Some 3D formats can swap the axes etc.

That shouldbe good. I have just got a new card: a 1 Gb nVidia 9600 and it hasn't caused any problems so far (I mean it's very good compared to what I've had so far).

What I do when importing cad to SU is do a save as and change all the linetypes to layer 0, make sure my model is on the 0,0 origin and then purge. Then do a LAYDEL command and delete any remaining layers. Make sure your drawing units are set up correctly otherwise it will come into SU not how you want it. In SU do a purge and group the floor plan. I never draw using the geometry from ACAD, it has always resulted in larger file sizes and corrupt drawings. Hope this helps.

"Model library" (as Dave says) i.e. the built in Component browser (Window menu). As long as you keep inserting components from external resources (not from inside the active model), SU will consider them different instances. This is normal as otherwise you could incidentally replace existing components with ones that have the same name somewhere else.

It is probably just how SketchUp shades surfaces. You might try playing with the sun and shadows settings to see if you can get it to the level you would like. Do you have a small example file to look at? Chris

Thanks Chris.

You are right mac1 Geometry is not my priority at this moment as I told you in my PM. I will try different possibilities to give the model a natural look before the final render in SU. Thank you very much, I'm impressed by the help received from the forum.

the .kmz format is a .zip file. inside is the .dae file, which is just .xml data. Inside that you can indeed find the component name that is user defined in SU. It should be possible to do some custom editing of that info. I'm not quite clear exactly what you have in mind though. Chris

You know...after logging off and setting down to dinner it hit me that there must be a ruby for this. Thanks Frenchy!

Its fixed. My error. I hate when that happens. For those of you playing at home, I have attached the fixed version. On to the hairy part skyfish

Could you post the model? or just one of the problem areas if the whole thing is too big. Theirs a chance theres some weird geometry making it go funny.

If we didn't rely on (many) undocumented things, there wouldn't be need for a forum.

@quantum said: That says nothing relevant. of course, what do they know at all... @unknownuser said: Integrated graphics solutions, or shared graphics solutions are graphics processors that utilize a portion of a computer's system RAM rather than dedicated graphics memory. Computers with integrated graphics account for 90% of all PC shipments[6]. These solutions are cheaper to implement than dedicated graphics solutions, but are less capable. @quantum said: And no, this chip is -not- shared. Don't you have any sense? There is no other GPU in this system. no, I do not have any non-sense do you have read and understood anything of the links I have posted above? obviously not! sharing means sharing the working/main memory with the system instead of using own, fast video memory as dedicated solutions do. @quantum said: You clearly do not understand this chip, or are badly behind the times. of course, what else... @quantum said: Are you meaning to say that my IGP does not meet these specs? at least in connection with Wine and the used driver: @quantum said: In XP when I start it, I get 'OpenGL failed'. @quantum said: Do you think that this is an ATI Radeon or an Intel based card? no, why should I do this? @quantum said: Wrong. right. @quantum said: Think I'm helping you, with this attitude? Think again. not really... it was meant as a rhetoric question, I did not have expected an answer... simply because there is none. 've made my day, again Norbert

@unknownuser said: Try to adjust the Transparency quality in the Styles window. yea thats it. thank you

I do the reverse often: modelling with original (high res) images (for GE) then making the applied images unique then editing them and resizing (decreasing) the image resolution considerably. UV mapping is kept. Maybe try to position the texture first?

try cubits app

I have also found the Francis Ching has some similar books which are excellent!

@matthew.robert said: but I would put my money on the issue having something to do with DCs. That would be my guess also. You probably have either the DC Options or DC Attributes dialogs open when the alert appears. I wouldn't know why you get the alert, though.

David - Differing lines thicknesses can be sort of done in (I think) three ways. a) line weight in the LO 'Sketchup model>styles' palette, but that appears to scale the thickness of all the lines derived from the model b) obviously SU styles can do their thing with line weight, wobbliness, scratchiness etc. BUT to use them in LO requires using raster or hybrid rendering which can make your LO files and pdf output huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Since I'm making working drawings to be printed at 24x36" for builders, I didn't bother with artistically scribbled lines. c) the profile, depth cue and section cut line thicknesses can be set in the styles anyway LO can do more with lines created with its tools but obviously they are not involved directly in the model. I've used them for a few added details in the drawings - I think all of the ones I added happen to be dashed lines in this case. Oh - one more small variation I just thought of - it you use the 'add section cut face' plugin, the edges of the added faces can be given a thickness. Red - You can insert a variety of files into an LO doc (not exactly sure of the list, I've used jpegs, text and pdf so far) and LO will spot updates in the same way as it does for skp files. It's not quote automagic but pretty useful. So use excel or Numbers to make your table and print to pdf (unless LO can handle csvs or excel files?) and insert away. I'm sure someone that is familiar with ruby and the SU api (not me; I spent 25 years programming Smalltalk and damned if I'm going to descend to mere ordinary languages now) could find components marked in some fashion, derive details and produce a table to be inserted. The cutlist plugin used by many woodworkers (including me) does something related. It's just a question of finding a victim - I mean 'interested programmer' - and beating them with a stick - er, 'motivating them' - correctly. Money often works, or so I'm told.