Ahh... there it is. Thanks Susan & Jeff (& everyone else).

I'd tried this off a hunch from posts I'd seen on another issue, but since SU gave showed a message it would take effect for new windows I'd simply re-opened the file (rendering looked different, but still showed the issue). Now that you've confirmed, I changed the setting and then quit & relaunched SU and indeed the issue disappears.

Also sadly indeed, it is barely useable in that mode. Guess I can do most of my building/manipulating with the acceleration on, then turn it off for establishing some final views with cuts. Was hoping planes could be more useful for me than that, but maybe with my next computer (since I don't dare imagine Google addressing this older, apparently rather specific hardware issue in future releases).

Thanks again everyone. Incredible resource we've got here.
--Ben

p.s. if anyone is interested in the details, I'm running OS 10.4.11 and Sketchup for Mac 6.4.120 on a 1.42GHZ iBook G4 which the spec says has a 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM

Thanks Brad & Boofredlay.

I now suspect the problem is NOT actually with the models since I've seen the same behavior in models I've downloaded from Google and we've had at least 2 folks (both on PCs) from this forum who have not seen the issue when viewing my models.

Still stumped, but hoping
Thanks again --Ben

Looks like my issue may be a bug, so I'm posting here to hopefully find some help or insight into it...

I started the thread here because I assumed user error, please take a look:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5551

I'm running Mac OSX 10.4.11, Sketchup 6.4.120.

Short description of the the issue is some components "poke through" section planes. They are visible but not clickable on the "wrong" side of the plane.

Please help!
Thanks --Ben

Howard,
Thanks for your efforts. Was hoping that might do some magic, too, but no dice.

I even booted from a backup of my system from months ago w/previous version of SU and previous version of Mac OS and it still does it. In other models of mine, too. And models I downloaded off Google's 3d Warehouse site. Something is way weird.

I'm stumped. Does Google offer any kind of actual tech support for this kind of thing? I had a hard time finding anything helpful on their site.

Thanks again. Don't know what I'm going to do from here...
--Ben

Thanks for the quick replies.

Howard, I'd done all that you suggested already and tried again this morning. Your screen dump vs. mine seems to show it's some kind of issue with either my system in particular or maybe the Mac version of Sketchup. I've got the latest, re-installed & restarted. The fact it works fine on yours and not mine is puzzling & frustrating.

Is there any way my files might be corrupted? I've got the setting selected to automatically check when saving, but is there some mechanism to "rebuild" a potentially corrupt file? Any other ideas?

Thanks again for any additional help anyone can offer
--Be

@unknownuser said:

Ben,
See attached *.jpg's
...
Try the obvious things first:
Show Section Plane
Show Section Cut
(icons)
Then...
Right Click on any Section Plane of interest (The grey area with Section Arrows on each corner) - Select "Active Cut"
Model should Section Correctly.
...
I've had no problems with either your fireplace or office models.
Both seem to work fine (see attached screen dumps).
...
I'm using Windows - I think you're on a Mac ???
I'm not sure if this is significant.
...
Hope this helps
Howard L'

I hope this is an appropriate place for this rather specific question... If not, please advise a better resource.

I'm trying to use Sketchup's Section Planes & it seems to be freaking things out. From what I can tell, sometimes when I have an instance of a component that is being cut by a plane, stuff around it will cut but not the component (or part of it). It'll stick out right through the plane. Or the item will cut but every other instance will also, even if they aren't touched by the plane (so chunks show missing in other areas of the model).

I've not found any discussion of this on the web anywhere, so maybe it's just the way I'm doing things. I've included a couple models and screen shots of what I'm seeing. I suspected it might just be my system, but I reinstalled Sketchup and it's still doing it.

I can not figure out why Section Planes turn out so wacked out on my models. I've found if I drill down and iteratively explode the offending components it will eventually show correctly, but it's not supposed to work like that and that ruins the editable structure of the model. Also, sometimes as I do that other parts of the model start exhibiting the odd behavior (hence my suspicion something software-related was amiss.) Can anyone offer some insight?

Just reading forums like this over the last couple months has gotten me to where I am now with Sketchup, which is feeling pretty confident and using it periodically to show clients what I'll build them and show myself how I'll build it. Thanks to all for the info so far! Hope someone can help!

Thanks
--Ben

Couple models and screen shots of section issue