@gaieus said: Well, in such a twisted case, the easiest thing is to temporarily move the axes (see attached where I put the origin into the pivot point, the red axis along the intersection of your shapes and the green to where the red originally was - so the red/green plane is now the same as it was but you could also align it with the face of your component). From here on, you can force SU to rotate it along the (current) green axis by left clicking into the origin/pivot point while still holding the left mouse button, dragging it along the green axis when it turns into green, releasing the mouse button clicking into the intersection of your leading triangle and the component plane starting the rotation finishing it by clicking on the upper endpoint of the triangle. If you want the axes aligned to the component face instead, right click on an axis and > Place. In this case with your first click, you establish the origin with the second, the red axis (best to place it where it is now) with the green axis, click on any of the far endpoints of your component. Ahhh Axis - way cool! Didn't explore that far. Thanks! Rick

There are lots of Plugins to help... Here are a few simple examples[image: o1BY_OrganicForms1.png][image: JJSY_OrganicForms2.png]OrganicForms.skp

Thanks guys - ZORO2 is just the ticket!! Kind Regards Syd

I've added an example of using EEbyRails to make a simple OR complex ramp on a curve - see here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=206584#p206584 All you need is a curve for the cross-section [profile] and curves for the two side rails - rotated in 3D so that the landing is as you want [probably level?]...

Found the solution. I had Details hidden in the Scenes Window. Walter

ah, ok.. the move tool.. i thought you found some weirdness with push/pull. my entry in battle of the 'nother way to do it' (but this one wins ) select the face then choose the move tool... put the move tool cursor on an edge further up the rafter.. press and hold shift.. push the mouse button and extend..

I have come to a method which works fairly effectively around the gaping holes (for me) in the native SUfree print-to-scale functions: Working method: zoom extents to page border (after creating same to match desired paper size at chosen scale) set printer as PDFCreator or similar; set paper size to arch E or other as appropriate to get it all on one page, in spite of SU perform print preview at desired scale; use draft quality for quick check proper paging if correct, repeat but set to HDR quality; print to (create) PDF trim white excess surround in result with PDFCropper or similar resulting PDF can be hard printed by Acrobat or other PDF program and is what SUfree should offer or clearly disclaim: print to scale on a chosen paper size

Have a look at Thom's flatten and extrude plugin. If you separate what should be push-pulled together into groups/components, it will create very nice and quick results from your imports (that's actually what he wrote it for): http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=23491

Thanks Anssi It's fast reply

Crazzy rabit [image: Qm9o_rabitviolet.jpg]

I have a shortcut key assigned to make group and component from selection - even if one item [links to Edit Menu item not CM] - G=Group and B=Block[Component] - the 'standard' of G=Component is just illogical!!!. A key is quicker than the context-menu anyway...

Maybe your model is very large, or located far away from the origin.

On Mac's, .pngs automatically export with transparent backgrounds. PC's don't, however. I believe there ways of doing it with either rendering plugins (twilight, podium, vray, etc), or perhaps just adjusting the colors and shadows of the model to white and black and re-exporting the animation frames, to come up with alpha frames for the entire animation. I've not tried it on a film though, just on one frame photos. Chris

Hello remus Thank you for your reply. I already have Layer Manager v6 installed, but there is no functionality for this feature. I am still searching. The workaround is to open an additional SU window and a coy of the file in question, rename a suitable layer to make a replica copy of, and copy and paste an object on that layer into the target file in the other current SU window. This is surely more time consuming, hence the request. Kind Regards Syd

Thanks guys - I've added the code: { Sketchup.active_model.selection.clear } to the existing ContextMenuMenus.rb file TIG supplied Kind Regards Syd

thanks gladly appreciate it.

I recommend that you Shortcut the 'Reverse Faces' command to a key [I use Q=Reverse and Q+Alt=Orient] - with <Space.=Select - you can quickly reverse faces as you go. Alternatively you could try 2D Tools - You can draw a 'flat' 3-point Rectangle [at a preset Z-height, default=0] without a face at any orientation. In Lines, PolyLine [Curve] or Guide-Lines. There are also tools to add a face or hatching - these will face 'up' even at z=0...

I would try to get some used PE container that i could clean ,for example soap or shampoo factory's use them. Greetings, Bep [image: intermediate-bulk-container-ibc-330312.jpg]

I'm not sure what the problem is, but doubt that it's just a simple SU bug. I was playing around yesterday with seeing what a basketball court looked like using stained wood rather than just colours for the markings...so I imported a number of versions of a very large scale wooden floor texture. each one was 2048 x 1024 pixels; and I had no problem at all...well other than SU resampling the texture to a lower resolution.