Even at the risk of making SU more complex I would vote for some new Preferences or even per-component options on this. For instance, on a DC brick wall, the texture ought to stay the same scale however the component is scaled. On the same note, I just discovered that a glitch in older versions has been repaired in SU 7. If you make a recessed window in a brick wall in version 6 and turn that into a (hole-cutting) component, the brick texture in the recess sides is rotated 90 degrees, and you have to open the component and rotate the textures back. Now in v7 keeps the general orientation intact Anssi

Welcome, Here are 2 plugins that can export a stl file: Didier Bur has su2stl, and cadspan has another sketchup 2 stl exporter.

In any given scene, you can reassign individual edges to a layer that is turned off. So it shouldn't be difficult to make a topless box with selected edges in a "off" layer. What do you mean by: "I use hidden layers now, but it doesn't work if camera is oriented to show both inside and outside." That, it doesn't work if you look down from the top as in the below? Also, I think, skp2dxf via free DoubleCad XT. SUs aligned, parallel projected (2D) scenes are exported to individual work sheets. They can then be cut and passed into separate 2Cad instances, each then saved as a dxf (worked in 2Cad pro beta). But, easier to pay for SU pro. [image: 8Vcj_Box.jpg] Box.skp

Thanks Gaieus

Sounds like a graphic card issue. Have you updated your graphic card drivers?

They're definitely nice..!! Thanks for sharing... [image: evxl_birds-KT.jpg]

But as an "exchange" for this convenience,sometimes you have to scale something in more than one step. Still worth the effort.

Posted the LightUp version here a little later than planned. Adam

SU will go pretty big, but I'm not sure if it will go that big, you may need to scale it as Jean suggests. Of far more importance is the fact that if you were actually to make the planets to scale with the interplanetary distances you would never be able to zoom in on them. They would simply disappear as you approached them, due to a phenomenon known as clipping. Think of it as a depth of field issue...in order to accomodate a model that's a few billion miles in diameter, the closest you would be able to approach any particular object would be a few million. If you make a 'compressed' version as seen in most solar system diagrams, this wouldn't be a problem...although you still probably wouldn't be able to zoom down onto a planetary surface sufficiently close to see a moonbase, for example.

Yes, I know the plugin to play Homer by pressing the button was written by Jim but AFAIK he used an Easter egg (maybe it was something else though). I'm just too lazy to ask

Hmmm. I must be just special. Will have to explore more. Thanks

looking good tom mike d

@chris fullmer said: And Paul, sounds like you should check out randor.rb. It does all minor rotates and scaling for you. I generally like it pretty good. Or Didier's Component Spray tool as it has a "click one to place one" option as well and you can pre-define random rotation, scale and (AFAIK) even tilt (is it tilt? like leaning sideways a bit).

ok my machine is possessed .... I couldn't see them in your post but this one worked, maybe the gnomes did it I can see them now [image: 20090216201730_38s.jpg] thank you,

Gaieus, thank you for your advice. I'll try the push pull (and use default styles) and see what I come up with. I'll post the results.

absolutely astounding work! wow.

Of course SOLO, (i admire your work). The components dynamic can only be edited in SKP 7 but the results can be saved in SKP 5 or 6. Thanks to respond. Greetings. Carlos

I don't think you need to examine a Viz book for that - this is quite common in many rendering apps. SU is a surface modeller which means that "solids" are represented by "hollows" surrounded by back faces while front faces are to represent the "real world surfaces" of real objects. Most of the rendering engines (as well as solid modellers) can't interpret back faces so we need to be very consistent with them.

check here too hth, Norbert