Where I am currently at, .... Okay, I did a small model house with working drawings as my first actual "building permit" set. I jumped into a larger two story house and got to making groups, layers, and the model... it got big fast and out of control...the outliner list was nearly a full page high, groups groping groups...and things getting buried in one layer that were nested inside another group... it got CRAZY... so what I did was create a MASTER file, that I only drop in completed, organized, properly understood layering, files... paste in place works great. I took the crazy file, made individual models for: foundation, walls, roofs etc. got them organized, then "paste in place" them into the MASTER file... a lotta work but so much easier than trying to figure out where things got buried. If this seems too crazy... it is the only sane work around I could come up with given my understandings to date.. if there are any other suggestions, I am open to ideas. Oh, I find the command E or hide function in Outliner REALLY dangerous, things can get hidden never to be found again, and when the outliner gets big, it gets really hard to control, groups, when clicked, go off into wild fits of expansion, seems like there could be a "find the group you just clicked" game that should be looked into for potential "things to do when you have lots of time on your hands" thanks, aloha red

Yes, I saw your post in the plugin topic. Glad it works.

Hi sorry, I got it. You used the stretch tool on only one component first.

Thanks, ThomThom: Your reply is sufficient. I should have realized the materials thing being related to the default component geometry. (Apparently, all 3d programs insert a default object?) It seems that the validity check was automatic when there was a problem earlier on in my modeling "career". Not that it can't happen again, and again, and again.

Yep, the problem was unwelded vertices, thx again!

I'm sorry to say but upfront Sketchup can't do that, maybe with help form available plugins yes. Ask some Ruby Guru's or search the web, they might cost a few bucks but that better than paying for a BIM program that costs hundreds of dollars. If you don't want to go through all of that work then go ahead and use the BIM software. I'm just saying all the knowledge I have right now, I know a lot about SU but I'm barely working with it for a year now. But the point is SU is great for beginners because its easy (five year olds really can use it) and is a great intro to 3-D modeling.

Thanks Gaieus, I do what you say (what I don't know before!). But the results isn't good. No grey cubes in check list!! I must find an other way!

There's 'Time Track' on Smustard's site http://www.smustard.com/ not sure if there's one floating around here?

You can modify a 'cross-section' Line-set's 'profile' in several ways without scripts [note that it can't be a 'Curve' as that selects as 'one' thing, so Explode Curves - there's always a plugin Weld.rb to remake a Curve if needed ]. As well as using Move on preselected Lines etc, you can use Move with NO selection and then pick a Vertex and change its location, or with one Line highlighting to relocate that - it will stretch connected Lines to suit. You can also use Scale on preselected parts to change their 'form' - again connected Lines will adjust to suit. You can Select in several ways adding to a Selection with Ctrl, toggle membership with Shift or removing from selection with Ctrl+Shift. Also picking by fence is very useful - making it by right>left drag selects all crossed or included, whereas a fence made left>right only things wholly included in it. You can also turn Faces off temporarily by going into Wireframe-mode so then accidental face-selection is avoided... Move+Ctrl will copy a 'profile' that you can then relocate at the next 'node' as needed, and then perhaps Scale that in one or more axes to suit, perhaps tweaking a Vertex or two with Move, or perhaps Erasing a Line and redrawing it... Hand stitching between Vertices to triangulate forms and auto-make Faces Make use of the shortcut keys these will speed you work considerably [add your own extra ones as needed in Preferences]... Group geometry into sensible sub-sets as components etc and with symmetrical parts use mirrored copies where appropriate so you only make one half and the other auto-generates to match...

@gaieus said: When you buy a scripőt at Smustard, you are sent a link where you can always re-download the purchased plugin. IMO those plugins should just be all right copied from the old plugins folder however. Note that some require other scripts to run as well as many comes with other files placed in a subfolder under plugins. You need to copy those subfolders, too. Thank you. I forgot about that. Its gonna take some digging back in time to try to find that email though. Hopefully I can find it with my search. I will try to see if I can figure out what other scripts i'm missing on the other ones. Thank you gaieus. If I can't find the other scripts I will just redownload them.

Yup, a big welcome to the forum. And don't be shy about posting! Obviously there is lots of useful info here, but if you just can't find an answer to what you need, there are lots of great people around who like to help, Chris

I found UV toolkit, and my problem is GONE! [image: gRow_Text.Prob..jpg]

Move the imported images to form an approximation to the correct orthogonal views, all related together. Then you can check they are all the same size so that similar places on each align - scale an image slightly as needed, or make adjustments in the modeling to suit... Now start drawing edges that outline the main forms - there are tools like weld to make them curves and extrudeEdgesByRails etc... BUT you can make the 'profiles' and then 'stitch' it together by hand and adjust the forms as you go. Make it out of manageable sized pieces [sub-groups/components etc]. Remember that a car is pretty much symmetrical so it quite easy to model one half of it as a component and copy and scale -1 the two halves together, so then changing one half alters the other one automatically... This means you're not trying to make the two sides the same all of the time... There are some good car tutorials out there - try this for a start... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlDxc2wyIhY&feature=related

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you try 7.1

Magnificent model of ancient Inca city, and cheers for dedicated effort to create it! Having hiked there in '83, your model exposes much more than what we could see at that time. The mountainous terrain is so much a part of Macchu Picchu that it really adds to the SU complexity and challenge.

Thanks for reply Jim. As I see, SU is not good for cnc bench documentation. mark

i put the link in my post: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=11224&hilit=+align_tool+ not much of a description there but if you play a little it work quite well.

Look for the round corner plugin, if your looking for a good beveler.

You can of course assign a texture image to a layer (see attached below - make sure to scale it properly in the material editor, too) but be prepared that you won't get too far with it as you cannot position/orient the texture in any way and it will be something like when you paint groups/components with it. [image: 3iCF_MaterialToLayer.png]

Thank you for your help everyone but no one's suggestion works. I am desperate to figure this out. I can right click on most textures and get the edit menu (scale, move...). But the one I need to move and/or scale I get other options like fredoscale, but no edit texture. I tried in the material editor. I've exploded. I turned on hidden geometry. I've tried everything I can think of and I am not new to SketchUp I actually took graduate classes in it. What are my other options? The texture is on an object that I push/pulled, so it is not just a flat object. I just need to move or scale it. do yo see in the screen capture how it is not aligned with the geometry? I need to align it.