I just installed it and was really disappointed that the Print functionality is still broken. The biggest problem is in printing to scale. For some reason SketchUp insists on printing white space. Unless you minimize the white space in the window it will print on multiple wasted pages. In addition, if you are using metric mm in the scale side it sometimes, though not always, insists on changing the scale to suit inches. For example, if I enter 1 mm for "In the printout" and 100 mm for "In SketchUp" everything is fine until I change focus away from the Print Preview dialog box at which time 1 is changed to 25.4 and 100 is changed to 2542.2. The 25.4 obviously represents 25.4 mm in 1". The 2542.2 is supposed to represent 2540 mm in 100", but where the extra 2.2 mm come from who knows. Multiplying 25.4 by 100 shouldn't be too hard for SketchUp. Still, the biggest problem is SketchUp's insistence on printing white space. Why it can't calculate a bounding box for the objects in the window and use that is a mystery to me. But this problem plagues every new user to SketchUp and it has been there since day 1. Will it ever get fixed?

That said, I am a huge SketchUp fan.

@thomthom said:

hmmm... so when you use thet Layer Drop downbox it change the active layer? The Layers Toolbar? (I never use that) or the Entity Info?

Yes. But only after I made copies of the components and moved them. Then, while they were still selected I used the Layer Dropdown box to place them on a different layer and got this strange behavior.

If I select the original three components and use the Layers Dropdown box to place them on a different layer it works fine.

@thomthom said:

Use the Entity Info window to change the layer entities lie on.

(I see people at the office do this - I'm guessing it's how you do it AutoCAD?)

I never change the active layer from Layer0 because it's all to easy to forget which one is active and place geometry on the wrong layers. (I always put faces and edges on Layer0 and only place groups and components on layers)

thomthom,

Same here. I always leave layer0 active and like you leave primitives on layer0 but components on other layers. That is why I am not happy when it is changed on me without my intending it. As you indicated, it does work correctly when using the Entity Info box. I think there ought to be an option to lock layer0 active. I see no reason to ever change it.

I have been using SketchUp for a long time now, but never saw (or never took notice) of a behavior I saw this morning which seems strange to me. Let me describe the setup.

1. Make three non-overlapping shapes; e.g. circle, rectangle and hexagon with Layer0 the active layer.
2. Extrude each into a volume and make each a component (use the default component names such as Component1 etc.).
3. Create four layers: again use the default layer names of layer1 through layer4.
4. Place the circle on layer1, cube on layer2, hexagon on layer3.
5. With the Select tool select all three components, and with the Move/Copy tool (Move with Ctrl key) copy them to another place in the drawing.
6. While the components are still selected use the Layers drop down box to place them on layer4.

Here is the behavior I have never noticed before and seems strange to me. The components are not moved to layer4, but rather stay on their original layers but layer4 becomes the active layer. There is a hint that something is amiss with the Layers drop down box white and not yellow. But it seem to me that the active layer should never be changed unless specifically done by the user with the radio buttons. Further it seems to me that the components should have been placed on layer4.

Is this a known bug or a SketchUp "feature"?

11zulu, you are welcome.

I just released part 8, the final installment of this series. So if you have been following along you now have another video to watch. Go to http://www.srww.com/blog to view it.

In Part 8 I conclude this series by covering material that has been particularly troubling. I get a lot of email from people who are following along but get stuck in a place that is frustrating and confusing. That is normal and part of the learning process. I tried to keep track of which areas were the culprits and this tutorial is intended to shed additional light on them. Be sure to read all the introduction for instructions on how to download the files you will need.

This concludes the Beginner’s SketchUp Tutorial series. In the not too distant future I will begin An Intermediate Google SketchUp Tutorial – The Video Version series. It will deal with complex shapes and complex curves. The series will parallel An Intermediate Google SketchUp Tutorial written version already available on my Google SketchUp page. So if you can’t wait for the video series you can start there. Until then bye for now.

Thanks Kurt. I am glad I can help. Happy New Year!

Thanks Simon. I too learn form creating them. Happy New Year!

I just released part 7 of this series. So if you have been following along you now have another video to watch. Go to http://www.srww.com/blog to view it.

Part 7 covers scene texturing. Basically, everything you need to know to go from jpg wood grain images and a SketchUp model to near photorealistic models. Be sure to read all the introduction for instructions on how to download the files you will need.

