@solo said: group that has a defined path (bezier, etc) The camera can be set to either look ahead, or follow an object. controlled with a time scale, allowing some animations a delayed start, acceleration, camera can follow an object for a determined period then be set to follow another of just look ahead. Good idea Having the ability to export to .swf would allow for simple interactive animations with embedded 'scene triggers'. Taking a regular scene based SU animation but adding extra elements that involve the end user the ability to interact at pre defined points. The user could toggle through various 'triggers' when the animation reaches certain junctions. This would pause the animation and allow pre defined extra features to be enabled. So, for example, a room could be viewed with - different furnishings; different colour schemes; different times of the day; or a mechanical component could be viewed - exploded outwards; cross sections; This makes sense to me but i'm afraid i may be a little deluded

Last night I converted about 300 groups into 1 component in 1 swell foop. It also showed I had about a dozen almost identical groups with a common very minor change in them, that did not convert, as expected, but they would be hard to find otherwise. I did this by selecting ALL, and converting. After the conversion to a single comp, only those unique groups that did not convert remained highlighted. Note: it is not necessary to highlight any of the multiple groups, except the single any one group to effect the conversion. All same groups in the model will convert. I have not tried testing with layered and visible same groups yet, but I will. Now I will try to figure how to convert those similar groups into the same single comp. I think I know how, but I haven't figured out the correct sequence yet. (edit added) I just noticed that my old 43mb+ file is down to 31mb, and I'm not done converting yet. And it saves faster too. Bonus.

Thanks Xrok1.

Thanks don I'll have a look.

Thanks for all the info TIG, my approach to your Toolset has now changed completely. Keep up the great work

I knew that. .. just teasin' ya. It's all in good fun. You know me. .. i like to be the class clown!

Okay, I see what you mean and of course it makes perfect sense. You could still give a go to this plugin: http://www.smustard.com/script/GroupByTexture It was developed export issues in mind so could work. As I am seeing your image, maybe it would not even mess up triangulation after export too much (although with this auto merge function of SU 7, who knows - but there are good plugins to remove excessive geometry, too).

Have you tried just using three scenes and Sketchup's built in controls. If not I am sure there are plenty of tutorials on Youtube and other such places. Other than that I don't think I can be much help. Good luck! Post it when finished.

@albion man said: Think I will stay away from the new updated version of Vray for a while. Looks like they still have quite a few wrinkles to sort out. Are you an official beta tester? What do you think of the new version? Yes - I've been a beta tester since the beta first started up. There are some issues - yes. I had originally planned to stay with 1.05.30 until the patch came out, but I had a model at the office that took ages to parse with the old version - and the new parsed it so quickly that I risked it. So far it's been going fine with only minor hickups. I've been working with simple clean new scenes - not any existing ones - so that has probably made be avoid many of the issues. But this release is generally very good. When the patch comes out it'll be brilliant. V-Ray materials follow the Sketchup materials so we can copy between models and make components with V-Ray materials already set up. AO, render frame, IES and alpha channel support are great additions. @unknownuser said: There's lots of material under the Download section at ASGVis There's lots of material under the Download section at ASGVis website.

Thank you, Sir.

Had a few minutes to play with Meshlab. I don't really understand it all, but it's a cool result (in Sketchup.) [image: wRcc_meshlab_veroni.jpg]

thanks so very much, it was one of those things, if not done correctly it could not get done, the key was naming it, hit return, hit the refresh button, then it was saved.... thanks again... that was a frustrating few hours...

Thank you, all neatly layered and scened!! It's made a huge difference to how fast it runs.

You can align a view to any face, then make a scene using that view now looking 'square' at the roof surface... To align a view first select one roof face, then right-click context-menu, pick 'Align View', the view changes itself - you are now looking at the face 'square-on'. You might want to change the Camera setting from Perspective to Parallel too. Pan the view to show what you want [BUT don't 'orbit' as you'll loose the 'squared-view']. Now use the Scene Manager and make a new scene-tab for that view. When you next want to go to that view click the tab and the view changes to suit. Tip you can also change the model's axes temporarily so they align with the roof plane - making drawing on the plane with inferencing etc much easier... Hope that all helps...

@d12dozr said: ...or you could just use a texture projected onto a curved surface if your camera isn't going to be too close to the net. This will keep the file size to a minimum. Unless you really need the geometry for whatever reason, I would also go along with a nice texture.

Dave, thats pretty much what I've been doing up till now, but the textures seem to come out a little greyed and aliased. Well I just quickly took some Cad hatches, and png'd them and added them as sketchy textures. They will take a little work to clean up and find or draw the right ones but it will work. I'll post the results in skp format when I get the time to work on it more. Here are some examples. [image: 2VmD_Picture133.jpg]

Hi Larry, hi folks. In supplement, the Text Tool will default to these informations: line: length. face: area. endpoint: coordinates in the form X,Y,Z. One trick: you can switch units between use. For example, if you use the Text Tool on a face, you will get the area in square feet. Then, switch to meters and you can add another text entity with the surface in square meters. Just ideas.