And indeed it tiles really nicely! Thanks Eric!

@unknownuser said: I think it is not available, but it would be nice to have an option to display a DC attribute in a regular text(label) inside the component. It would be good for a level tags and room\area tags. Already on my list...

@sketchit3d said: ... gosh that was fast! ... That's only because you can model really fast in SU

You're welcome. Generally if you are managing your model correctly clipping really shouldn't be a big problem.

Yes, I get that often too on large geometry imported. Usually it turns out to be part of the geometry that makes it choke. If you select parts of the surface to drape onto you might find roughly where it breaks.

An example http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm

Thanks for the response Gaieus, Yes, sorry about the essay, turned a bit stream of conciousness!! will keep on trying and shove something in the gallery when i am happy with it; on a different model hopefully. Regards Sam

Hi Rodin, See this tutorial/topic too for ideas: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=744 There is this 3D Warehouse model that also works this way: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=2d8578412680a3aec4922817757c112e (place the component on the wall and explode the parent component). There is also this video but that's cheating [flash=640,505:1a1kaeka]http://www.youtube.com/v/ITO-oaowwrU&fs=1&[/flash:1a1kaeka]

Welcome to SCF Ian. There are a few saffers on this forum , I'm an expat from Joey's. Looking forward to the 'greatest show on earth'(Soccer world cup)?

@xrok1 said: i guess you need to plan ahead next time . That's your right to guess.

Gaieus, The Measurement Toolbar is exactly what I was looking for. I wasn't sure what it was called, and it was unchecked. Thanks.

Hi folks. The Space Navigator is a usefull device. I can pan, zoom and orbit with my left hand while I add details with the right hand. Just ideas.

@kman said: Thanks, but the 30 minute/speed modeling competition is a big NO. I would enter it, but I can't speed model at ALL. But other than that, thanks. It does not really matter how far you get in 30 minutes; challenge yourself instead! Save a version of your model at 30 minutes (there is a "Save a copy as..." item under the File menu) and go on modelling. Save a copy at 60 minutes, 90 minutes if you like. Just practise. That whole challenge is really just for fun. Also, why do not enter a real competition?There, according to the rules, will be winners in the "beginner" as well as the "advanced" category. And it really does not matter even if you win or not but at least it would give you some real goal and you could work for some "real project" there. Seriously!

Glad the Scaling up, processing and Scaling down fixed the problem - rememeber it for any operations like 'FollowMe' etc... Some faces must be triangulated to form them - a three sided shape will also face but four points need not all be 'coplanar' and therefore might not 'face'. Some applications like triangulated faces for SUp exports anyway... Many of the EEby.. tools triangulate the faces initially to ensure that they will 'face'. Then there is an option to erase coplanar edges later - this then removes any edges that are not needed to form a face so four or more sides are possible... So when it asks you 'Erase Coplanar Edges' say 'Yes' and the triangulation will be removed wherever it can be...

Why don't you just download and try the Demo version... You can make a search here at the SCF and see some great animations rendered with TWR... (check this example...)

Thanks for the enthusiasm Rocky, @xrok1 said: ... c'mon people, i'm pullin my hair out here. ... but dont' hurt yourself over it. I woundn't even be thinking about it as a possibility if all these other wonderful tools hadn't set my expectations so high. And I'm certainly not the programmer to do it myself. I have not tried "TIG's extrusion toolset" but your phrasing suggests it's another one that does not quite go this far. I'm just trying to work out a design idea. I have manual ways to try it out in rough form. If I get hooked on one that takes some tedium to execute in finer detail, I'll just put on some music and get into a "Tower of Hanoi" rhythm. It looks from the PhotoShop screen shot like Adobe calls that particular morph "Fisheye". I had thought about using that term myself, but I didn't because I thought it would unnecessarily predispose people to thinking in terms of 2D-like solutions. I like your notion of "Shape Bender on steroids". SB is still at Beta 0.55, so I might imagine this for SB 2.0. Where SB 0.55 has a single Guide line and single Target Curve, I could see SB 2.0 allowing two or four (or N?) matching Guide Lines and Target Curves. (1. Select Source Group. 2. Activate SB. 3. Select single lines or group of N lines. 4. Select Target Curve or group of N Target Curves. -- How do you specify the order of the lines and the Target Curves? Like most such development projects, if you can design a UI that lets the user intuitively and unambiguously specify their intent, you're part way there.) That would be a lot like being able to apply SB or FredoScale to the guide points of SFFD. From a programming standpoint, extending SB to multiple Guide Lines seems like a smaller conceptual jump than extending FS to be able to move SFFD's guide points, but maybe "all" it would take is getting FS to handle nested groups. Maybe extending SFFD to align guide points to a target curve, like SB, would be the easiest of all. But of course, I don't know the internals of any of these, nor how much interest any of these developers has in going out into the ionosphere here. Comparing relative "ease" of these tasks is irrelevant when there are three different volunteers involved. (I can see it now, this year's Ruby extension challenge, submissions due 12/31. ) Thanks again for jumping in, Rocky. At least I know I'm not missing the obvious (as I too often do). August

See the ones I linked above.

Hi folks. There was a similar discussion in the SketchUp Help Group. Here is what I answered: Make sure that the videocard of your Mac is able to use the optimum resolution of the 30" display that is of 2560 x 1600 pixels as per this page on Apple Web site: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP79 Normally, the manual that comes with your Mac shall have its technical specifications and these shall give you the maximum resolution of your graphic card. Since you don't give the screen size of your Macbook Pro, it is difficult to guess what one it is but I suppose it is 17" since you can drive a 23" cinema display and you gave the video card make and model number as well as the amount of VRAM (video RAM). This page: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP546 State that the NVidia 9600M video card with 512Megs VRAM can support the resolution of the 30" cinema display combined with the 1920x1200 native resolution of the built in display. See this paragraph: ----- START OF EXCEPRT ----- "Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors" ----- END OF EXCERPT ----- All this info comes from the Support section of the Apple Web site. Just ideas.

First SU > DXF, then DXF2IGS. I found this, but don't use this. I understand that there is no fee for a working demo, but you must register. You can try it at your own risk.