Part 8 will be out next week. It will be a smorgasbord of things. Mostly details not covered in the series so far. It will demonstrate alternative ways of doing some things done in the tutorials, but for which I didn’t have time in the constraints of a 40 plus or minus minutes video. It will also explain some key tools in much more detail. If you have a suggestion for this part let me know.

Happy New Year.

I just released part 6 of this series. So if you have been following along you now have another video to watch. Go to http://www.srww.com/blog to view it.

Part 6 covers scene creation, dimensioning and labeling. Basically, everything you need to know to create shop drawings. It also shows you how to download and install a Ruby script that makes layers management much easier.

Part 7 will be out next week and will cover texturing that enables near photorealistic renderings.

The last installment, Part 8, will be a smorgasbord of things. Mostly details not covered in the series so far. It will demonstrate alternative ways of doing some things done in the tutorials, but for which I didn’t have time in the constraints of a 40 plus or minus minutes video. It will also explain some key tools in much more detail. If you have a suggestion for this part let me know.

Happy Holidays.

Jim,

That works too, though I don't know if you can always judiciously find the right place to anchor the shape to avoid leaving dangling lines. But it does have the advantage of aiding you in forming the shape. Gai's solution may be more general but does require creating the shape away from the part. On the other hand, it is always good to have several workarounds.

Thanks Gai,

Actually, I have been doing it that way for some time because of other anomalies with Follow Me i.e.separating the shape from the selected path or face of the part. But I just noticed this anomaly in the last few days and its implication for Solids. Sounds like it may not get fixed real quick, but thanks for the work around.

Gaieus,

Thanks, I like that work around better. Leaves a clean solid component.

By the way, is this the official SU bug report site? Does Google monitor this site and are these kinds of bugs likely to get fixed?

Tig, that is not really a work around because it does not produce a Solid Component, simply component. The real problem here is that the Follow Me tool degrades a Solid Component to Component. In order to subsequently operate on these components with Solids tools in the Pro version they need to be Solid Components. With this bug you have to hunt around to find the extra pieces and correct them before you can use Solids tools.

The method you propose makes matters worse. It leaves extra lines and faces which keep the part from being a Solid Component.

I noticed that the Follow Me tool, when used to edit a component and create a rounded edge in Edit Component mode leaves a dangling line. This line prohibits the component from being a Solid Component. It seems to me this dangling line is not intended and should have been cleaned up by the Follow Me engine. See the attached .skp model for a demo.

Demonstrates Follow Me problem

I just released part 5 of this series today. So if you have been following along you now have another to watch. Go to http://www.srww.com/blog .

Part 6 will be out in a week or so and will cover scene creation, dimensioning and labeling. Basically, everything you need to know to create shop drawings.

Part 7 will be out the following week or so and will cover texturing to get near photorealistic renderings.

The last installment, Part 8 will be a supplement to show alternative ways of doing some things done in the rest of the tutorials but for which I didn’t have time in the constraints of a 40 plus or minus minutes video. It will be a bit of a grab bag, but will hopefully clear up some things left perhaps unclear in the videos thus far. If you have a suggestion for this part let me know.

Have a nice weekend.

Thanks mac1. Glad I could help.

Joe...

Thanks dedmin. We try to provide useful info that helps fellow woodworkers. Glad you appreciate it.

I am posting an eight part Beginner's SketchUp Tutorial video series on my blog. Each installment is approximately 40 minutes long. They are free, can be streamed from my blog site ( http://www.srww.com/blog ), web site ( http://www.srww.com/google-sketchup.htm ) or downloaded to your system for viewing. Four of the videos are posted and the remaining will be out over the next month. A bedside table is the vehicle used for the tutorial. The course take you entirely through the modeling, dimensioning and texturing of the table. When you are done you have a set of shop drawings. You can download a finished set of SketchUp drawings for this table at http://www.srww.com/sketchup-furniture-plans.htm. Scroll down to Tables and look for Bedside Table under it. The plans are available in .skp native SketchUp format or .pdf. Check it out.

@gaieus said:

So you posted it in the "Wish list" section because you wish you had one, didn't you?

I have one actually...

Sorry Gaieus, but it is simpler than that. I am just a little stupid.