I've just replaced SketchUp 8 with SketchUp 2013 (Maker), and of course I downloaded and installed the latest version of SketchUcation Tools. But when I click on the Plugins Manager I get an error, as per the attachment, even after I restart SketchUp subsequent to installation. How do I set the proper permissions?

John

@mirjman said:

here's a very easy way to do this:

1. draw a stray line anywhere
2. select your component and the line at the same time
3. use "flip along" to mirror on world axis
4. delete stray

is this what you are asking

I don't think so, mirjman, as that sounds like a simply a flipped, but not a mirroredobject, but adding the extra steps as described by Wo3Dan, i.e. making the original object and your "stray line" a new group, which will have its bounding box aligned to the axes, then using scale -1 worked just fine.
Thanks!
John

I tried xrok1's method first, and got what I wanted, although in a somewhat unexpected manner, as the item didn't scale along the selected axis only, and ended up flipped upside-down. Didn't really matter, as I had to do a lot of rotating and nudging to get it into its final position anyway. Speaking of which, a "free rotate about a point" rather than rotating in a plane would be very useful. Is there a facility for this in SU?

I think I'll look into the recommended plugins too. Thanks everyone for your help!

John

Later... Just downloaded and installed the Fredo6 library and Freescale. I'm impressed! This makes life a lot easier.

John

I created a plate as part of a structure and rotated it in 3 axes to get it to align to the structure. As it was a component I was able to use it four times by radial array copying, then thought that I could simply do a -1 scale of the component to get a mirror image to use four more times. In the attached image (sorry for poor quality, but it's a screen capture so I could keep the bounding box) no matter how I scaled the object it came out weird. The bounding box is at an angle to the plate and the axes, so maybe this is the reason. I tried rotating the plate so that the edge I wished to scale was in the X-Z plane, but that didn't help. If I used the central face handle on the right hand face of the bounding box as seen in the picture, you would think the plate (which has a notch in the lower right corner - unfortunately hidden by the bounding box in this shot) would end up sloping to the left instead of the right, with the notch in the lower left corner, but I can't get that result.

Do I have to get the bounding box aligned to the axes so that scale -1 works correctly, and if so, how? Can you force a redraw of the bounding box so that it more closely conforms to the object?

I've extracted the part from the model and attached it as a skp file... maybe I'm missing something abvious?

John

The offending part...

Hi Gaieus, hi Jean. Interesting approaches and shows that there are many ways to create the basic dome. If I understand you correctly Gaieus, unlike Jean who creates the support beams, then builds the glass done from a follow-me mid-profile of one of the beams, you are suggesting creating the dome shape first, then extruding, or do you mean using a "follow-me" cross-section of a beam along the length of every third or fourth arc? I'm not sure if "extrude" implies push-pull, and if it does, I'm not quite sure how this would be applied to the segment radial line.

Either way, my problem is that once the basic dome exists, however it was created, I wanted to further subdivide some of the lower panes so that the surface area for any given pane doesn't get too large. I was surprised that when I used vertical rectangles to intersect the circles, then connected the intersection points, the circles still selected as one continuous ring... the radial segments didn't chop the circles into separate segments. Strangely enough, I just did a separate test and it worked fine this time. Anyway, I created a 1/8 segment in my model this way, and got the surface just fine using the sandbox from contours tool. As it was a component used 8 times, I saved a bit of size in a huge model.

It was very worthwhile to hear your different approaches to making the dome, however, a good learning experience. Thanks!

John

I'm trying to create gridlines representing glass panels in a dome (see attachement). I have 8 curved beams set at 45 degree increments, and I've created the circumferential gridlines using circles with the surface removed, each circle dropped down to follow the curve of the beams. I intend to use one 45 degree "wedge" segment as an object that will be copied into the other 7 inter-beam gaps. Where the circumferential lines intersected with the beams, I drew connecting segments, then deleted the other 315 degrees or each circle. I now needed to create radial divisions to create the actual panels that would be filled with a translucent surface. In order to do this I created a rectangle, grouped it, and stood it on edge. I then moved one corner of the rectangle to the point of the "wedge" and rotated it 15 degrees, then copied and rotated it another 15 degrees. I then drew radial connecting lines between consecutive circumferential arcs, where they intersected the planes. I then deleted the planes. Unfortunately the circumferential arcs still select as a single arc, not three individual arcs. The new lines are for some reason not intersecting with the arcs, or if they are, they are not splitting them. Unfortunately an exported 2D image doesn't retain selection info, so my image doesn't show this. Can someone tell me why this didn't work, or suggest a way to accomplish the task? Thanks!

John