Bummer. Thought so. I've figured out to wait until I'm sure I'm ready to do it. Thanks Gaieus. I do appreciate all of the expertise I've found here. Lynn

Yes, that's the first thing I did, with the same outcome. It's why I posted it, was wondering if I was the only one or not. Maybe I had two bad downloads, I'll give it a third try.

Sektchup uses the SKM file format for its materials. to bring in a JPEG go to File>Import>jpeg image. Click the "Use as Texture" button. Attach it to the surface you want, scale it, rotate it, etc until it's where it needs to be. Then in your Materials Palette if you click on the little house icon, "Materials Used in Model" you will see it there. From there you can drag it to the Appropriate Materials library folder for future use as well. You know you're in trouble when you got me giving HOW TO info, but I was at hand and that is how I do it. Good luck. D

Thanks Joarek, I'd suggest that you start a separate topic asking for help on modeling the bike's tank and any other parts you are having trouble with. When you solve each problem in a separate topic you can the update this post and continue to develop your bike so we can see progress. BTW, this is coincidental. While having lunch yesterday with my wife and Jock (dog) on the terrace of the Gourmet Cafe in our town we met two women from Norway. Jock made friends first and introduced us all. They were two teachers on holiday. Our planned one hour Sunday lunch turned into 3 hours with quite a few beers. We talked about Norway and Ireland and how life is lived in each country. I thought beer and cigs were expensive in Ireland! It looks like they are much more expensive in Norway Mike

Well I do have a lot of plugins, I think just downloading random ones is becoming a habit. But I say as long as the ones you need are at close at hand its ok. I recommended an idea a while back when I suggested Sketchup in full screen, for those of you who don't remember here it is: Basically when you put SU in full screen all you see is the modeling window. But if you move your mouse to the side your tools slide out. So it was possible to have a normal window full of tools (most of them are obviously from plugins) and still have plenty of work space. Now the idea was ahem AWESOME in my opinion but it aroused not many people to their delight. But back to the topic - the only monster it becomes is the monster that a computer might not be able to handle. Even though I'm trying my hardest to reduce all the junk that came from my habit, I still can't get it to the point like it was. But don't worry I'm getting close. So if you don't mind having over 100 files in your plugins folder, then go ruby crazy. It took my modeling to the next level to say the least.

It worked, thanks for all the help it is much appreciated!

@rcampo said: I have tried to use the PageExlim plugin from Smustard, and cannot get it to show up in my Sketchup. Im using Skp 8 with Mac OSX v1.6.4. Anyone else have this issue? Is it in the Plugins folder? To check the correct path try this in the Ruby Console: Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins") It is found under the 'View' menu [NOT 'Plugins'!]: have you looked in the right place?

Awesome guys! Thank you for the warm welcome, wow there is a TON of cool stuff here!

People really seem to have problems printing directly from SU. Here is a quick fix solution: Export all your scenes as images, then print them individually. I hope this solves your problems until you get a real answer!

Fair enough and welcome to the SCF. Mike

So... I think I have it now. here is a picture of it and how it relates (in principle) to what I am doing in case you are curious... The octagonal thing holds the 12" diameter telescope mirror. [image: 9DRX_rockerbase.jpg] First, I drew the outline and used the offset tool to draw 1/2" in (on a separate copy) I drew the first large hole bottom dead center. then I measured 3 degrees to the left and estimated the center, trial and error. Then I did the same thing on the right for the remaining holes. The crescent attaches to the mirror box with four 5/16" bolts. The box, the crescent and the tine on the far side rotate in altitude about the hole in the tine. The crescent rests on two teflon bearings. The whole thing rotates about the azimuth in the center of the base plate. I gotta say, that after making the crescent, (took perhaps 3 hours) the rest of it went together in about 45 minutes from scratch. Did I ever mention how much I love Sketchup?

A nice trick I like to use is the following, but mathematically not exactly the same as the above options. It's very fast though, and versatile. Activate pencil tool Hold mouse over rectangle (or any other desired face) until it says 'on face' from then on, hold shift. draw any desired shape, aligning with points or lines already in the drawing (NB: aligning with a line is not the same thing as aligning with a point!) after finishing the shape, release shift.

Hi folks. If you would like to learn the basic tools of SU first to appreciate the talent of Ruby scripts writer, see this SU file for ideas. Dice.skp

...or you could just texture the face with a semi-transparent png...

I know, I'm pretty much the most humble person I know.

@chris fullmer said: We'll have to wait and see what 8.0 brings. Hopefully more greatness. I'm personally hoping for even more Ruby improvements for the ruby developers and more UI improvements. And greater ability to deal with large models would be cool too. Ditto! Developing SketchUp as a platform is something the users will benefit much greater of in the long run. That and sort out current bugs and UI annoyances. (Yes, I'm looking at you Toolbar Chaos and Shadow Bug)

Answered your email. Please, let me know if you still cannot see the search box. [image: sx3h_search.png]

V-Ray doesn't support distorted textures. To work around, make the texture unique. (some render engines does this automatically.)