Well, I just went there and tried the inferencing video. Worked OK streaming, but when I tried downloading, unzipping and playing it locked up.

Please, do. Everything will be moved there and slowly this board will close down. You'll be left by yourself if not moving!

@unknownuser said: PS: Now that I actually typed out your name, I noticed how many vowels are there together, guarded by two consonants!!! I just made it from two Latin words: Gaius (a common name - abbreviated as Gai when referring to a relevant writer of Roman Law) and eius (meaning his/hers). It's a long story why it was made like that but have proven to be a good selection in this "Internet World" - there are not too many people with "nicks" (or "screen names") like this so I need not change my name to Gaieus007 or such... One of the ancient Roman "oaths" or what when a woman married a man sounded like this: "Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia" - "Where you (are) Gaius, I (am) Gaia". Gaia is the ancient Greek godess of the Earth but this has nothing to do with this ceremonial oath. Sorry to go off-topic a bit...

Thank you, everybody, for taking the time to answer my questions. For the first question, Todd's trick did what I needed. Now I am able to make seperate image files and put them together and make one big image. Thanks Todd. I apreciate the answers to my second question too, but I am kind of lost. May be I am not good with layers and scenes yet, so I feel like I am not understanding something. So, the first trick would be using 2D trees and 2D people and replacing them with the 3D trees and 3D people, right? What about the size (height) of the trees and people? Do I need to adjust that or replacing object will be the exact size of the orginal object. I could try it out myself and see, but just wanted to ask if somebody has already done it. The other one is to make layers for those heavy components and turn off that layer while working with the image. But the problem is, at some point I have to be able to put them all together and show my boss. That is when I am going to have problem as I can not orbit around to show him. Thanks for your time.

@jean lemire said: For a face, extrude to full heigth. Then, select one end face and Copy/Move it to the other end. Then, immediately type /X in the VCB where X is the number of intervals that you want between the faces. For example, typing 4 will yield 4 intervals and you will end up with the two end faces and three faces equaly spread in between. Just ideas. this works beautifully, jean. thanks.

Ok, I just realised something about the behaviour. When I rotate the viewport it centres around the object the cursor is over. If the cursor is not over any objects it uses the scene's 0 point. I'm still wondering if there's a way to lock the viewport rotation centre point. When I'm modelling objects with not allot of surface, such as a fence, it consumes more time to aim the cursor at a small piece of surface. I'd much rather be able to lock it so I can press down the middle mouse button anywhere on the screen to rotate around the object.

Andrew, If you want a certain special set to be your default, do as I told above and save the file in the Templates folder of your SU app. with a custom name (actually you can have as many changes in everything as you want). Then go to window > preferences > Templates tab and select your newly created file. The next time you start su, that will be your "default".

I have to have shell element with thickness in order for me to export out for Finite Element Analysis, I appreciate it if anyone can help.

I found an answer, if you use the weld.rb script then you can offset a open polyline Andrew

@unknownuser said: Well then - that must have been fixed! Nevermind! Todd, I don't know of any former glitches - I just tried it out (being kind and helpful) and to my greatest surprise it worked. Hm...

Here is the finished article http://www.sketchucation.com/scf/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=3715 Thanks for all your help guys

Well the real value of the 'paste in place' command is it will paste the copied (or cut) selection in exactly the same xyz position as it came from. In contrast any regular paste or duplication requires you to place the geometries where you want them and sometimes precise placement is difficult. A real-world example of using paste-in-place is as follows: Let's say you've modelled a house and used components and groups for major elements. You put all the grouped site & landscape elements on a layer so you can turn it off to see just the house. Upon turning off that layer's visibility you find a bunch of stray lines in the pool deck area are still visible. Shame on you! They are lines that should have been within the group that made up the pool area. Being oriented towards perfection as you are, you decide to fix the sloppy modelling rather than beat yourself up. You select and cut the stray geometries so they are in your system's clipboard. You turn back on visibility of the relevant layer and open the pool area group for editing. Then you use the 'paste in place' function with the confidence of knowing the lines will end up just where they were in xyz space but now within the proper group. As an aside, I add that because of this feature (paste-in-place) it can make working with the component/group editing feature 'hide rest of model' more practical. Regards, Ross

One easy way to get a more ambient type of lighting, for interiors, within SketchUp itself is to reverse the position of the sliders on the shadow setting. Pull the Light setting down to around 20 and push the Dark one up around 50. This will give much softer shadows. They will still have a hard edge, because they are vector-based, but the overall effect will no longer look like the model is set outside in strong sunlight.

Thanks for that info Anssi. I had a look inside the dxf file in question and it doesn't even have a XDATA section. So I guess that answers the question!

Modelhead, You are right, SU seems to always export using the units specified in Model Info. However, import units can be set, and the default is Feet whatever your Model Info says. Anssi [image: importing.jpg]

Thanks Boofredlay. It would have take a long time for me to get there on my own. Wolfspaw

Yes Eric, Podium in a early fase of the project with almost no experience in rendering It occurred to me that a picture doesn't hsve to be perfect to have some impact even to the client He liked it (on the cover of the presentation) and we worked it out to the main entrance design Glad you like it Bert

Ha, figures. This is a model I inherited, it has been worked on by numerous people of verying skill levels. ITS A MESS. I havn't opened the outliner but I'm sure it is as much of a mess as the rest of the model. I eill look into it. Thanks.

Thanks again - shall look into it immediately. With best regards PRSS

This may help with the .skb file that wont open...I did a save as on a .skb and changed the extension to .skp...then saved...It opened. P: Insipidus