Glad it helped. There might be more there that you'll find useful, too. Feel free to look around.

Yes, you need an animation plugin...here are two that I know of Free: Proper Animation http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=74003#p74003 Commercial: Keyframe Animation

There is a command-line utility for "scrambling" a Ruby source file, which outputs an .rbs of the same name. http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/utilities.html C;\Plugins>scrambler SketchUp Ruby Scrambler version 1.0 Usage -- Scrambler file1.rb [file2.rb] ... Creates file1.rbs [file2.rbs] ... For obvious reasons, an unscrambler isn't available.

I've used RAM disks a long time ago when HD's were really slow. They are great but the main caveat is saving contents to the HD for posterity. It used to be a manual effort when it was convenient, but I sometimes forgot, or there was a power glitch that rebooted the system. But perhaps today there are "autosaves" that will copy the files to HD in background. I'm not current in that because I don't use RAM drives; not enough memory and my SSD is fast enough.

You might have some success using the UVTools Beta by Whaat (Dale Martens). You can find it here It creates a proxy obj bridge between SU and mapping software. I tend to use it with Ultimate Unwrap, because that's specifically concerned with mapping, so pretty light on its feet; but Dale claims that the process is also compatible with Max. It enables you to go pretty much instantly between SU and the mapping software, creating something as close as we're ever likely to get in the way of a mapping studio within SU itself. I've been using it to develop a range of fully mapped figures. They're modelled in SU (for low-polyness), mapped in UU3D, then any small, subsequent tweaks are applied using the UVTools plugin. [image: tQQ9_man.jpg]

@jean lemire said: Arcs, circle and polygon can also be divided. Yes, indeed.

You need to use Sketchup.load to load .rbs files. http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/sketchup.html#load

Thanks again. I'll be a regular as I am motivated to learn.

Once inside you can use the tool with the Eyes to "Look Around" while the camera stays in place. You just click and drag to look around.

SketchUp v8 is a new install, not a upgrade to v7, so you start with a blank slate.

SU8 free doesn't have an option for importing CAD files. You need pro for that. You could try the plugin here, though.

Thanks for the comments guys. I've learned an important lesson creating this model. I always thought components were the holy grail for a light model, turns out I was wrong... The model had way to many faces and edges because of all the components. I replaced most components with 1 single face with a .png texture. The kb's increased a little bit but the amount of faces and edges dropped drastically.

Oh $&*T!!!! What doesn't work is the preview in the SCF browser. C'mon Csaba, sort it out!

Well I found some (little) time to play a bit with JPP and ........ After about 10 minutes playing with JPP, I did a simulated fuselage nose skin section, and then pulled the outer surface in an inch (thicken) in under 10 seconds. Took me over an hour to do that before using the copy, scale in 3 axis, join the edges, then tweak it into shape. Sticking a door into the fuselage (which is 3 inches thick with a window) took a minute to draw it in and 15 seconds to make the door group, versus over an hour before to get that same shape, but with many minor errors. This has got to be one of the 10 all time best plug-ins for SU, and really should be an integral part of the next SU version release. Now I gotta spend some time with it, and tweak some defaults as described in the thread and documentation, which incidentally is also the best written for a plug-in I've seen yet. Now my biggest problem is whether I go back and redo many of my airplane models and rid them of my manual error ridden thick panels. In one major case that's a 90% redraw, but probably worth it. Fredo.... THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

@mistro11 said: What do you call this sort of interactive presentation and how is it done? I would love to do that. That's an interactive 360 degree panorama rendered in Thea Render with a spherical camera (2:1 aspect ratio). Then processed on the web with a flash panorama player (the image is still the rendered jpg only the engine that rotates it is flash). You can achieve similar results (to begin with) with a plugin called CubicPanoOut which creates 6 images of a cube around the camera. Then stitch them together with GoCubic into a QuickTime Virtual Panorama for instance.

I would subdivide it with Subdivide and smooth and then erase diagonals

@mistro11 said: This is off topic but I just have to say your name "humpmetwice" made me LOL! I'm new here and your name expresses my feelings every time I discover a new cool plugin. OK back on topic......... Long story on how I got that name but it stuck and I went with it, plus you don't have to worry about it already being used by someone else!

Hi Patrick You will really enjoy participating in this community. Welcome.

Adding new toolbars does that sometimes. Reposition them and save the new positions.