Thanks Tig, Partial selecting would certainly help...but it does seem like a recent problem....Ive been using this function constantly since it was first introduced way back in version? without much trouble.

If you have an object that is not the size you want it to be then edit its group/instance, and use the tapemeasure tool to pick two points across it [typically two vertices] - let's say the VCB reads '~456,7mm', but you want it to be say '18mm'... then simply type 18mm <enter> [as you would for many of the native-tools that will take VCB inputs] and when the dialog asks if you want to scale everything you must answer 'Yes'. If you now pick the same two points the VCB should now read '18mm'.

Have a look at Google Sketchup support. This covers everything that can affect SU performance including "Computer settings" which sounds like what you are after. baz http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36235

Very similar problems have happened in the past, too. See this current issue here for instance.

I am also having this problem in both Sketchup 7 and 8. I can still go to the 3D warehouse but can't figure out how to download a component into my model. When I download it opens it in a new template. It takes so much more time without the use of the components window, what is going on??

Thanks everyone, I did it. Simple really!! I can get one with the design for a Radio Controlled Lancaster which I going to use a CNC hot wire foam cutter for. On my 3rd Lanc now but I want to do my own and not somebody else. Some stuff on my website may be of interest http://www.rckeith.co.uk/lanc.html Keith

@charly2008 said: or with Perpendicular Face Tools by Chris Fullmer. @gaieus said: Or use this plugin: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=17396

OH MY GOD! Now i get this error when i use JPP plugin General Problem: cannot compute the transformation & then SketchUp BugSplat. how I can recover the original file "Win32api.so"? I think that is the cause of this problem ... Help please.. thx!

Another way.http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15784&hilit=screw#p122571 with screw plugin. [image: aIX5_screwchair.png]

Thanks aerilius for the fast answer and the info. I didn't have time to find out more about this topic but tried to export a big Modell into jpg with high resolution and was impressed by the result... Many times faster under win 7 than under lion???

Well, that plugin indeed places those bars to indicate that only what is not covered by the grey bars is going to be exported. I usually use it only in a copy of the file. It is not very easy to use this plugin with renderers. Some of them does not export the exact SU cameras as they are exported from SU itself. Without further tweaking of the camera settings, I have only had success with Twilight so far (but then of course I have not tried every rendering engines yet). Most (or at least many) renderers have panoramic (360d) export options however. They are neat but this usually needs much system memory (to create an acceptably large panorama - note that you usually only see about 1/4 of the image while the rest is "behind you").

Obviously I meant a gluing component that way; placing its axes (i.e. gluing plane) where it should be to glue properly. OP also wrote: @baileyboi said: ...they would then slide along any axis that you hadnt fixed... Translated to SU-lingo, that is typically a glued component which you can move on the plane wherever you want but cannot get it off the plane incidentally.

Welcome and fire away.

The 2d import is located very far above z=0, which doesn't help... BUT the 2d plans were obviously imported from a CAD file [dwg/dxf?] and they contain some rogue geometry that's miles off. If you edit that component [double-click it], then use edit > 'select all' [ctrl+A], and then deselect the visible parts by using select+fence whilst holding shift+ctrl, then press 'delete', the 'unseen' CAD file's rogue geometry that's a zillion miles away [and totally useless to you anyway] is removed... then the whole thing works OK with the wall faces displaying properly etc etc. The extents of the model were so distorted by this issue that SUp couldn't properly calculate the visible geometry, so faces went weird...

OK, I've got my mesh. The original cad contours had 1.3 million edges. Thanks guys for your suggestions... like I said - it's been a great learning experience. TIG - I experimented more with the simply contour plugin - most of the problem were with my contour set - some were ludicrously convoluted whereas most were quite simple. There was no one setting that did a good job with all of them, but with some selective processing of different sets of contours based on complexity, it worked well. Ogan - I tried tgi3d amorph. Haven't had time to explore it all properly (hardly at all actually - there seems a lot too it), but I ran through your suggested method. I had a similar experience here to that described above. Setting a 20m segment length worked for some of the contours, whereas other lengths were required to get anything acceptable for other segments. In other words I had to do a lot of selective processing using different settings to get a good overall result. In the end I used "Edge Tools" to simplify all the curves to within 2m of the original, then went and cleaned up the overlapping contours with reference to the original dwg. At the same time I deleted any extraneous noise. This all took about 1hr, but wasn't too onerous. Then I just used the sandbox tools to create a mesh from contours. The result is shown in the attached. This was definitely the quickest way to process the entire contour set in 1 go and came up with an acceptable result. I think my method posted at the beginning of this thread gave a really nice result, but was too labour intensive for anyone dealing with a lot of lines, but otherwise I'd recommend it. [image: DNNr_mesh.jpg] thanks again for your help with this... Regards Mick

Glad it worked for you. For what it's worth, I didn't find any need to scale up but perhaps you are using more and thus shorter line segments in your curves than did I.

Thanks, but for my specific problem that would only be a partial solution. It would do the spiral portion OK, but my bearings do a loop back through a specific path, that your solution could not handle. It would require a secondary operation to place bearings on that loopback path, and while not a difficult job, the "String Comps" Ruby did it all in a single step, not counting the path definition step I would need to do for both, if only partially for your solution.

The boundingbox plugin is good for that, or measuring any irregular shaped object

Hi Hellnbak, hi folks. Your path is not coplanar. This is why the face twist when following the path. Just ideas.