut on this right now, I can only give a couple of tips on this. What I'd do is not to use the drape tool in this case but the stamp tool like the steps below: crete the terrain as you have already created; use the contours of the road to create a face (hopefully they are coplanar and forming a closed loop) move it down to the highest point of your terrain divide the face with additional lines and/or use the autofold feature to rotate the other parts of your road face as close to the terrain as possible - but only in very general when you're done and the road is smooth enough (but obviously "floating" above or "submerges" below the terrain, select all and use the stamp tool to integrate it into your terrain. soften edges where necessary In the "realy world", roads are either running higher than "valleys" or cut into hills so that they don't beed to follow smaller details of the terrain. This will be the result with your road, too.

Hi Jeff Well it seems you are doing double duty tonight -- helping me out. Yes, there is no substitute for working methodically and with some care. What's the point of a great model if there are flaws early on that could have easily been caught -- but later on are nigh impossible to fix? I have started using line "color by axis" which helps out very well in catching errors. Now that you have pointed these technical boo-boos out I will be more able to spot them in the future. Thanks, Dantyu

@danty said: Jeff -- I knew the answer had to be a simple one. That's what I get for working on past midnight when I was already tired from being up past midnight on SU the night before. I can't help it sometimes -- I just want to get ONE more part of the model done -- and (2) more hours have past. Much thanks, Danty Danty, Looked at both uploaded models, (also healing faces). In addition to Jeff's answers two things that could cause problems later: you tend to have several edges (length ~0") floating around in 3D-space. If you make Layer0 the current layer and turn off Layer2 you will loose part of the model. Going on like this will most likely let you loose control over(visibility of) your model. Wo3Dan

Gene, I dealt with part of your question towards the end of this thread. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=5929 I have attached a quick example here, in which I have used the standard cherry wood material from SU itself. Rather than messing around with the material control handles...which can be a little messy if you have many orientations of the material to deal with...I simply painted it onto one surface (in order to load it onto the In Model collection) I then right-clicked the swatch in the In Model browser and exported the material as a jpg to my desktop. Obviously, you don't need to do this if you already have a bunch of wood textures as a starting point. I then imported the image (as an image, not a texture), stretched it to a good-looking size, then duplicated it and rotated it to all the different angles I needed. I then selected all these and exploded them. All you then have to do is sample the appropriate one (Paint Tool + Alt) then paint it onto your panel. I have left hidden geometry showing in order to demonstrate that you can use lines, then hide them, in order to separate different angles of grain on the same flat surface. (Not so much for your benefit as for any passing complete beginner.) You can achieve the same result by right-clicking any texture and choosing Texture > Position...I just find this way faster and more convenient. panels.skp [image: TWO1_panels.jpg]

Thanks Daniel, very nice cheers

Maybe you can find something here 3D Warehouse 3D and yes all is free and all is in Sketchup format

Finaly I my graphic card works well and the problem was bad video driver I installed driver (mart'06) and SU works fine Thanks for sugestion.

Take a look at the script Joint Push Pull http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=4840

This one zooms in much better and doesn't clip the 20' [image: Etm1_pdf3.jpg] @alpro said: Using Anssis suggestion produced a much better result. Mike

Hmmm... Interesting that my Firefox ad blocker does not block ads on the Custom search page. Maybe Google has found a way to beat the ad blocker?

If you change the style and click the 'refresh style' button (top right of the styles window) that should set the style. I think you then have to resave your template file to get it to load up the file properly. To do that you just save the blank file, wit the altered style, and then go window->preferences->template and browse for the blank file you just saved.