A Welcome Message to New SketchUcation Members
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Here is an excellent video tutorial on the techniques with native, SketchUp tools. It is also annotated so you can closely follow.
YouTube - From a little circle, grows a tree...
[flash=600,470:27qb5ka6]http://www.youtube.com/v/XRAL6MhoMB8?fs=1[/flash:27qb5ka6]And please, do not use all CAPS in your posts. It is considered rude by "netiquette" as well as very hard to read.
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Hello: I've just started playing with sketch-up 8. I've used Autocad but just barely. I'm an Electrical Substation wireman in the autumn of my career. I'm hoping to work with kids in my woodshop in the future. So far SketchUp has certainly kept my mind active.
Beachcraft -
hi Coen and everybody,
i have always wanted to be a designer/builder/inventor for as long as i could remember but as fate has it, i ended up in aviation instead. for 15
years i feel like i was living someone else's life in that cockpit.suffice to say *SU7 give me my real 'wings', of which i trade in with the metal one.....(on the day i've figured out how to make use of
layers and plane cut (pun unintended)) 
*i've moved up to SU8 since then, but one thing that still bug me is the plugins/ruby. no matter how many ways and variations that i countlessly upload/install/uninstall...the results remains unpredictable at best. what work on one machine might throw chaos on another. i use 2 pc and 2 mac, funny (and half like confession)....as it might sound, i kinda more or less memorise which plugins ended up working on which machine....and so this fool have been drop boxing in between'em like nobody else's fate....
have a great weekend everybody!
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Hi all;
I've finally decided to sign up here- there won't be much I could contribute right now, but there's one thing I can definitely do:
Thank all those who have put a lot of hard work into creating all those amazing plugins (...it'll take me ages to work my way through all those...), the tutorials (they will take me half a lifetime!), and all the helpful contributions and answers. -
Hi all,
I'm a town planner in the UK returning to my profession after a 6 year break. I came across SketchUp by way of an urban designer in the office I have been working in recently, who showed me some its potential. It certainly has a lot to offer in this area. I'm an absolute beginner but have been following some of the tutorials and checking out some of the great tips on this site and thoroughly enjoying myself.
I previously had SU7 on my previous computer and had easily installed some of the basic Ruby plug-ins. Having just purchased my new computer I have updated to SU8 (free version) but I'm now having some real problems installing any of the plug-ins. I only tried yesterday and will seek some threads/advice here of how to get round this.
Knottend1
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Hi,
Welcome to SCF!
Hopefully you'll find the troublesome plugin thread. If not just ask here and we'll get it sorted or point you in the right direction.
Rich
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@knottend1 said:
... Having just purchased my new computer [...] having some real problems installing any of the plug-ins.
Not sure what operating system you are using or if this is relevant but one thing I noticed on my Windows system is that if you right click on the zip files they may show something like "Windows has blocked access to these files to help protect your computer". If you then unzip these files each of the individual files shows 'blocked' when you click on their properties. This doesn't seem to muck up every plugin but it did break a few. I have to remember to right click on the zip and unblock before extracting then it is ok.
I also don't know if there are any Ruby problems - for example I saw some people having problems with Ruby compression https://github.com/documentcloud/jammit/issues/168 but that is just a wild stab in the dark as I no nothing about that subject.
You might mention a specific plugin that's not working and someone can help you sort it out.
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please can someone point me in the direction of a thread about installing plugins?
I'm a newbie (downloaded today!) and i'm tryng to install the shape bender plugin. Although it seems to have downloaded the zip won't display so I can't unzip it! Very frustrating....
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Hi,merlin7777777:
Main Index Page>Resources>Plugins>"Guide to [installing] zipped plugins. This link:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=35746Hope this helps. Recomment if there is a problem.
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I think i must have a different problem - i can't actually see the zip file in explorer. I can see the .rb file though.
Any thoughts?
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Well, that is odd to me. You show that you are using Vista OS. I cannot imagine it being any different than xp, unless perhaps you have some permissions setting issues? I am guessing here. Or it is somehow redirecting to the wrong destination? Check your destination/ path before committing the "save to". Should be eg c>programfiles>Google>Sketchup8>Plugins. Or you can plop it on desktop. Rightclicking on the zip the flyout says eg winzip>extract to, or extract to here. Or if you open the zip extractor program console, check your path/destination within that to be sure its not sending to fred over in dumbflat, or somewhere.
