Thanks Andrew. Scott

Hi, Manoj I assume that you have already checked out some car modeling tutorials, but anyway take a look at http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=23792 However, there are no shortcuts. If you really lack the patience, I have no advice for you, except to be persistent, especially if it is about modeling in 3D Studio Max. Best regards, NT

@jean lemire said: To copy objects, why not use "Copy" (CTRL-C) on the objects in one file and then "Paste" (CTRL-V) in the other. On the PC you can open more than one instances of SU at the same time. Bonjour Jean, This technique works great. I never thought about it even though I use the copy/paste all the time with other programs. Merci and have a terrific day! _KN

Nope. I usually turn it off since it greatly slows down my old PC. So I guess I'll just turn it on when exporting 2d images. Thanks for the suggestions! [image: xPVQ_brofist3536544.jpg]

Dear all A few weeks passed, I quit my job, finished maternity leave, and am now ready for the reality of it all. And then I remembered the post I made, and thought I'd just check if anybody had answered... I'm overwhelmed, thanks to everybody who took time to give me their opinion, post links etc. For now I think my plan is to continue with SU + Illustrator/InDesign, and maybe look into a rendering program (or SU plug in?) -I don't know if I dare ask for recommandations? (Dont want to start another Mac/PC battle I was quite hit by the 'who cares how you get there' advice. I know my things look good and easy to understand when I present it, so I'll keep my head up high and continue with SU. (That said, I've written down all the software proposed in this tread, and I'll give every one a quick glance to see if I missed something.) Thanks again for your time and wished for the future - we'll just have to hope, that the smart people who says to me that 'recession is exactly the right time to start a company' are right..... Best regards to you all, Lene

Yes, it does. If you have pőroblems with it, just upload your model and the image here so we can play around a bit.

Sorry if i was unclear - I mean a break point in bounding lines of a closed 2d shape but with no gap. a bit like the following example in autocad - http://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/autocad/modifying-objects.php (scroll down to 'The Break Command' but instead of P1 and P2 being two different points or coordinates on the 2d shape outline/polyline they are the same point (P1=P2). Though as after looking it up on the net i couldn't find an exact example of what i was looking for, perhaps it's not possible. hope that makes more sense and thanks for helping!

Yes, I only need the exterior mold (shape) of the plane, with very few internal (structural) elements. It will be used (at 1/12th scale) for planning the manufacturing stations (sizes and locations) in the facility. Once that is firmed up, I have a partial full scale detailed version of the facility that I will modify and use. I went to a scaled version because it is easier to navigate and change than at full scale, even if the full scale planning model was low-poly. There is very little detail in the scaled version, and a full scale version would entice me to add details. I will try "polyreduce". As for the footprint, I cannot figure how to set my geo to the equator at noon (time I figured). But you got me thinking about scaling the airplane model down flat i.e: 100% scale down the blue axis. Then I'll intersect it on a flat plane (no pun intended ) and trace that outline. I'll get back to you on both. ======================================== Well, scaling on blue to "flat" did not quite work. First, "scale" only allows a "-.11" scale factor so I tried ".01". It was not flat enough, even doing it twice. Also my dwg was too complex. Scrap that. Still can't see how to set my Geo to the equator, so I can trace the shadow. However, since I used to draw boats and calculate the heeled waterline, I tried something like that. I made a flat plane group, and successively moved it up and intersected the plane at various "wide" points on the airplane to get a close approximation of the outermost footprint, plus a myriad of extra lines from the airplanes internal structures that I could not turn off. Spent a lot of time deleting those lines, then hit the old SU 6 problem of non-intersected crossing lines, coupled with Intersects' bad habit of not keeping lines on face as well as omitting a lot of intersecting lines. A LOT of cleanup to do before I can get a cohesive footprint. Back later.... ================================== Frustrated!!!!!! I cleaned up the outline, but it will not form a face within the outline. Many lines are just off the z=00000 level, so that the face won't form. Then as I was replacing 2 short lines with one, SU crashed. Fortunately, SU autosaved just a few minutes prior so I lost almost nothing. Back on this tomorrow, as I gotta pick up my "warden" at the subway.

