@driven said: can you post an example of one of these converted skp files? also, do they open as pdf's? john john : At the time, I kinda went into a panic, and didn't think about a screen capture. Good idea ! What I did was....I went into Control Panel / Folder Properties. And changed the file association to Sketchup. After changing the association of .skp to Sketchup. It listed the association as "Sketchup Model". In choosing what program would open these data files, it kept coming up either as Adobe Acarobat Reader or Sketchup 2016. I couldn't set it to Sketchup 8. And this part, for me, is kinda mysterious. After switching the association to Sketchup 2016, I was able to open the data files with Sketchup 8, Before, with the PDF title on the files, I couldn't open them directly....only using Sketchup. Now, I can click on the data files (containing the created objects) directly and Sketchup 8 opens. So now.....I went "backup" crazy, and copied as many of the data folders, at the time, to disk. ***As a side note: I thought my downloaded copy of Sketchup 2016 was a trial version ?*** garystan

Resizing Dynamic Components only uses the Scale tool. To resize just part of that shape (the wider raised area in your screen shot), you'll have to divide the entire thing into two separate components. The 55 and 510 sections can be one component, the 165 needs to be another component. Then the 165 can be set up to scale while the larger component doesn't get changed.

Trimble MEP and 3skeng aren't cheap solutions, something like Profile Builder (currently at version 2.1) is cheaper and more versatile, you can also try the Engineering Toolbox plugin with the "Insert external Component" option if they don't already have cable trays.

Hey guys, sure was fun putting faces to names! And Pete, I looked high and low for you all conference so I could throw a couple cocktails down your throat; sorry that our paths never crossed... An excellent event, for sure, and was quite happy that I went.

Using models from the 3d warehouse is a risk. Always open the model in a separate file, look at the statistics, do some cleaning, renaming, welding etc etc. Most of the time I remodel it myself and just use the original as a reference for dimensions. There's always a big chance the original 3d modeller made that model with a different goal in mind. So the glasses can be either too low poly (very faceted and not suitable for doing renders) OR too high poly because the modeller wanted to spend 1.000.000 faces in making the perfect glasses and he wanted to render just one pair using his renderfarm.

Hello, is it possible to use sets like in this video? Please start at 0:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpN97x4mgAA&feature=emb_logo In Cinema4d you can combine any icon (not only Sketchup's own functions) into pallets and save them as layouts. The handling of Plugin-Sets and Extension-Sets is not quite clear to me yet. Thanks a lot and stay healthy.

I know where you're coming from; I wish I could take a week off and just spend it on downloading my mind and posting thoughts on SU....

check thea forum, there are links there. http://thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=92%26amp;t=19634%26amp;hilit=Dichroic+glass#p146441

Thank you, Dave R. That was the solution: to disable "Hide when foreshortened".

Perzactly! This is what I wanna do. I chose to turn off the Foreground Photo (within the Styles settings), and that did the trick. Thanks, Dave.

Thanks Box... you're my hero of the day. Today has been a good learning day

You two are stars...very much appreciated

No problem!

You're quite welcome. Glad it helped.

@watkins said: Dear Nick, I am not an architect and so this might be a dumb question, but is your book centred on American standards or would a UK/European architect find this book useful too. If essentially written for the American market, do you plan to publish a companion book that would meet the needs of UK/European architects with respect to standards, symbols etc. People are so busy these days that they want to hit the floor running when trying something new. Kind regards, Bob Certainly. The book is more about the process. Yes it is in American standards, but that really isn't discussed at length. What is discussed is the simple process of model configuration, layout setup and overall concept of producing full CD's with only Sketchup and Layout. The book includes a full sample project in both SU and LO as well as, all the templates I use in both SU and LO.

@utiler said: Not that I know of mate. I'd just create two solids and subtract one from the other.... This is right! If you don't have a Pro version you can do the same with "intersect faces with..." from the right click context menu. I prefer using it most of the time as most of the time I have no solids.

A 'container' is a group or a component-definition [it's also an image BUT that is not relevant here]. The 'container' contains a separate entities 'context', compared to the model's entities context. So putting geometry into a 'container' separates it from its original context's geometry. A 'container' can also include other 'containers - aka 'nested' groups or components. Note that groups, component-definitions and even images are all 'definitions' as far as SketchUp is concerned. All such 'containers' can be assigned to layers to control their visibility... Images are a special case - a single face with a 'hidden' textured-material. Don't fret about those at the moment. A group is a unique collection of objects, copy it and edit the copy and it's not linked to the original at all. If you delete a group then it's gone. However, it's a useful way of separating/collecting objects. A component-definition is displayed in the model as component-instances - it is a collection of objects - copy it or place another instance and they are all related. Edit one instance and all other instances change to match. This is a powerful tool. However, if you want to split-off an instance the make_unique tool does that...

You guys also know that you can leave those settings blank, and what it'll do is change scenes without affecting the current settings. So you can have a scene with an active section cut and when you change to one without section planes toggled on, it will change other stuff, but keep current active section cut.

The plugin I posted above was actually developed for that minichallenge (driven pushed me into it!), but never published.