Adding to wishlist - Make Layout and SketchUp file icons different so I'm not continually opening one thinking it's the other.

It's built into the Materials Browser context-menus, but that only selects faces in the current active context that use the chosen material, ignoring any groups, instances, edges, text etc using the material. This one-liner copy/pasted+<enter> in the Ruby Console will select everything using the material specified by name - edit the 'mname=' to suit the material you seek... mname="Material1";m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;s.clear;m.active_entities.each{|e|s.add(e)if e.respond_to?(;material) && e.material && e.material.display_name==mname}

View the SKP in Monochrome mode, using a Style with a distinctive default back-color - perhaps 'bright-blue' - compared to the default front-color 'off-white'. Then you will be able to see the orientation of the faces' fronts and backs without any applied materials getting in the way. The direction of a face's loop determines the face's 'normal'. A 'flat' counter-clockwise loop produces an 'up' normal, and vice versa. This applies both in Ruby and manually made faces, However, any face that is made 'flat', on the ground z-0, will ALWAYS faces DOWN, irrespective of its loop direction. This is to assist in a subsequent PushPull which is usually 'up' and gives the expected result it the extruded face is facing downwards... Wrongly oriented selected faces are easily 'Reversed' using the context-menu, or in code with face.reverse! If it's a mesh with some wrongly oriented faces use Monochrome mode and View > Hidden Geometry > ON. Select one face that's correctly oriented and context-menu 'Orient' to flip all other faces to match. If there are any edges with more than two faces then the results will not be perfect because more that two faces sharing an edge cannot all be oriented the same way - topologically impossible? There is no simple API equivalent for 'face.orient', but there are some method examples around, using 'edge.reversed_in_face' etc and 'face.reverse' etc... Most rendering apps are particularly sensitive to visible back faces, and will usually render them without materials/textures - i.e. 'blank' - either transparent, black or white. remember that materials applied onto a group/component-instance [rather than onto the faces within it], will appear to be applied onto any default-material [both fronts and backs] although in that case the faces actually still have no material applied, but 'exploding the container' will transfer them across. Monochrome mode helps see this too... My FixReversedFaceMaterials etc and some other similar tools [e.g. by thomthom] are designed to flip incorrectly oriented faces that have a material applied to their back only, and assumes that the back is facing the wrong way, flipping the face and the material, keeping UV-mapping of textures correct too. There are also some 'forced' options etc that might help when both sides of the face have materials and you want to flip and swap materials across too...

Thanks for the replies folks, I have been pondering this, perhaps it could be an option in some future version of sketchup. I very much appreciate the time taken to reply and there is a fair bit to think about that will make things easier. On it.

Thanks guys, all good points and clears it up. Dave, thanks for the pics, really helps. Inspecting mirrors is a job I could easily see myself doing.

Do you have pictures which show the windows details and the dimensions?

Welcome! It's probably best if you use SketchUp's official stl importer: https://github.com/SketchUp/sketchup-stl

@tinkerer said: So there is no way of just making sketchup write a text string in a certain position and direction? no.. you could do some stuff with OnClick Alert but then you have to click the component with the interact tool in order to view the text.. some sample files can be found here. http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115750

hi you can read the file from the confort of SU's Ruby Console using `defaults read -app /Applications/Google\\ SketchUp\\ 8/Sketchup.app 2>&1 | grep "ShowInferenceTips" 2>&1` that will return "SketchUp.Preferences.ShowInferenceTips" = YES; or No you can change it from here as well with `defaults write -app /Applications/Google\\ SketchUp\\ 8/Sketchup.app "SketchUp.Preferences.ShowInferenceTips" YES 2>&1` if you want to read or change any preferences, you can read all with the bit before grep, the 2>&1 just sends error messages, to check it's working... after you can restart from 'Ruby Console' using Thread.new{`sleep 5 && cd / && open Applications/Google\\ SketchUp\\ 8/Sketchup.app`}; Sketchup.send_action('terminate;') you can change 'most' things from here without them being overwritten on close or open, and you can check on re opening and use Terminal.app if it fails to stick... [slightly different code, report back if you need it] john

you could use simlab or something else like it: http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/3D-PDF-from-sketchup-main.aspx also, (i'm not sure how this works or if it works in windows world), you can export the model as a collada file then view it with an image viewer which will give 3D/navigation etc.. Preview.app on mac is the default viewer which will open a collada file.. maybe windows has something similar?

After you edit the component and add a centerpoint, before exploding all the instances, delete all the geometry of the edited component (thus all of the instancing) leaving the component content a single guide point - otherwise all those small pieces of geometry will remain in the model as stray geometry which will cause all sorts of issues later. @sketchymick said: ...it relies on the imported points actually coming in as instances of the same component... which I'm not sure would happen... It's easy to fix it if it is not the case. First create a component with a single guide point. It will appear in your component browser just like the others. Now select all the other components (in the entity info box you can see that the "definition" is greyed out as there are three, different definitions selected) and right click in the endpoint component in the component browser and "Replace selected"... [image: ZAtC_replace-1.png] ...after which you should end up with this (see that the "endpoint" definition name appears in the Entity info box showing that now all are of the same component definition): [image: 1acB_replace-2.png] The only caveat is if your original components component axes are not in the center of those small circles/crosses. But even that is not a big issue if they are very small as the difference will be minimal which is all right for a topo I presume. [mod=Note:kveuhw7v]I named my component "endpoint" but it should have been "guide point" - sorry for the misleading naming...[/mod:kveuhw7v]

thanks so much for all your help and suggestions. hopefully i can produce something using the tools you have all recommended! much appreciated

A quick search about "SketchUp cut opening" ... Create component dialog box Youtube Sketchucation

I am keeping all plugins in the 'plugins' folder and not in any other folder of my choice. So deleted 000_AdditionalPluginFolders as you advised. The error messages are gone! Thanks.

@gordy_z said: I'll also check back here for a couple weeks to see if anyone says "Don't waste your time, your wall phototextures won't render well because of x,y, and z - fall back to option "2," "3," or either "2" or "3." yeah, i think i'm confusing the matter by not talking about what you're really asking (and hey, maybe i'm i bit unclear on what that is exactly ) but your textures look fine.. good in fact.. and they look good when rendered as well.. (i.e.- with a render engine, not only will you achieve better lighting throughout, you could give the walls and what not a little bump or displacement which will mimic the look of depth.. the bricks will pop out, the mortar lines recessed.. etc.. plus add gloss/sheen to areas if needed.. less reflective for other areas (glass = shiny & bricks don't).. and on and on.. you have a lot more options like that for textures in a rendering app..(meaning textures that are imported photos -and- textures that are created in sketchup itself).. within sketchup, you don't have any of that type of control..

I realize it is not totally accurate and the alignment may need some adjustment after (Where it gets out of alignment, group those sections and realign the pattern with the next section) Regards, Peter [image: hWv6_roadtexture.png]

Hopefully I will be getting the Beta out next week, guys. Waiting on one VERY importan feature... then I get to ship it!

There is also the problem that a downloaded file might be "blocked". To fix that, right click on it and go to Properties. One the General tab, sometimes there is an option to "unblock" (or is it unlock?) something like that anyhow. Click that and that can also help make it so a file will begin working.

Dave told you what was wrong, either the entire model was made a very long distance from the 0,0,0 of the SU model, or you had some geometry hiding way out far away from the origin. That is one of the only things that will make "clipping" be that bad.