Fredo, thanks for this crucial tool that is missing in Sketchup.
I have a question/request. I'm using SketchUp on Dell XPS 13 laptop (Win 8.1). The problem I'm having is the toolbar is compressed in size making it very difficult to use:
Is there any way to expand the toolbar?
Thanks again
Chris
Rainer,
I just tested this plugin by exporting a model and then importing into SolidWorks 2014. It worked beautifully.
Thanks so much for providing this most useful tool!
Chris
I got SU 6 to work quite nicely and listed a description here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11863#p93588
I've not tried this with SU7.
good luck,
Ok. Thanks. I was afraid of that. Maybe I'll write a ruby to set them with one click.
@eusibius2 said:
Yeah - I agree, nice setup. Is that a phenolic top? And what kind of base plate is that? Looks familiar... Is that the one from Harbor Freight? I only ask 'cuz I'm building my router table now and I'm goin through all these questions. Mine's just a separate RT and TS though.
Thanks!
The top is plywood with Formica I bought from Lowe's. The sheet was damaged and I got it for $5. The router plate is plastic. I picked it up at a woodworking show many years ago so sorry, I don't remember who I bought it from. I do need to support the router top side as it's sagging a bit so the plate is in a hole.
The saw was originally purchased by my grandfather, who was boat builder in New Orleans many years ago. My dad had the saw and never used it, so he gave it to me. In addition to the fence, I put a 1 1/2 hp motor on the saw and a Forrest WWII thin blade.
@eusibius2 said:
nice plan - have you actually made this or is it just a plan? I'm wondering how practical a setup it is?
Yep. I built it about 18 months ago. Works great.
Looky here
Hi there,
I have a settings/preferences question.
I have a custom default template with all my preferred fonts etc set.
When working document with components, saving those components to a file results in the preferences being set for what I'm guessing is a default state.
Is there a way to override this "default" state and have the saved components use the default template, or even better the settings of the parent document?
I hope so because this is an amazing time consumer. I like to split out the individual components and then dimension them and such and then reimport them. Sometimes changes are necessary and doing a saveas results in having to reset the preferences.
Help!
thanks
I've used Nice PDF Compressor. It's free and did what I wanted it to do.
NicePDF Software Products - PDF Version Converter, Free PDF Compressor, Nice PDF Creator, PDF Generator for Windows 11 64bit
(www.nicepdf.com)
take care
Yes,
Have a look at this
I've got a Biesemeyer Home Workshop Fence (which is no longer sold) on it which I shortened because my basement is rather small.
Have fun,
@edson said:
i just stumbled across LightZone a new, easy to learn and cheap image processing app. watching the videos left me quite impressed. there versions for windows mac and linux.
Lightzone has been around for a while. It's a fairly innovating tool and also supports most RAW file format's.
chris
37 votes now. I just signed it.
@paul j said:
%(#4000BF)[Heard today at work that they might be considering getting CATIA.
I will do a Google search in a moment - just wondering if anyone on this forum uses it and can answer the following
*** Is it a hard package to learn ? (I guess I am worried about a steep learning curve)
** Are there many similarities to Sketchup ?
** Does anyone have a link to a demo that can be downloaded ?*]
I have used SolidWorks, which is a little cousin to Catia. My responses to your questions:
It is significantly more complex than SketchUP but more in an enterprise way than a modeling way. Restating that, the modeler in Catia will have some similarities to SketchUP. But Catia's power is not it's modeler, it is the ability to have multiple (and I mean many) operators working on the same design simultaneously without stepping on each others toes. The other major strength of Catia, where SketchUp has no functionality whatsoever, is it's tie in to sophisticated data management systems. This allows the parts that are designed to be machined, purchased, whatever by a complete different team than the original modelers.
SketchUp's modeler is very easy to use, but it has no history. You start with a shape and add things to it or subtract things from it. Catia, SolidWorks, Pro/E are parametric modelers where all your operations are kept in a tree and you can go back and change values. Inserted a hole in step three that was 5 mm in diameter, you can click on it and change the hole to 3 mm and it will correctly change it. Now saying this, Siemens and PTC are releasing history-less modelers which as far as I can tell act a lot like SketchUP. My experience is both have advantages which is why SolidEdge and Pro/E are being released with both capabilities. I'm certain SolidWorks and Catia will eventually get these features. It's a competitive market.
You aren't going to find a demo to download. The distribution of all professional 3D MCAD is VERY tightly controlled via vendor networks. SolidWorks is, Catia even more so. These are high end products aimed at industrial audiences and they don't want anybody pirating this stuff if they can avoid it.
Hopefully your employer is signing on for significant training. While you can effectively learn SketchUp (and SolidWorks) on your own, that just simply isn't possible in Catia. The training budget for the first year should be in the ballpark of your software outlay costs or your implementation is going to be a financial failure. I guarantee it. I'm not kidding. The second year it can be less, etc, etc, etc.
The other gotcha to Catia is maintenance costs. All professional 3D MCAD has an annual subscription cost of approximately 25% of the original price per year. So if your seat of Catia cost $20,000 (which wouldn't surprise me as I paid $25,000 a seat for Pro/E in 1996) your company will be faced with a $5,000 bill very year to maintain that seat of software.
