thanks everybody

Exactly. Applications like Wintopo may be good for vectorising a big area of contour lines (you would simplify them anyway at the end) but not for such fine "hadwork". Often cleaning up a badly drawn/vectorised model is much harder than starting it over from scratch. Nonetheless, I wish luck and looking forward to what you come up with and I'm sure everyone will be inclined to help once you get stuck somewhere.

Nevermind now Did some surfing around and looked at my files and discovered that I was indeed an admin user but not assigned to the right user-group. So did not have write-rights for the sketchup folder.. It works now Thank anyways.

@numbthumb said: Not sure if you could do anything with Photoshop Elements 7, at least in 3D. If i remember correctly elements is a cut down version of the full photoshop, so it seems unlikely that youd be able to open a 3d model in it.

Strictly speaking, scaling only "works" when the target object is symmetrical to all three axis. And that is a very rare situation. Look at your screen capture of S forms, EscapeArtist. What you need to do is not scaling, but offsetting, in 3D. Like Gaieus said, JointPushPull by fredo6 is designed exactly for the purpose. Beautiful, isn't it?

Hi Antonino, I'm not a Mac user so can only point you to another direction where others have similar problems and some Mac folks give advice: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=21828

Hmm, it seems that Sk0tchup has some uv mapping functions under the hood. I tested this and I was amazed... Until now I thought just projecting was the only way to put a texture on a curved surface... It's a pity this uv capabilities are not better implemented

Maybe you can make a twist with Fredo Scale by Fredo6 after 2 Faces + path by BTM (of course faces can be filled inside 2 faces + path ) [image: vuFl_propel.jpg]

yes i do it might come from the way Maxwell plugin interferes with SU when it controls camera views then. What i just do is use magic wand in pshop, with 1 neighbour pixel setting ( neighbour pixel setting off) then i can remove the grey stripes... Hope this can be solved in future SU or MR versions! N

Thanks Guys for info. Learn something new each day, never really paid much attention to the smooth option before, so had ago and you can create some interesting effects on faces when selecting various combination's of edges to be smooth - almost creating soft shadows on faces, but not on ground. [image: oZPx_cubes.jpg] [image: X2pH_cubes1.jpg]

Hi Roto and welcome. @roto said: Anyhow, I will be reading and re-reading the board and will probably end up asking questions. Well, that's what we all start with so just feel free to ask

@takesh h said: @north_frost said: Is it possible to solve it with this model? Thanks! Yes, I said so. Next time, try it for yourself. Why I asked was that the seam is still visible, not nearly as much, I can accept the small joint that is left. Your method will save me many hours of work ahead. @massimo said: Simply explode your two sub-groups. It will work. But maybe a too destructive approach. If the model was smaller had it worked but now the size is 29MB. Thanks for the help you all!!

Ah fantastic!! thank you very much

@sketch3d.de said: I've made a Windows executable for saving/restoring the SU prefs (no malware, no spyware, no adware, no installation). tested w/ XP, should work w/ Vista/7 too; even though, use at own risk. Norbert Script from sketch3d.de (Norbert) looked really promissing and easy to use . Thank you. Unfortunately, no go on Windows 8.1 with Sketchup 2015 (x64) as the script opens and seem to work normally, but nothing is saved. Tried to save in 'Documents folder" to start with, then created a folder on the desktop, still no go. So unfortunately not working for me... Thank you anyway

@mac1 said: @mac1 said: @matsuo said: @mac1 said: @matsuo said: Is there a good way to divide the shape after using the 'weld' plug-in? I already tried the following: Welding the outline Check the length of the outline Used 'Convert to > Polyline Divider' and divided it (length of outline / no. of segments (i.e. 20) = segment length) Problem is that after I did all those steps, a) the shape is distorted, and b) I end up with a gap that is smaller than a segment What exactly am I doing wrong here? If necessary I will attach a drawing with an example. MATSUO Did same approach and did not have the same problem. I found length. inside, is 10652.680 used 101 segs for a tread width of 105.47208mm. The first time checking the segs I found a short one also so, increased the accuracy of the model units to the max. and did not find same problem. Don't know why that should effect the results Maybe I did something else wrong). Before copy/ rotation of treads suggest you check each seg length via entity info. The attached file is what I have done to date. That's more like it I will try your approach (increasing the accuracy) and post my results! Thanks edit: Well..I tried your approach, without any success I keep ending up with one piece that's too small! I even tried the offset on surface tool, but that didn't help either Any other suggestions? When I call up the polyline divider on my SU7 version it asks for a interval input and not num of segments. I am guessing if you input a interval such that the tread length/tread width is not an integer it just may truncate the one segment. I accurately measured the tread length then used a width close to the hidden widths( at the max curve point) shown in your model then adjusted that until I obtained an integer number. thus the 101 segs. Hope this helps Additional info. Checked the ruby library and found bz_sgementor.rb giving you the capability of dividing polyline by segs vs dimension. Download and install. http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/BZ__Segmentor.rb. This should solve the problem. Quick check with my 101 segs indicates it provides the same solution without length truncation at least for this case. I will look into it! My apologies for the late reaction

What settings did you use when you rendered these ? I can't seem to get the bump to work with transparent materials.

Wow! NO WONDER! I downloaded the WRONG file! Man, I can be such a dunce! I didn't pay attention to the file name origninally. sheeez! What a moron. Got it now! Works GREAT!!! FINALLT!!!! :heart_eyes: THANKS A MILLION GUYS!! fitZ

HI Everybody I am new to Sketchup and I am interested in learning how to combine and import the .ds and .gsm files from a model that I found on the web. Does anybody have information about this? Thanks! Mauricio

@dundee said: The information you gave me is very interesting and it solved my problem! This is very good. There are other things. First, visit Window/Model Info (often!). Click File to see how big your model is. Click Statistics, then "Purge Unused". Back to File and you'll see that your model is 75% smaller. This is a good thing. I tried my VisMap plugin to get an idea of what was going on in your original .skp. It showed a blank window where the VisMap should have been. On digging, I found that your .skp had some odd internal damage. Your "rev1" .skp had no such problem and VisMapped without trouble. Internal damage was a common problem for me as I learned to SketchUp. How to avoid it? 1) Never make a mistake and never change your mind as you model. OK? Now on to practical advice that a human being might follow. 2) Build sub-assemblies in separate files. (Small collections of geometry are seldom broken.) If you think it through in advance, you'll be able to File/Import and click the Origin inference, to correctly assemble the finished model. (File/Import automatically makes the import a component, same name as the file name). And make your sub-assemblies just as you would do the cabinet making. That way you'll have a good magazine article, as well as a model.

Select the grouped helix in the attached model > right click > explode and while its segments (and nothing else) are still selected, "apply" the scale tool and start scaling. Cool effect indeed. Pottery.skp