@tig said: [ensure you haven't got adjusted axes by right-click over them and 'reset'] Oh crap !!!! That never occurred to me. That's because I are a noobie. Couldn't figure out how I could have moved and rotated the entire model "accidentally". Of course I also can't figure out how I managed to "accidentally" adjust the axes, but doing that would have been much easier to do. I normally turn off the axes unless I need them for something, guess I should stop doing that so I could maybe notice sooner if I screw them up again somehow. I was anticipating having to redo all the changes, and all it took was two clicks of my mouse Anyhow, that fixed it, all better now (picture here a smiley doing cartwheels, and fireworks, and smiling till his face splits in two). Thanks a million (the check is in the mail, really!) I know, way too many smilie thingies , but hey, they're cheap and you've made me so happy with your words of wisdom.

@anirudh said: jim, its a part of my research. i am trying to understand other gestures that could help sketchup in future. thats why. center could be 0,0 or arbitrary . I want to be able to draw using keyboard shortcuts. any ideas? learn ruby then. i don't know it but i'm pretty sure what you're trying to accomplish should be relatively easy to do.. that said, what you're trying to accomplish (at least the examples in the op) is very easy with sketchup itself but hey, i won't try to talk you out of your quest

dave its a part of my research. i am trying to understand other gesture that could help sketchup in future. thats why. center could be 0,0 or arbitrary

Thank you both. Gilles, as soon as I saw your image I knew what I was doing wrong. Should have thought of it myself. That's what lack of sleep will do. Thanks again. Dave

@gmyhilo said: Can you use SketchUp for mechanical work? Yes, as far as modeling goes. You need SketchUp Pro for presentation (production) drawings. @unknownuser said: I am in a aircraft club and wish to have a CAD program our club can use and share ideas with. Can we save drawings in a comnon place like our web site? This is a function of your OS and networking setup. @unknownuser said: Is Sketch up suited to collaboration by members of varying levels of CAD skill? Sketchup is not a true multi-user platform. It can be used by those with varying levels of CAD skills. @unknownuser said: Will it cost much? Our club runs on dues, so we have very limited financial resources. Sketchup Free is free. @unknownuser said: Please suggest Sketch up features, or tutorials related to each of the above question? Youtube is a excellent source of tutorials. The problem isn't getting help, it is in understanding, and using it. There is no single CAD application that can do everything WELL. There are many other considerations then posted above for building a comprehensive, multi-user Cad system. There are few CAD programs can provide all functions in one application. If your budget is restrictive, IMO Sketchup is a good place to start.

@unknownuser said: I'm still not aware of any programs on the market today that do exactly what SketchUp does faster by leveraging multiprocessing or 64-bit technologies, though there are certainly other kinds of tools (specifically rendering apps) that can use those technologies to improve performance. I think you make a really important point, though. Learning how to use a tool properly and effectively is the key to using it well. And ultimately, to being able to push its boundaries. john . haha, John, you must be a masochist. If SketchUp is only competing with companies who do "exactly what SketchUp does" then I don't think you have any competition at all, depending on how you define "what SketchUp does." And I'm not sure that he was necessarily talking about "faster," there are other aspects to performance and workflow. But instead of drudging up the old argument, let me see if I've learned anything. Moving SU 64 bit would allow it to hold more polygons (presumably this is why 3ds Max has both 32 and 64 bit versions) and may help in a SU to Rendering workflow. However it takes a lot of polygons to reach the 3+ gig limit of 32 bit and long before you hit that, you'll run into other bottlenecks (am I on the right track here?). As for Multiprocessing support, it just doesn't work with OpenGL so someone will need to invent a new OpenGLmulticore before it does anything at all for SU. How's that? Just to derail things a bit, realtime rendering is all the rage right now. What if the SU viewport was seen as a VERY simply realtime rendering which used the CPU to actually render the scene as you moved around? Meh, probably a dumb idea. Maybe every time you moved around there would be a bit of lag as it had to rerender, I don't know. -Brodie

Thanks again. I set max texture size and was able to use an image of 4000 pixels with no problems. Using SU8.

My master's degree will be in Urban Planning with a specialization in urban design. I live and want to stay in Buffalo - a great city with no job growth hopefully those who hold public office can get their acts together and realize that some peoples' hopes of returning to a great industrial manufacturing city are dreams we would be chasing forever and never achieving.

This is a very easy tool to use. Just select a face and do the inputs. The face can be any number of sides. Not sure where I got this plugin, but you should be able to Google and find it on some site. Copyright 2004, Rick Wilson Name : helix.rb 1.0

Ah, then there is those pesky hidden layers... Glad you figured it out.

perfect! thanks

Thanks, Pilou! Now it really gets me thinking about building a whole thing that way - something like this could be a good start [image: EZFd_col07.jpg]

the duhdu thread is here One of the best informative place

Well, of course you can do this in SketchUp - the only question remains the same however; if it is only for a 2D visualization, Google Maps and Google Earth itself would be pretty "enough". You can draw all inds of polygons there (with exact co-ordinates entered if needed), colour overlays etc. There could be some problems with imported terrain in SU if you are working in such a big scale (many acres). The ideal workflow is to import as little as ultimately necessary as SU has an orthogonal projection while GE has a spherical one and after a while (longer scale) the deviation between the two can be big already. But eventually you may also wish to see those buildings in 3D so for that, SU would indeed be needed (and a good tool).

Why not post in the Coolean thread? It's more practical for the conceptor of the plugin to answer you

Good point. I have a keyboard shortcut for your PurgeAll and use it frequently. I should have mentioned it but I wrote that at 4:25 am before my coffee was even brewed.

that makes sense... looking forward to these updates! would love to have them in place!

Doing as he suggested restored only about 10% of my thumbnails. For whatever reason the only ones it did restore were for models that I had not yet opened with SU. So I uninstalled/reinstalled SU. No change. Thoroughly uninstalled with Revo Uninstaller, reinstalled. Nada. Finally, in desperation, I tried the Mystic Thumbnails mentioned in the post you referred me to. I now have thumbnails And I can even make them a bit larger, although they tend to get a little fuzzy when you do that. While I like Mystic Thumbnails and would probably use it anyway, it's still just a workaround for a problem that is still on my computer, and I don't like workarounds. Oh well, it's about time for me to replace my C drive again, I do that once or twice a year to get a fresh start. A hassle, but it's worth it. Has anyone posted a warning anywhere in the forums about the troubles they might encounter if they attempt to install a second version of SU on the same computer? At least they would be aware of the potential difficulties and could make an informed decision. I only installed SU 7 because I wanted to get around problems with the Zorro plugin. It's a really useful tool, at least to me, but definitely not worth all the trouble I've gone through. I'll just install SU 7 on another computer and use Zorro there, along with any other plugins I may need that seem to have a problem with SU 8. Maybe Google will get of it's butt and fix the problems with SU 8 someday. It's only fair, considering how much I paid for it By the way, what about the second part of my original question, any insights there? Just one more quick question, is there a way to set things up so that I'm not notified when I post a reply to my own topic, just when someone else posts a reply? Thanks, bye

Victoria, This may be of interest - SpiralStairCaseBuilder http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=289&t=29484 .................... A DC to help you model spiral staircases and handrailing. Whole staircase can be modelled in minutes. Includes PDF Tutorial with some Top Tips ..................... Hope this helps Regards Howard Leslie