To the commenter that suggested SpaceClaim, it's a good modeler that is not history based. The CEO of SpaceClaim was the original developer of both Pro/E and SolidWorks. But SpaceClaim is not Catia and won't be for a long. It's the enterprise functionality.
Good luck and let us know what your thought are when you see Catia.
@unknownuser said:
Windows XP only, but this little application (there is a free version) seems to be able to run applications portably even if they're not made as a portable application.
This might be true, but there is a MAJOR gotcha. You have to have administrative privileges on the host machine.
Kinda defeats the purpose.
Something called MojoPac Usher can be installed on the host machine, but you have to have administrative privileges on the host machine to do so.
Too bad, this could have been very useful!
chris
@marne said:
I tried it, including SU. Very nice intention behind this program. Easy to setup and works like a charm.
But as I tried to use it on a PC where I can't logon with administrative permissions it didn't work.
I'm teaching SU on a college and wanted to show the students how my personal SU with all the plugins looks and works like (esp. the paid scripts) and it failed. Too bad.
Beside I was missing an easy-to-use-encryption. By placing all my valuablescripts on a usb pen i may loose, anyone who finds it could browse through the (program files) folders (i think i was reading about improvements on this in the newest version...).
For everyone having access to several pcs with admin permissions i would recommend it. Its a nice, "cheap" and better working alternative to thinstall
-just my opinion
SketchUp can actually be run from a USB drive IF the host computer has dotnet framework installed.
See my discussion at
I use it pretty much every day at work on a machine I do not have admin privileges on.
chris
@petercharles said:
It's the end of the week and my eye's are growing dim....
Where's the link to wxSU???
Download wxSU for free. wxSU is a plugin for Google SketchUp that extends the SketchUp API with the capabilities of wxRuby. wxSU bundles wxRuby to provide a cross-platform, pure Ruby solution for implementing GUI dialogs in your SketchUp plugins.
sitename (sourceforge.net)
chris
Greetings and salutations!
Is there any way to dimension an angle in SketchUp? Not measure, Dimension.
Thanks
chris
I've modified my batch files to enable saving changes made to the registry while using SketchUp:
rem -------------------start file-----------
echo off
regedit.exe /s %CD%\iSketchup.reg
%CD%\bin\sketchup.exe
reg.exe export HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google %CD%\isketchup.reg
regedit.exe /s %CD%\dSketchup.reg
rem ------------------end file--------------
This batch file does the following
first line: Inserts the file "iSketchup.reg" into your registry (this contains all your settings). Make it a blank file for the first startup. It will be updated when you leave Sketchup.
second line: Runs Sketchup
third line: Exports the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google key to a file "iSketchup.reg". This key contains all the information that Sketchup saves to the registry. File locations, previous files, etc.
fourth line: Deletes most of the stuff left behind by Sketchup.
Work well on multiple machines!
chris
@daniel said:
All three of my 'chines installed SP3 automatically - i haven't noticed any changes.
My machine at the office just updated itself and the only issue is it raised the "security" settings for intranet access up a notch. Had to use Internet Explorer to reset that setting even though I never use IE. So much for a separate OS and browser!
chris
If you have a copy of SolidWorks, you should have a copy of DWGEditor, their AutoCAD clone (it's a repackaged version of Intellicad). In SolidWorks export your file to an ACIS file. Open DWGEditor. Import the ACIS dile and save as a DWG. Open SketchUP and import the DWG. I find this works more reliably than Didier's STL importer.
Let me know if you need further info.
chris
I've been running SketchUp free off of a USB drive for some time now. As long as DOTNET is installed on the machine you want to run SketchUp on it will run without being installed.
But, SketchUp will write a plethora of stuff to the registry. The good news is that it's pretty much all written in two hives so...
Before we start, this involves digging around in your registry with regedit. You CAN do major damage to your Windows setup if you don't know what you are doing. Don't do any of this if it's the first time you have ever heard the word registry!!!!!
Then, I got my SketchUp configured like I wanted on my home desktop. Menus, settings, etc, etc, etc. After you are done, run regedit and export all the settings contained in:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google].
Save it as iSketchup.reg
Create a registry entry called dSketchup.reg with the following:
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Bugsplat]
This will delete MOST of the entries created in your registry by SketchUp. There are some other minor traces left, but for the sake of portability we will leave the registry cleansing to these to keys.
Create a batch file with the following:
echo off
regedit.exe /s %CD%\iSketchup.reg
%CD%\bin\sketchup.exe
regedit.exe /s %CD%\dSketchup.reg
Unfortunately, this will leave a DOS box showing while you are running SketchUp. I use Bat_To_Exe_Converter.exe to make an executable and assign it the SketchUP icon which alleviates this issue. I honestly don't remember where I got Bat_To_Exe_Converter.exe
This works just fine for me with a slew of add-ins loaded, but there are two main issues:
I run this configuration from both a USB hard drive and a USB thumb drive with no problems. I've got a slew of components and add-ins loaded and it takes up about 300 mb of drive space. Not too bad.
Questions?
chris
