I think a lot has been said already on how to reduce the poly-count of a model. 1.using a lower size eg.sides 12,sides 8 when drawing a circle or arc 2,Using components(especially for windows ,doors etc that repeat quite often if you are modelling a building. 3,Importing models with small polycount especially trees.Using trees with very high detail will slow your computer down considerably.You may want to use trees that are "face-me component instead. 4.If I have to use a texture image bigger than 1MB,I first open it up in Microsoft picture manager or paint , reduce the pixel size and save it as a Jpeg File.An Image file of 5MB can yield 602kB through this process.You can now use the Image with its reduced file size on your model thereby reducing your polycount. 5.You shouldn't also forget to purge your model of unwanted/unused materials and component

Jeff: Your corkscrew is great, the video really shows just how quick it should be. I agree with you that the 'red shockwave' click animation is a bit over the top, though it does make it very clear when yu have clicked! I think the idea that I've not yet addopted is adding dummy geometry to act as a rotation point / guide for my model. Here is a render of a similar corkscrew (not as pretty as yours though, too compact!) Thanks for taking the time out, to help a relative noob! [image: aMCJ_Corkscrew.png]

Thank you for the super-fast solutions. I'll get back to "the drawing board" now and try them out. Hal

thanks. it'll come in handy ...

It's kind of self intuitive; you mess around with a miss-behaving model... Then when you start to write out the symptoms or the question the problem becomes apparent. or when you get away from the job (writing your scenario) for a moment and start again, you run right into the answer and answer it yourself. So I found the answer right after making the post. See Ya.

Thanks Jim, Don't know how I missed it, spent too much time looking in the "plugins". Larry

Welcome rawritspawel. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your work.

Vargas, if the building your wanting to model is masonry, measuring the exterior - including the grade line - is easy, count the bricks.

Are your bugsplats successfully sent to the SU team, and do you add a description of how the problem occurred? That's more useful info than a few lines in a forum. If so, you're lucky you got bugsplatted.

I, too, had tried several different CAD programs over the years, as well as some more basic drawing programs to draw up designs for furniture for my woodworking hobby. They were all either too basic or way too involved to learn as quickly as I wanted to get going. Heard about Google SketchUp on a woodworking forum, downloaded it, did the initial tutorials and some other stuff online and never looked back. An excellent tool at just the right level for getting results quickly, and for continueing to learn and explore.

Nice model, John. Thanks for sharing.

Your English is fine pichuneke. Good to see that you solved your own problem. Mike

niiicee!! thanks so much

That's a pretty interesting read and could be useful for some architectural designs. I would certainly like to get hold of a ruby to help generate that sort of pattern.

I lied (autosave to the rescue) but still no render, i tihnk thats whats causing the bug splat. Heres the model anyway. Edit: added render for your viewing pleasure, Irender nxt with studio lighting No 36 [image: bhT2_ToastRack.JPG] Toast Rack.skp

Sketchup 6.4.112 Tools Sandbox/ extensions.rb gettingstarted.rb langhandler.rb sandboxtools.rb sketchup.rb totd.rb units.rb Plugins Examples/ Utilities examples.rb utilities.rb azuby

Here http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/09/google_earth_40_3.html are some suggestions regarding videocard (FireGL in particular)settings for Google Earth. Not sure it will work for SU, but who knows... Hope it will help.

That looks like a clipping plane problem. click your zoom extents and then try to zoom in, and see if that helps.

Problem solved. I found that the server.dat file was pointing to the old name of the server. When I copied the file from my machine it points to the right license file and now it all works.