One last image as I continue to tweak the details a little. Think this is all for this piece of equipment though. [image: 1JDR_TopBrushEnscape_2017-03-21-12-26-57.png] @DaveR - when I finalize this piece of equipment I promise I will go back and convert most of the groups to components. Some of the groups may stay as groups inside the appropriate component. I have one more MAJOR task before I go start updating my equipment/component library though. I want to set up a library of standard colors/materials/textures that I apply to all of the equipment so that the frame, brushes, and other common elements are the same in each component. So, I need recommendations in how to clean up the mess I probably have in my library. In particular for layouts/models where I have multiple pieces of equipment I want to eliminate duplicates color/material/texture instances (hope that makes sense). I think I have seen a thread once before but was not able to find it that gave some steps & tips on how to accomplish this. Hope someone can point me in a direction.

SketchUp 8 has not been supported for more than 5 years. There is no legitimate source for SU8 Pro anymore. It's time to move on to the current version. As long as you are using it for personal, hobby use, you can use SU2017 Make which is available at no charge.

What I do is that I use Tig´s Section Cut Face on my model then export 2 scenes from Layout: 1 - Sectioned model view; 2 - Section cut face scene with same camera as 1 but model is hidden. In layout I overlapp the two scenes where 2 is on top of 1. Then I can have lineweights for 1, different than 2 and still update the 2D drawing on the fly as I work on the model. I also add details to the section cut face, for construction detailing. When finished, if needed, I export to dwg from Layout.

Why not make the solid groups and use Outer Shell? Otherwise just use Intersect faces.

There's no need to copy to a new file? Just use Align Camera as I told you. It works just fine. As for the "red light inside the model", to what are you referring? SketchUp doesn't put any sort of lights inside. The only option for lighting in SketchUp comes from the sun. Upload the model or at least show a screenshot. Give us something to help you with.

@rich o brien said: does that mean WrapR failed to meet your high expectations? You set the bar high with Wrap-R.. that's what I meant.. And the Wrapit video I was referring to was 8 years old...so that might be a fair benchmark to begin with...

Without seeing the model or the components, here's an idea... As these materials should now be in the built-in Materials Browser you could try changing the color of at least one of those listed named materials and see if it makes any difference.

Are you all set now?

There isn't a single "default" material library. You can delete the native material libraries from Programm Data but I expect SketchUp might throw errors on startup. When I start SketchUp, it goes to the last library I had open. If it's one of my custom libraries, it goes to that one.

@unknownuser said: It really is a shame about the rocks - as I'm planning to use this in lines I was hoping to be able to export them so a texture won't work - but I do see your point so I'll [l]eave these out. You could leave them out until the last moment before exporting the lines. And there's no point in using colors or textures in your model. Your rocks could be 2D, too. Just a sort of pattern of lines drawn on a face. @unknownuser said: Although even after deleting them my mode is still really slow ? There's still all those other things like the anchor bolts adding detail that has to get examined by the graphics card even though they don't show. If you have to have them, you might use simple proxies to stand in for them while modeling and swap them before the export. If you are going to show the whole model even on an A1 sheet, I doubt you'll be able to see the threads on those anchor bolts. You might try a simple test. In a new SKP file draw a rectangle the size of your city and add one of those anchor bolts. Make the export and print it on a sheet of A1 paper. Check out how much detail can be seen. Then revise the bolt to only have that much detail. By the way, do you know you could use LayOut and save the DWG export step? It can be set up to create A1 sheets. Export to PDF and print as needed.

@sjotcher said: I would also like to reply to your point about the Create Component dialog. I know that in this dialog for example, you can choose on which plane you would like to glue the component, including the layer it needs to be in. Funny thing is due to my work around, I never see this dialog. So for me it would be nice to have the dialog pop-up when I convert a group to component. Thanks for the help, I'm gonna try to find a solution! Sjotcher As for the Create Component window opening you you can give it a name and set the axes and gluing attribute, that does happen in SU2017. The alternative to get that window in earlier versions is to explode the group and then immediately make a component.

Good luck.

Hi Besides modeling the geometry itself you could use suitable PNG textures as well (picture material from the web or self-made). For my example I have used image material which Gilles has recommended by his link above [image: Rm9S___BalustradePNGTexture.jpg] [image: Pkgk_001.png] 001.skp

This is due to the way you saved the component and then imported it. When you imported the component into your new model, it was essentially double wrapped and the outer wrapper is not dynamic. You could see that if you import the component into another file and look at it in Outliner. Instead of using saving it with File>save and importing it, right click on the component and use Save as... Then save it to a directory you can use for a local collection. When you want to use the component, go to the Components window, select that local collection and drag the component in from there. To make the local collection available in the Components window, click on the Details menu and choose Add collection to favorites.

Yes of course it is the same thing! In any case you have all the combinaisons! (with BoolTools 2 ) Addition, SubStraction, Intersection etc...

hello to all and thanx for checking my problem. i will check the specs in detail, maybe it is time to buy a new notebook than.... thanx a lot again stan

Thank you Pilou! .....I did not fully understand your earlier scaling example (w/o visible dimension)....it is now very clear! Now OP has at least two methods to adjust imported CAD files to scale.....as we understand his needs. Best regards, Charlie PS.....RE: Try it....................I will now use this method as well!