Hi folks. Another possibility is to use an actual unit as your "unit". For example, draw a line that is 5 cm for a 5 "units" line. Do the whole model and, when done, scale up accordingly. In your example, you would scale up by a factor of 80. Just ideas.

Now the "pluginless" method is as follows: Make one segment of the thread, make it a component Move one side of the segment up by the needed amount (here I used a default circle with 24 segments so I moved this up by 1/24 of the height of the segment - the image is of course exagerrated, see the following ones below)[image: Ic7O_MoveUp.jpg] Copy rotate it along one segment [image: Xium_CopyRotate.jpg] 4) Move it up to meet the endpoints [image: 7kog_MoveUp2.jpg] 5) repeat it with a growing number of segments (once you reached around, you can already Copy-move the whole round up as many times as you wish). [image: gXjJ_CopyRotate2.jpg] I exploded the whole thing at the end, otherwise I couldn't have smooth transitions between the segments but is you make a segment from midpoint to midpoint along the circle instead of endpoint to endpoint, you may be able to keep the components. There are actually plugins that could do this (like Follow me and keep and such) but sometimes I feel it's faster to do by hand as well as one really needs to also know how to model hings not just push buttons.

@brrbtr said: having some trouble getting doors and windows to properly cut into walls The bane of my newbie life! You watch the tutorial: the SU master Rectangles the opening, PushPulls it into the wall until it meets the far side. Voila! Perfection. You try it. Your Rectangle won't PushPull except in the wrong direction. Or it freezes up half way in. Why? The two sides of the wall aren't perfectly parallel. (Close isn't good enough.) Solution: use the oFFset tool to lay out your floor plan. Perfection without effort. There's other geometry in the way. Harmless-looking lines on the far side, for example. Also, use Camera/Standard Views/Top to look inside your wall.

@d12dozr said: See if this plugin by Krill does what you want...http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=21658&hilit=Krill that certainly looks like the ticket! many thanks

Just go here and download it. http://sketchup.google.com/download/gsu.html

Thanks Ecuadorian, your example was great. So often the small details that make it can be forgotten. There are some amazing results and I know it going to take some time, and considerable patience. Can struggle with both, but hopefully will get something to be proud of. Keep an eye out, will be after feedback sometime soon

@ecuadorian said: I'll try to link to any plugin I mention from now on. Thank you.

Succinct

@ecuadorian said: ...I'm inclined to think that Luminova was not ready to make an announcement but CGarchitect spilled the beans... sounds like it if it wasn't using irender, then what WAS it using? that sounds fishy...

Do you mean the window where to choose fog color and distance? Look in the menu -> Window -> Fog (just between 'Shadows' and 'Photomatch')

Thanks, I tried the "extrude along path" and that seemed to work great! Thanks everybody! s

Hi folks. When using the Dimension Box DB (formerly named Value Control Box or VCB), you can use a scale factor such as 1.5 or 7.3 or 5 or whatever number. If you add a unit suffix like "in", "ft", "mm", etc, you will get that exact dimension along the axis on which you are scaling. Even better, if you scale along two direction or three direction , you can eneter separate scale factor or separate exact dimensions like 3',4' to get a 3 feet by 4 feet box. If you have a ratio like 9/7, you can of course use a calculator to get 1.2857142857 and type that in the DB. You can also use the trick explained in the attached SU file. Just ideas. Scaling using a ratio without calculating.skp

@petrence said: here are the pictures of my molding pattern, what i'd like to remake with sketchup. this also has a negative. any ideas how do i need really exact opposite side with the same dimensions? i think this will be the next difficult step for me. Think you are looking for a mirror image. Use the scale tool and scale at -1. If you first do a copy , then the mirror and then paste in place you have the two.

From Acad export it as 3ds. in the export options turn off the Autosmoothing. Importing this 3ds file into SketchUp will give you much better results. If you don't have the option of exporting to 3ds in your version of AutoCAD, there is a free plugin file available at Autodesk web site which allows you to export it to 3ds format. Hope this helps With best regards PRSS

Thanks, nice model A small point, the file size is pretty large, particularly if you intend using plenty of these in your model! You could have drastically reduced the file size by making a component out of an individual leaf, then stretching/scaling copies to make the diferent variations required, similarly with the branches. On like models I have seen the file size reduced by 90% or more.

Solved relocating the insert point. Just open the component with SU, and center it over the workspace origin. Be sure that you are in the view perpendicular to the face-me surface, zoom extents for good measure, then save the component. Btw, you can not place 2d objects closer then their combined widths without running the risk of them overlapping as you orbit.

To clarify, PageExIm should save the shadow settings if the scene saves them, but it will NOT export/import any model info data, and location is model info data, not scene data (since v6, I think). If you're having trouble with shadow settings, first make sure the scenes are set to remember that data. If you're still having problems, contact me.