Dave, I owe you an apology;

If I select only the items that are in parallel projection and using "hidden line" style (I do this to make sure the folks in the workshop aren't distracted by colours or perspectives) and switch only these items to Vector it appears to have no affect on performance and fixes the differing line weights showing up in the PDF file!

Makes perfect sense in hindsight. Thanks for your input.

TLDR: In working drawings, show the parts that are in parallel projection as vector and parts in perspective as raster - results in smaller PDF file sizes too.

On a 10+ page doc using vector causes slow load times.

What I can't understand is why it looks fine when I zoom in and why it looks fine when I re-render the PDF but looks strange when directly exported from Layout.

My clients are cynical about the use of SU/LO and seem to find this a convenient reason to point out its inferiority to AutoCAD (a claim which I refute). The AutoCAD drawings are very clean however.

Not sure if anyone has experienced this but it is a recurring problem for me.

When I export a set of drawings to PDF from Layout I get what appears to be different line weights in the PDF file even though these aren't appearing in Layout.

Here is a screen grab of the issue shown in PDF:

And here is the Layout file that it was taken from showing none of the weird differences in line weights

I understand that there are "hacky" ways of getting round this;

• A lot of the issue disappears when the document is physically printed
• Using Cute PDF Writer to re-print the pdf to a new pdf file seems to work quite well too.

Similar working drawings produced by AutoCAD or similar CAD packages don't have this rendering issue so where is it coming from in Layout?

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere but I couldn't find it.

In case anyone else wants to achieve something like this:

This can kinda be done with WINRAR but you'll need to make a separate installer for each sketchup version.

• Once WinRAR is installed, select and right click the texture files you want to use.
• Click "Add To Archive"
  [*[Under the "general" tab check "Create SFX archive" - this will make the file .exe
• Under "Advanced" tab click SFX Options and on the general tab enter the path to the sketchup materials folder
• Click "OK"
• Under the "Files" tab change "File Paths" to "Do Not Store Paths"
• Hit "Ok"

Now your installer will place the files you originally selected in the sketchup materials folder on the user's computer but you will have to make a separate installer for each version of sketchup as the path to the materials folder changes

If you want to have separated folders within the sketchup materials folder (to organize your new library nicely on the user's computer then you will have to organize everything into folders before you add to archive at the beginning.

Super simple but makes things a lot easier for your users.

If only I could find a way to detect the latest version of SU on the user's computer and install accordingly in the appropriate folder.

Thanks John,

Can you give me any directive on where to start with this?

For user friendliness it basically needs to be a package that can be downloaded and run once and everything is complete - I'm not confident that a plugin is easily usable by elementary Sketchup users.

Am trying to make an installer that will install a materials library to the right location on the user's computer. Here is an example but it doesn't seem able to deal with different windows/sketchup versions.

It would need to be able to handle

• 32 bit and 64 bit configurations
• Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and hopefully 10
• Back to Sketchup 6

There are a number of options but many are inadequate.

• zip installer seems to have no ability to deal with different folder locations
• This may be useful but seems to have a learning curve and a price tag: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/
• This doesn't appear to have the ability to deal with different folder locations: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Self-Extracting-.Exe

Does anyone have experience with this? I can't imagine it is very complicated with the right tools.

Thanks in advance

You've done a pretty impressive job IMO

Have just dealt with this exact issue although I wouldn't say that it renders the plugin unuseable.

I simply scan through the scenes (50+ in current model) selecting/deselcting appropriate layers and updating the scenes as I go - takes a few minutes to overcome

I'm not knowledgeable enough with Ruby to know whether this can be scripted or not but I guess this would be the place to start: http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/developer/docs/tutorial_attrreporting

I've been digging for a while now and haven't found anything on this so thought I would post it here.

How would one go about getting dynamic component attributes to reference an external file - say a CSV or similar?

This would allow you to have a library of components with all pricing information in them and simply update the CSV when prices change rather than having to update each component individually.

I went > .SKP > .DXF > .RLD

Thanks folks - was surprised to find that the laser cutter made toolpaths out of sketchups "sectioned" curves without any problems. I had been led to believe that CNC cutters cannot read sketchup's edges and they need to be converted to arcs but I had no such issues.

File is free for premium members over here: http://sketchucation.com/shop/models/furniture/309-plywood-puzzle-airplane

Needed a little modification for the laser cutter but was pretty straight forward

Hey there,

I had a go at making it on a really small scale.

A great way to learn how to use a CO2 laser cutter - thanks

Good insights pcmoor, I've been waiting on the new release to deal with this for many years so I'm not holding my breath.

I just forked out for the full version of SpaceDesign and am happy with it.

I'm pretty sure that if one were to spend a few days with VBA, Sketchup's classifier and Sketchup's "Generate Report" one could create a workflow that meets basic needs (as kaas points out) but buying the solution is so much easier.

I'm not sure how to write a formula in Excel that could compress identical rows but perhaps someone knows how....?

In terms of enjoyment of modelling, I use libraries of standard components for my different clients (they have to be long term clients) and simply drag the right parts in from component browser and multiply them once the conceptual stage is over - deleting the conceptual geometry as I go.

@unknownuser said:

it's just that the modelling you do, has to be done in a certain way and that way is not good for everything else wich for me is more important.

Thats a great insight - I got into SU because I can draw stuff insanely (comparatively) fast with it which is powerful for the number of iterations I often have to do.

What I can't understand is why we can't have the best of both worlds.

CAD packages have the technical output power but are only now catching up to SU in terms of their usability.
Sketchup on the other hand has great usability but not so much technical power at the end of the equation.

Sooner or later one or the other will get both sides of the deal right - I really hope its sketchup

Did I say something wrong?

Over the years I have constantly been requested to produce bills of materials in Sketchup. When its a simple situation I can just hit File > "generate report" or the well known "Cut List" which, by the way is great in that it includes a part count for identical parts wheras Generate Report simply creates a huge list of everything in the model - if I have have 1000 bricks I don't need a csv with 1000 rows with a brick on each - I simply need one row that shows that item is present 1000 times.

I have been digging around a bit with SpaceDesign which, although a little tricky to get your head round at first, is extremely powerful and DOES fit the bill provided you understand how it works BEFORE you start modelling (or are willing to go back through your model and change a bunch of stuff later). You basically add the information you want with the parts as either a component attribute or as a SpaceDesign attribute and its all there for you when you create the report.

I've also heard that BimUp 5D is good too and is similar to SpaceDesign but haven't used it myself.

My concern is that, with tools like the classifier - can sketchup not do a lot of this natively?

I have lists of parts that I can turn into classifications including price, supplier, purchase code etc using this methodology and these items appear under sketchup's "Generate Report" however, I still get all these unnecessary rows from Generate Report that I don't get in Space Design.

Am I missing something? Is there not a really simple way to do this?

I find that the complexity around this issue is truncating my Sketchup workflow and it is almost easier to concept model in SU and export to a CAD package later - Thankfully the likes of SpaceDesign are injecting usability into the situation but it seems like the standard sketchup package is 90% of the way there but just not far enough to be useful....

Apologies in advance if I have missed something painfully obvious

I can't seem to get this to work - tried both csv and html and I just get "Item, Descriptio etc" but no content