Yes, they do permit resale and the seller you pointed out have sold their license for a little more than I was hoping to pay. I've got 2 licenses already and for the little use I would have for a third means I have limited budget so hoping to get lucky here.

Sorry this is not strictly SU but I do have a SU8 license. Does anyone have a FormZ Pro license they no longer use and would sell? I would like another FZpro license and can only justify the purchase if I can get a second hand one at reduced price. Ideally version 8.5 but would consider older version if available today while upgrade would be still be possible at sale price. I am based in UK and can use paypal. Thanks, Alan. Alan Cooper Cabinetmaker Ltd.
alan@ac-c.co.uk

I would have thought use of layers would be the most effective method of displaying or more to the point not displaying particular design alternatives. All items to be on layer 0 except for the ultimate containing component or group which would be on the layer for a particular design alternative. I don't know how sketchup would perform if a large number of design alternatives on many layers would perform. Because there is no layer grouping or hierarchy, sketchup layers do seem to be quite limiting, especially for highly detailed designs.

@dave r said:

glad if my babbling is helpful.

FWIW, I also tend to minimize nesting as much as possible it generally makes it more complex to edit the model and it is easy to get nests screwed up. also make sure you have a clear understanding of layers and only make layer associations for components/groups. Leave Layer 0 active at all time, draw everything on Layer 0 and make sure edges and faces always remain on Layer 0.

Thanks Dave.
So far, Fredoscale seems to be behaving while avoiding groups.

@dave r said:

I think you'll get a lot of differences of opinions.

I've been drawing with SketchUp for almost 10 years and never once found a case where a group made more sense for me than a component so I don't use groups--ever. Joe seems to like them, though. Some folks hink it makes sense to make groups of parts when there is only one of those parts in the model and they'll make components only when there's more than one. Or they like to make groups until they need them to be components. When I'm creating a model for a plan, there will absolutely always be more than one of every part. Since I only use components, there is never a time when I look at something and wonder if it is a component or a group.

Joe prefers to show models in isometric views while I use perspective views except for the 2D views I create. Some people put each part on its own layer and make scenes for only one part. I make layers for assemblies and often show more than one part in a single scene. Some folks prefer to do dimensioning in SketchUp while others, including me, do all and other text dimensioning in LayOut.

I think you have to work out what works best for you. My process works well for me and I find it extremely logical and fast.

Thank you Dave for your view on this, which is helpful as it would be good if I can lay a sound foundation at this stage so I don't have to alter everything again in the future. So far my poor experience seems to be related to groups so maybe I should give your method of avoiding them a chance and use some sort of prefix system for components which contain other components, which should help the cutlist situation. I also see the advantages of perspective views, like yourself. Layers for assemblies sounds good too. Thanks again for taking the time to advise.

@dave r said:

Well, maybe Joe has some ideas for you regarding organizing your model. Having the drawers nested as you have them in your example doesn't make a lot of sense to me and would very much complicate my workflow.

Does any one know where there is some 'Best Practice' for woodworkers regarding workflow organisation of components, groups and layers which is well regarded generally or is this a subject likely to cause too much difference of opinion?

@dave r said:

I don't know. The only weird thing I see when I try to resize just the top drawer vertically with Box Stretcher after selecting all of it including the drawer guides is the drawer guides get resized, too. That doesn't happen with the middle or lower drawer though. The drawer box gets resized just fine though.

I guess I wouldn't make a group of the entire set of drawers. Instead I would make a nested component of each drawer box sans drawer guides.

If you have to do much of this, though, especially with different drawer front options, it seems to me that you shouldn't be wasting time on this and instead make a dynamic drawer component.

Thanks Dave, I am fairly new to sketchup which is why I am starting off using Fredo Scale for resizing, as have very limited time to get current job completed before getting involved with dynamic components once I have more time available to look into it. The runners shouldn't stretch if the dividing line is high enough, though as I have been saying, behaviour seems a little irratic. As I will be using Cutlist Bridge plugin by Joe Zeh aka Chief Woodworker and he advises against nested components, that is why I have been nesting components in groups instead, and it does seem a cleaner method, which avoids 'strange happenings' like duplicates and changes to components in a complex model, but I guess each user has their own convention discipline [early in the day for me as a new user, but getting the idea not to group too deeply].

@dave r said:

Well, think about what Box Stretching is doing. It takes the end components in the nest and moves them while it stretches those in the middle. It seems to me it is doing exactly the same thing in all three directions correctly. It may not do the wanted thing but it is doing what it was designed to do.

Dave, please see the post I just made, as I had raised the divider for stretching, the upper drawer should stretch.

Dave, thanks, yes I am using box stretching and showing the position of the divider [as available from the local menu] and moving the divider to an appropriate position for the stretch to happen which I inferenced to a pre-prepared line for an accurate position.

No, I was not trying to stretch all 3 drawers at a time to adjust height [though I would for width or depth] but I was originally additionally trying to stretch the drawer face fronts [not shown here] so trying to stretch as much of the cabinet at once [Carcass group, drawerboxes group and drawerfronts group] with as few actions as possible rather than going into each group to activate Fredoscale, and mostly it worked except for the top drawer which is why I have broken it down to just the drawerboxes to test where it fails at the minimum level. It would appear though that there are irratic limitations when using Fredoscale with group hierarchy, and it works most reliably when all components being scaled are within the same group, and even that is not bullet-proof. I am certain that my computer is easily up to the job so that wouldn't be the issue.

Bug [pretty sure anyway].
Hi I love this Fredoscale plugin and was going to make a donation but I am getting some buggy results which I hope there is a solution for. Please see attachments.

Some whole components move or don't move instead of scale.

Top drawer irratic scaling

@dave r said:

Without seeing your drawer component and its structure, it's kind of difficult to say exactly how you could improve it to make FredoScale work the way you want it to. As to a better way, I found for my use that a dynamic drawer component makes the most sense. I do a lot of design work for a cabinet maker who always uses the same drawer glides and orders drawer boxes from a single supplier. I made a dynamic drawer component that allows me to enter the depth of the cabinet and the size of the opening. The component is sized to allow for the required clearances and the DC window outputs the required part number for the drawer so he can place his order from it. this makes it dead simple to insert drawers and make them fit in any project.

For traditional drawers, though, i prefer to resize them manually which isn't difficult if the components are made correctly.

Thank you Dave. I will get round to the dynamic component solution eventually. I've got the same problem with the upper drawer boxes. I can't see what the difference is between them and the lower ones other than the upper ones are not responding to Fredo Scale. All components are recognised as solid components by the solid tools in sketchup 8 pro. I've attached in case you or any one else are interested in detecting any problems.

FredoScale not adjusting top drawer height.

I have modelled a chest of drawers with 3 types of drawer front laid on top of each other and each drawer front component is part of a group of fronts for that drawer style and the group is on a layer named with that style so I can switch off design options in different scenes. I want to change the size of the whole cabinet using Fredo Scale. It partly works but am finding some drawer fronts resize and others don't. Is there a limitation in depth of group nesting that Fredoscale can cope with or am I likely to have done something wrong? Any other tips on achieving resizing of cabinets easily without panel thickness etc changing would be welcome if there is a better or quicker way than Fredoscale, though generally it is pretty good as the scale location can be snapped accurately to a defined line or point.