Occasionally, I have had a condition where connection dropouts or server hiccups will show the target file as filename.php, instead of .zip or .rb or .rbs But that would not allow you to download or deploy, and you certainly would not see the rb file.
Anybody else? I am stumped. Of course it don't take much.
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When I downloaded models I put them in the resources subfolder by mistake. When I went to windows explorer to move them into the compnents folder they didn't show up. I assumed they hadn't downloaded but when i tried again and the save dialog came up... there they were. What am I doing wrong with explorer? (vista and
i think this is related to the problem i posted earlier about zip files not showing up i.e. an explorer problem rather than a download or sketchup issue.
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You should download the zip file NOT open it or extract it!
The zip contains this file and a subfolder
Put the file and subfolder into the Plugins folder.,,
Restart Sketchup an look in the Plugins menu, perhaps under the 'clf tools' submenu - depending on want other clf tools you have loading... -
Thanks for this TIG but i'm still not quite with you.
I have only downloaded the file that's on offer to the plugins folder which is a zip file. when i go to explorer to unzip it there's nothing visible for me to unzip anyway.
do you mean that i should download the zip to the plugins folder then restart SU and it'll do the extraction itself?
Sorry to be thick...
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Try downloading another zip
Here is a 1 mb zip file on my site with 2 textures
http://stormvisions.com//modules/download_gallery/dlc.php?file=36&id=1251519768see if you can extract the 2 image files. If not it may be that it is a file association issue - if you can take a screen shot of the page that results that might help as well.
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ok - i clicked on the link and the open/save dialogue came up or textures082809.zip.
I saved it to the plugins folder and during this process i could see all the files i've saved there.
i went to this folder in explorer and i can't see these files.
i used 7-zip and i could see your 'textures' folder and the wood and soil textures within it. however when i looked back in explorer the folder can't be seen (I did refresh).
I tried moving one of the jpgs to the plugins folder thinking a jpg is bound to show up but this jpg doesn't show either in explorer in the plugins folder or even if i search on the filename for it.
i'm mystified. -
in fact, no files show up in explorer in the plugins apart from the ones that originally installed with sketchup!
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Use these settings to temporarily show hidden files and folders (you'll want to change this setting back when you are done with this test).
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial130.html
Then see if the files now show. If they do right click on them and select properties and see if the 'Hidden' check box is checked. If it is then either there is some weird Vista error (do you regularly apply updates?) or you may have a virus (do you have anitvirus/anti malware and practice safe computing?).
If it is a Vista problem there are several good places to ask questions. The above referenced link is one and the Leoville forums another.
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A zip file is a file containing data that can be used to rebuild files and folders that have had their data compressed into this special format.
When you open a zip file in your zip/unzip program it will display a window showing files and subfolders within it, BUT at that point it has NOT extracted these files - it's simply showing what's in it and what COULD be extracted.
Most zip/unzip programs have obvious options to 'extract' their contents - perhaps by a button or file item on this window displaying the contents [you might have to select the contents displayed in the window first] - then usually you are then prompted for a destination for the extracted files/folders, which is usually a new folder named after the zip itself, located on your Desktop or some other location you have set in the program's preferences. Many programs allow you to select all of the zip-file's contents in this display-window and drag+drop them somewhere else - like Plugins... Many such programs also have a right-click context-menu to extract the contents of a selected zip-file. Once you have got all of the files/folders extracted relocate them into the Plugins folder in the Sketchup folder. Files that are loose in the original zip-file go directly into the Plugins folder, folders of files within the zip-file are put unchanged into the Plugins folder, as these files need to be inside their predefined subfolders for them to work... You do NOT put the zip file into Plugins and hope it magically fixes itself... please read the installation instructions provided with a downloaded tool AND the general post on manipulating zip-files... You seem to be making this more difficult that it is, or needs to be
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Just saying "Hello" as a new "noobie". I'd really like to learn to use SketchUp at a reasonable proficiency and use some of the hacks I've come across to convert SketchUp drawings to .dxf format for use at my company. I'm running Sketchup 8 with WINE on Ubuntu and am not what you'd consider computer savvy, so it's been a huge learning curve all around. I'm currently working on a design for a tomahawk I plan to have produced as an initial entrepreneurial endeavor; I also have some initial designs for some other products, but I find getting the results I want are cumbersome with my limited knowledge so far of SketchUp, so it's all about finding tutorials for me to learn from.
Thanks in advance for all the resources here!
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