Thank you, thank you, both of you! Thank you Dave for turning me on to this plethora of plug-ins! They will surely make much work simpler for me for a very long time. And thank you, Massimo, for clarifying that detail that had me scratching my head.
Gigi

I seem to get a rotation tool, so maybe I'm clicking on the wrong one. The one I use has a set of red arrows (one pointing up, one down), and it says "Planar shearing by selection of plane and angle" when you hover over it. Should I be using another one?

What you describe is exactly what I want to be doing, because I have a point marked to which I want to raise that one side!

May I ask (anyone) how the FredoScale Plane Shear tool is used? I downloaded the .pdf user manual but it only covers the FredoScale part -- this is a set of plug-ins and the other ones didn't get a mention. So I looked on his page, searched on SketchUcation, and on google, and can't find any discussion or instructions anywhere.

Thanks for helping!

Gigi

Thank you, Dave -- I have just finally successfully found and installed FredoScale. From your example, it certainly does look exactly like what I need. Thank you so much! Gigi

It's not working with the .skp file. I probably don't know how to do it. After waiting and waiting, I get the message that "No data was sent," (or... found, or received, or something like that).

OK, but not sure I'll be able to do the .skp file. I will try.

![Note the bottom of banister on the higher "leg" of the ramp.](/uploads/imported_attachments/TEfG_pember-ramp-redesign-01-slope-problem.jpg "Note the bottom of banister on the higher "leg" of the ramp.")

Hi, folks!

Here I am, years later, still in the Newbie forum! Well, I don't use SU as often as you do. But now I've run into a problem, and need help.

I'm building a U-shaped ramp for disabled access (in SU -- I'm actually making an existing ramp ADA-compliant), and it has a fence-like banister with lots of vertical members along with the handicapped handrails (running separately along the inside of the "fence"). The fence-like sections consist of an upper and lower horizontal 1" x 2" (in section) face that is extruded along the length of the fence segment, and the vertical 1" x 1" faces, extruded vertically, in-between them. Essentially a ladder on its side, with the rungs spaced 4" o.c. They run between vertical 4 x 4 columns - but that's not important. I created the first segment along the edge of the ramp so as to have the banister-fence parallel to its slope. (So what I refer to as "horizontal" isn't -- it's slightly angled.)

I've copied and mirrored and placed them, but when I got to the other side of the ramp (the other "leg" of the "U"), I found I had a slightly different slope. The fence segments are both components or groups. Now I want to angle a segment more, to increase the slope. But that seems to be impossible with a component or group made up of many pieces, and if I explode them and try to raise one side (and what is one side, anyway, when you have so many parts!), they won't move together.

How can I accomplish this without redrawing the entire fence piece along the higher sloped ramp? How would you handle this? I'm stumped.

Thanks in advance!
Gigi

Edge color 'By Axis' did the trick, Dave -- thanks SO much! It was instantly easy to see which edges didn't have a color (which should have!), and rotate the item. Fabulous!

The problem with your second suggestion is that I didn't know if my floor was skewed, so trying to put a guideline parallel to the floor would have just given me a skewed line. But since you solved the problem with your first suggestion, I didn't have to go there!

Thanks for taking the time to answer! So nice of you.

Gigi

Hey, MartinK,
I have your exact laptop and love it! I bought it when it first came out (at a significantly higher price), and the young salesdudes were drooling at the mouth as they watched me walk out with what they lusted after. Little did they know that I needed a "gaming computer" to keep up with all my graphic needs!

Although I'm in love with it, it wouldn't be fair to omit telling you that sometimes it does crash, but then, I have no idea who or what is to blame for that. Now a couple of keys are also sticking a bit -- not staying down and activated, more like they're harder to press. I'm sure I can find a way to remove the keyboard and clean everything out to alleviate that issue. Other than that, no problems whatever! Love having all this computing power, large screen, etc. Awesome choice! Good luck with yours!

Gigi

If you don't want to re-invent the wheel, how about hiring someone off this forum to do it for you? You could collaborate with an expert, and wouldn't have to learn the entire program for yourself. Especially if, as you say, you don't possess the native talents that draw people to this kind of software, then your learning curve may be significantly longer than average. I think I've seen on some people's siggies that they are "for hire..."

There are lots of SketchUp tutorials and videos to help you learn it, if that's the way you want to go. Sounds like an interesting project. Good luck with it!

Gigi