Ben I thought I had the issue with SP sorted - obviously not it has many many files and I thought that by adjusting that one we'd sort out the issue - I'll have another look - so at the moment it's SP OT 2Dfillet [or Mirror] for some of you till I get to the bottom of this...

You might try something like Tiles 042 at arroway http://www.arroway-textures.com/en/products/tiles-1/contents You'll find some free low res textures at the bottom. If you're ever in the market for something high quality and high res. I highly recommend buying the arroway packs. They come in super high resolutions (~6,000x6,000 pixels many times), are high quality, and have good sample sizes (20x20 tiles instead of 2x2). -Brodie

Hi Sonny, Well, TIG was faster but seems to conclude the same: first of all (to check if it is a graphic card/driver issue - which I am pretty sure is), turn off hardware acceleration under Window > Preferences > Open GL. If it "seems" to solve the problem, I would first try to update the video driver. These cards generally come shipped with some old drivers installed and a driver update usually helps.

I've also noticed this problem and find it a bit frustrating. I like to use Scene Tabs at the earlier stages in my project (when the number of scenes I've got fit nicely across the top of my screen (I work on a laptop). At a later stage in my project I've got too many scenes to fit across the top of my screen nicely (I do an interior view of every room as well as the usual plans, sections and elevations), so I'd rather use the Scenes Manager and switch off the (by now messy) scene tabs. It would be nice if this setting could be saved with the file, but, as we've seen, they come back every time the file is opened again. Not the end of the world, but maybe could be 'fixed' in a future update. Thanks for the shortcut key suggestion. Good workaround.

Hi Jet, You're example worked fine for me. Perhaps try keeping your camera in perspective mode instead of parallel projection. It's easier to see where your control lines are positioned. Some other things to consider with Shape Bender - Make sure the control line is not touching the geometry to be bent. The position of the control line to the geometry is relative to the position of the bent shape to the curve. (if your control line is 5mm from the geometry to be bent, the final bent geometry will be 5mm from the curve.) The segments in the curve will be relative to how many slices the plugin uses to bend the geometry. More segments in the curve will result in a smoother bent geometry, but will process slower. The plugin recognizes the direction which the control line is drawn. Using the down arrow will reverse the direction of the control line and flip the start end points and the resulting alignment. 5 The up arrow will toggle which side of the curve the bent shape adheres to. Be mindful when bending shapes with curves or extra verticies in them that the plugin will have to add triangles to your bent mesh to stitch those faces together. The results can often mess up the shading. Always clean your mesh well (ThomThom's Cleanup script) before processing and make sure your segment count of each curve is reasonable. The bent shape is also relative to the axis. More predictable results occur when you keep things on the zero Z plane. Not raised into the air.

Just guessing, but I suppose this is where a solid modeler would shine, as a sphere would be a single entity, instead of hundreds of entities.

Although I have two different plugins to make exploded views, I do them manually. I find I need to tweak the positions of the parts enough anyway that there's no benefit to having a plugin move the parts in the first place. Here's another example of an exploded view. As you can see, some of the sub-assemblies don't need to be exploded and some things need to be only partially exploded to show the required detail. [image: 5943322591_db7155fdb9_z.jpg]

Another one... http://www.drawmetal.com/

@rock1 said: when will the training sessions start? will the users get pdf files [ebooks kinda] for lessons? What is the fees of these courses? Good questions. I need to advanced my skills faster than just the self teaching I've been doing and would sincerely like to be a student of this group, which I consider some of the best in the world. But of course, the devil is in the details.

The SectionCutFace faces are placed on the Section-Cut's plane [actually they are inset from the cut-plane by a tiny amount, this is so that they are kept within the visible-objects set - otherwise if they were exactly on the cut-plane then they'd have a 50:50 chance of being considered by Sketchup as being behind the cut-plane and not show up]. They might appear to 'z-fight' with the Section-Cut itself... BUT since you are almost certainly going to have the Section-Cuts switched to 'hidden' in any render etc then this is not likely to be an issue. Dave simply showed all of the separated Section-Cuts 'visible' within their groups so you could see how it would restrict their extents... The group containing the SectionCutFace faces is always made in the same entities 'context' as the Section-Cut itself; as you must have selected that to activate the tool in the first place, and you can't select it without being in its 'context'. and the entities 'context' that will contain this group of faces is set to be the 'active_entities'.

If materials are not important and you are using Windows, you could try the mesh importer from the Plugin Store. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@unknownuser said: No preview there "you also have the option of using our online photometric viewer to see key information about each fixture."

Thanks aadb. I didn't think about a bump for each tile. I'll give that a go. Cheers, Steve.

Here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewforum.php?f=12

@alan fraser said: ....Not forgetting, of course, that you can get a perfectly satisfactory result simply by using image mapping. In this V7 file the moulding has been taken right around a nominal 12' x 12' wall. The total number of faces for the entire thing is 111...as opposed to the 70,000 in the original single length. Very nice Alan,I would not have thought to make the beaded image with a thick, blurred circle. It even looks OK at an angle to the viewer.

What's a hnad Dave?

thanks tig! i already owe you one for your free rotate tool. making my dreams come true.

That same thing happened to me. There was no way to open the file and I asked someone here in the forum (Gaieus) for help. I uploaded the file, he opened it without problems and kindly sent me back a copy (with some recomendations to have a cleaner model ). I still don't know what was the cause, but you could try...

Hi folks. The SHIFT - Double click idea is in the help but in pieces. In one part it is written that the SHIFT key act as toggle to add/subtract from the selection. In another part it is written that a double click on a face will select the face and its perimeter. In my brain, one idea germinated that I should try both to see if I could add/subtract a face and its perimeter. So, I experimented and discovered that it works You can experiment with all sort of combinations like SHIFT - Window select to add/subtract using a selection window. keep i mind that Window Select left to right is different from right to left. You can also use triple clicks with SHIFT and with CTRL too. This adds a lot of possibilities when selecting geometries. Another trick that may help if you have something really tough to select and are afraid of loosing the selection if you inadvertently click or choose a tool (this kind of mishap happens) is to create a group with an easily selected part of what you want to select. Then, select some more stuff, cut it and paste it in place inside the newly created group. Repeat untill everything you want is inside the group. Then, go inside the group and do what you want to do. Explode the group when done. If all you want is to delete all these objects, simply delete the group. Just ideas.