Hi, You have some options: Print a PDF in 1:100 scale, and open that in Photoshop. A method I sometimes use: set your background to pure white draw a visible frame of known size around your model, so that nothing goes outside it. If you need a partial elevation, draw the frame as a hole in a large face, and place it in front of your model. If you need several views, make the frame a face-me component zoom so that the frame almost fills the screen export the view to a high-resolution image file open the image in Photoshop use the Trim command in Photoshop to crop away all white space around your frame lines. use the Resize command to resize the image to the scaled size of the frame, and the desired resolution. if the file needs further cropping, you can do that now. Anssi

I stand corrected - I can see that as a good application, and also do-able. I was thinking resistors and capacitors, etc. But that won't change my answer much. Panels can be looked at as simple batteries, no? So you have a layout of panels connected in series or parallel. Assuming the panels are SketchUp Components, you can loop over the Model to find their quantity and location, and probably determine the connection based on position, type, and neighbors. Components can store attributes like their electrical characteristics which can be retrieved and used in the calculations. That part seems fairly straight-forward. The shade analysis might be troublesome. There are no built-in methods to determine where a shadow lies. We can get the model geometry, and the sun position and angle, then do some ray-casting; but I wouldn't know where to begin making the calculations.

I tried to upload the file here and also at the 3D warehouse. But it is taking a lot of time and also I cannot be sure if it is fully uploading or not mainly because there is no progress bar showing the progress of upload. so I am posting a new link. http://www.4shared.com/file/218831844/7b0b0912/contour_trial1.html I hope this will work. Thankyou.

All true, I guess I shouldn't had asked. Lets just forget about it.

Jean Thanks for taking the time to describe the Autoselect feature in such an intelligible way for me and explaining the way it would help in my initial query regarding creating a stepped circular array. Being able to miss out 2 elements from my current 4 element sequence will certainly allow me to be quicker and more fluent in Sketchup . Thanks again Jonas Mac

In such a case, SU is trying to guess where you want to place that rectangle. As there is nothing else in the scene yet, it will infer to any of the major planes. To which one, will depend on your view. Most of the templates come in a way that you are looking down mostly. If you orbit your view to something horizontal so that the horizon will be lower than your mid-screen, you can get that inference. Yeah, Chris beat me but essentially the same.

@honoluludesktop said: Hi Paul, Your render has a very nice nice feel. Where is the shadow on the right side of the building coming from? I often add too much yellow to my landscape and really like your use of green. I have been asked that same question when I posted this image on the Podium Forum. There is a tree floating in space off to the left of the view that is casting the shadow. I moved it over there to get it out of the way while modeling and forgot about it. When I saw the shadow, I said to myself...no one will notice...ummm I was wrong. I have to give credit to Oli for the final grass color/tone. It was a darker green when I first posted this image and he grabbed the image and lightened the grass to more match the lightness of the sky. p

And to make it read-able reverse those steps at the other end ! The only way to give someone else your actual skp file in a way that won't be very 'useful' to them is to copy it and explode every group and instance [then purge], remove layers, styles etc and sabotage bits and bobs so it is not at all user friendly. They can still edit it but it won't be very useful for 'harvesting' or reuse... Alternatively make a 3D PDF of it so they can still look around it and print off, but not edit it. You can make it read-only but that can be undone in a second. You can ship it with a special ruby that limits what can be done to it - but simply removing the ruby from the plugins folder will scupper that plan... No one has come up with a way of 'locking' or 'password protecting' skp files - enough have tried...

@gaieus said: Why not use a "generic" colour that is similar to the façade? If you colour some face, the Google folks may still not like it so when a colour is applied on a face, divide that face, right click on one half and "make unique". Now SU will create a raster image from the colour. Next step is to select both halves and "combine textures" (and delete dividing edge). Very nice tip, Gai, thank you. Still need to buy you that beer!

i know this is a really old thread but the solution is to simply go under "window" > soften edges and slide the slider to 0, then all lines reappear

since clouds are water vapor, will the software then become vapor ware??

Hi Gaieus, problem solved, weird, but after downloading Fredoscale, shapes, parametric & mesh additions had disappeared from plug ins, I found them in the trash (although I didn't put them there!), when I dragged them back to plugins, lo and behold, I now have shapes in my draw menu! So they will keep me busy for a while.....