Thank you for your answer!

@unknownuser said: Thank you for the offer, however I believe that would be a lot of work that wouldn't be of use to most Sketchup user. Just a reasonable work, in hours, to add the feature with a custom editable list. @unknownuser said: On another note, if you look at the image, you will see that the bottom part of your form is not being displayed. Maybe the box should be a little taller. I fixed the problem in Fredotools v2.7e. Fredo

Don't be embarrassed. There are two different 'CAD' coordinate/axes conventions. One grew from 2d the other reflects 3d more sensibly... The older way is indeed what you had wrongly assumed for SketchUp. Old way... X left/right on screen == 'Width' Y up/down on screen == 'Height' Z in/out of screen == 'Depth' SketchUp and several other newer 3d apps... With an 'Origin' at [0,0,0] defining the 'ground-plane' X left/right on a 'ground-plane' == Red, aka 'Length' Y in/out on a 'ground-plane' == Green, aka 'Depth' Z up/down from the 'ground-plane' == Blue, aka 'Height' Points, offsets etc are always defined as [X, Y, Z] values In fact for those of us using the Ruby API... the SUp 'bounding-box' convention is the awkwardly set up as the 'old-way' - which can be very confusing as bb.width/bb.height/bb.depth is actually bb.x_size/bb.y_size/bb.z_size, when intuitively we might assume the SUp convention of x/z/y The two coordinate/axes conventions lead to some anomalies when importing/exporting - where you might see 'Flip Y/Z Axes' options. This is there to convert one set of axes to another, otherwise an imported object might come in 'laid on its back' etc...

hi jeremy, what are your successful settings? it may help someone down the line... john

You should flag it with Max

That image disappearing problem is called, in fact a "camera clipping" problem. It's not actually a problem but more an issue as if we hadn't got it we couldn't dive into walls or stuff like that. The issue has to do with the position you are looking the model at and it's way more recurrent in parallel because in perspective you have a clear notion of where you are. Cycling from parallel to perspective modes might cause the issue if you get to close to model by zooming in a lot in perspective, and then you cycle to parallel and zoom out. As your camera is in fact very close to the model it clips the model either in perspective or parallel. However in parallel there is no distance to subject as there is no point (2 or 3 point) perspective. If you zoom out camera sticks to place but the parallel view get's smaller. In perspective camera moves away from the model. That is why switching from parallel to perspective causes the issue but also corrects it if you know how to apply the right zooming. Large models are specially prone to this kind of stuff happening.

FYI, I got it sorted out. I think it has something to do with the z and y axis being flipped. My solution, was to download a trial of Atlantis, imported the obj with textures, then exported it again as an obj to a different folder. Then imported the obj using sim lab into sketchup and it worked like a charm. Hefty file indeed, it is the city of Seattle after all. Thanks for your help.

@rich o brien said: Win10 is next. So Win10 will be called next instead? I like it Winext!

@wo3dan said: @aureus said: .... No way through Windows Explorer like in old good times? Security measures, I guess... This may help you finding plugins in newer (SU-2014 and 2015) versions: http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/38583 Thank you, Gerrit! This is what I've been searching for. There it is: SketchUp 2014: C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2014\SketchUp\Plugins I don't know why it's there but at least I don't have to start the program in order to meddle with the Plugins folder. Now I can finally make a mess again with no much effort.

Thank you very much. Problem solved

If you insert a component/group inside other component/group and rotate the inner comp/group and scale the outer comp/group it will skew the inner group. If you save the inner group with this skewed scale into an external file and assume that scale (SU asks what you want to do) you'll get some funky component. When you reload it into the model, that funky component will be scaled and skewed again, becoming even funkier. That can go on and on until the funkiest unlimited possibility.

For architectural scale models, you almost have to start from scratch or rebuild them using the existing model as a guide for the scale you want to print at. The reason is because when you scale down an existing model, you're left with tons of features that are too small to print, so you have to start over and exaggerate the size of features that are important to show, decide what needs to be left out. It's pretty easy to repeat after you've done one, because the modeling is so much simpler. I guess an analogy would be low-poly models for faraway components in a game vs. the high detail closeup objects.

I can see how you might expect this - many office apps save printer settings as part of a document - but SketchUp does not do so. It just picks up the OS settings for the selected printer.

For that scene you can also adjust the light/dark settings in the Shadows window. This will however also affect the shadows on the robot. The curve in one instance gives a nice graduated backdrop, but in the case of the side shot, maybe a flat face is better or curved opposite? (You don't have to use the same object as backdrop in each scene.) The shading feature makes many SU renderings work great and is also good for modelling interface but causes issues, for example when we want to show an elevation of a building and the roof, ground, or ceiling becomes super dark.

David, I'm happy to hear you got your problem sorted out. I imagine it would have taken a lot of folks a lot of guesses before hitting on that one. Hopefully it never happens again.

Install SCF Plugin STORE on both versions. Create a bundle from your 2014 version and then open version 2015 and install that bundle there. http://sketchucation.com/resources/plugin-store-download

It isn't always better to leave it checked. It depends upon the GPU and the driver. It seems for a lot of users things look better with it unticked. You can play with it and see what happens. The style thing may come back and you'll have to untick it again.