Hi Kris Standard beachfront wood pile systems use 12" diam driven wood pilings about 12'to 16' max o.c. with 12x12 pile caps. The pile caps are connected to the pilings with drift pins and the system is cross braced both ways in all bays with 2x12 members. Seismic and wind loads are transmitted to this platform per engineering calcs and location requirements. The attached photo of one of my projects on the beach in Malibu should help fill in the blanks. Feel free to PM me if you need any more info. Cheers Dave [image: usWc_stader-3AA.png]

There's a wealth of built-in inference/snaps and modifier-keys too. BUT these are not 'scriptable' or editable. Shortcut keys to common tools are very powerful and in many ways better thanA CAD - in SUp a single 'L' >>> Line, versus 'L+space/enter' for ACAD or 'LL' for Revit. You need to practice using them in varying circumstances - ans get to understand that SUp is not ACAD - it's different, and more suited to 3d modeling work. The pulled out direction line is colored RGB if on axis and holding Shift locks it, or the arrow keys pre-lock directionality to the axes. A magenta line is parallel or perpendicular to a line over which you have just hovered. An arc/circle center is the snap if you have just hovered over one. Picked points assume vertex, on-edge, edge-middle etc depending what's under the cursor. Modifier keys used with other tools change them to copy [M+Ctrl or R+Ctrl]; auto-fold [M+alt]; or hide lines [E+shift] or soften [E+Ctrl] etc etc...

Welcome and enjoy!

Hi folks. See this SU file for ideas. Simultaneous views of a model.skp

hi, before reinventing the wheel, have you had a look at Tigs http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=30846 or sdmitch's http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=40172, and I think there's others [in phlatboyz?]... If they don't do what you need they may be modifiable by you or the author or a collaboration [PM the authors] It's a good way to learn the 'ways' of SU ruby... although it still eludes me... john

Hi I've been testing the new suSolid.rb http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=41289&p=367657&hilit=suSolid#p365992 and I find it's really powerful and fast. there's are free and low cost versions. I've only used the full version on a mac with SU-pro- but it's worth a play... john

Hi Montnegre and welcome! I think this is what you need: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=16038

I was actualling going to suggest Flash...but you're already aware of it; and it's not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of drafting applications. Unfortunately, I can't think of any others; and thinking about how such programs function, such a feature would be mostly hugely counter-productive. I don't imagine any CAD programs would oblige; and sticking with the more artistic packages, Illustrator and CorelDraw certainly won't do it either. I'm not sure of some of the 'B list' like Serif Draw.

@calypsoart said: I'm working on a project that has a lot of metal and truss work. I may have put in too much detail, and the model is bogging down my machine. I'd like to reduce the load. I was wondering if there is some way to remove all instances of a component. E.g I put in rivets for the joints in the steelwork. In reality, these are invisible for most views unless zoomed way in. I could remove these rivets/components and it would not be noticed. Is there a plugin that might remove or allow me to swap out a complex component for a simpler one? Component swapping is built-in - no need for a plugin. Select the component and right-click. Select Save As... from the menu and save it a place where you'll find it (like where your scene is?). Then you could "rebuild" your rivet to a single line (that could even be invisible), or some simple shape. If/when you later find out that you need the rivets again, you just select one of the stand-ins, right-click and Reload... it. But before you do, save your simple rivet as Rivet_simple or something, so it is easy to get it back later. Very convenient when building complex scenes - like with hundreds of 3D trees, cars, rivets or similar.. Just model very simple components and Reload more complex versions later when needed.

As I see, over the help forums, they also tried - just the file size did not turn out. First of all, purge everything not used in the file. Go to window > model info > statistics and at the bottom... If this is not enough, best is to start with image textures. Make sure that if you used photos as textures, right click on the face and make texture unique. Here is a plugin that can help doing on the whole file. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=41441 If you already exported to kmz, rename the file extension to zip and open it. Inside, there will be some folder with the images. If there are some really big ones, edit them and make them smaller and also compress. Here is a plugin that can do it in your model, too. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=40720 A "normal" model for GE (to stream efficiently on the end user's computer) should not be more than 1 Mb. Maybe 2 Mb if otherwise really complex. Especially if there are many 3D buildings in the neighbourhood already.

Hi All I used TIG's explanation and it worked a treat The cut marks didn't line up perfect so I measured the pieces together and then taped them together Thanks again Dean

Ask for extension. No harm trying

Thank you.

I had issues with atdi as you know, I also had a problem with mapmart, you click the hidem link (any)then the begin search button at least in my case the next page doesn't load, even after a few minutes it never loaded. Well finally after scrolling down the page I found a button that worked then I jumped through some hoops (more hoops than Geocomm had). I am done with hoop jumping for now. I had the best luck with Geocomm. I found another piece of info on sketchup's help page, that said if you import any of the .ddf files extracted from a sdtm compressed file they all will load, looks like about 15-20 files all together, why? I don't have a clue. I did download 3dem but didn't install it yet. I clicked Alan's link and found a 7.5 DEM, thanks Alan, and thank all of you for your replies!

Jean Lemire - thank you very much ! - I've got it now. It seems to me that it takes a while to go from making a rather mechanical usage of the tool to creatively thinking how to do certain things - I'm not by any means there, but I feel I've got a sense for what is needed to be creative and efficient with the tool - now back to practicing and asking more questions .

Hi folks. On my Macs, I position the Large Tool Set on the left with all other tool palettes that I can get from the View Menu. For other tools or palettes, like the Layers's one, I right click on the tool area on top to access the whole tool collection and the I customise it by dragging what is needed there. Of course, space being limited in this upper area, using floating tool palettes, that can be positionned around the modeling window is a viable solution. Notice that the Mac Large Tool Set is more complete than the PC Large Tool Set. On PC, I disable this and enable everything else except the Dimension Window (old VCB) that I leave attached to the right end of the Status Bar. Just ideas.

Thanks Gai, I will give it a shot

You can add a gradient fill in illustrator.

Awesome, thanks guys, really appreciate it.

Thanks