Posts made by Chris Fullmer

Could also be video card issue. Make sure you download the newest drivers for your video card. Its possible the ones shipped with it are already outdated.

Chris

Hi Jack, this is a common issue. In autocad, the lines don't actually intersect, they overlap. This causes problems in SketchUp. It wants lines to actually break at intersections. So each time aline meets up with another line, it needs to be broken into a new line. Todd Burch has written a script that does this quite nicely in SketchUp. It is called intersectoverlaps and you can get it at Smustard.com for a few bucks. He has a whole suite of CAD cleanup scripts that also include l"straylines" which labels all lines that don't meet up with another line. This is particularly helpful to find lines that look like they meet up nicely, but actually have a minute gap. It makes it easy to find them and zoom in and connect them manually if necessary. After the cad file is cleaned up, run MakeFaces on it to make usable faces that you can then push/pull. Hope that helps.

Chris

Edit: Here's a direct link to intersect overlaps. It lists a few other usefuls cad scripts on this page. Some are free, some cost money:

http://www.smustard.com/script/IntersectOverlaps

I should also mention that there is a free Autocad LISP that will do the same as intersect overlaps. It is called qbrick. You can find it here:

http://www.synapse-informatique.com/qbrick_en.htm

Chris

Try drawing everything on layer 0 in sketchup. Then after something is made, select it and group it or turn it into a component. Then move that group.component to another layer.

I realize that you brought the file from CAD with lines already on separate layers, but it might be easier if you move everything to layer 0. Then move groups and components back to the layers you want them on. It might sound tedious, I often find its a better alternative than fighting with the problems of having geometry on layers other than 0.

Chris

I can see that spreadsheet just fine now.

Chris

I always end up drawing a little mustache or a funky haircut on him first, then I delete him

Chris

Hmm, very interesting. I also run SU on vista (64bit). But I have no problems. I guess this probably has to do with the server license stuff. I'm sure there lots going on there that I'm completely unaware of. Sorry its giving you such problems. That is quite the interesting 5 minute kludge indeed!

Chris

If you just want to autoscale it, play with the .dwg export settings. You can specify a scale there. So you would be able to scale it thereif desired.

Chris

What is the 5 minute kludge you refer to? I know some users had an extra long delay on opening SU in earlier releases of SU 6, but that was cleaned up. Is it something to do with that? or did I misunderstand what you mean?

Chris

I run a PC so I don't know what this means, hopefully you do. But the standard response to this issue on a Mac is to "trash the plist" or p.list or something like that. That seems to do the trick for most Mac users.

Chris

I had heard we can sort of change our field of view between 30 (indoors, on more focused objects) and 60 (outdoors in large open places). I don't know if its right, but I go with that and often st my field of view around 60 outside.

Chris

EDIT: I got this backwards, read the next post by Diego.

Oh yeah, oh course! Thanks for clearng that up. Now that you say it that way, it makes much more sense logically. That is in fact how I would normally do it, though obviously I haven't had to do it in a while and I had forgotten off the top of my head. Thanks for stepping in and correctifying my mistake.

Chris

I am using the 8600 and its great. I have had real problems with ati in the past with sketchup and other 3d programs. I refuse to go back to ATI.

Chris

I too think this is purely a hardware issue. I think the other comps are not strong enough to handle the model as well as your computer so they are dumbing it down while they rotate and pan. A way around this is to turn off all uneeded components while rotating and turn them back on once you get in set in place. I ususally use scenes to manage my components and styles.

Chris

@tomsdesk said:

Which is why I can't understand the lack of reverse-feedback (respect)!

huh? I'm not quite following that.

My only complaint about Fraps is that it doesnt capture the toolbar, only the working window. So you don't get to see the icons being selected or any of the windows or toolbars. I only use fraps for capturing 3dgames. It excels at that and it is a pretty cheap program.

Chris

Virtools (now called 3dvia Virtools) by Dassault Systemes is a 3d physics/game engine and it also has this visual interface. It took me a while to learn and certain aspects were quite difficult, but in the end it was certainly much easier than learning the coding language used by that program.

And I'm also a big terragen fan (though I haven't used it much recently). I think that making a visual ruby programming application for SketchUp would be a very interesting development indeed!

Good luck to whoever takes this on

Chris

In the shadows setting box you want to check that "On Faces" is turned on. That is what your model looks like is missing to me. If that doesn't do it, could you upload the model?

Chris

EDIT: Ok, sounds good. Glad you found the problem

Do the bevel need to be at 45deg?

To do it another way you could just make it all square, ignore the bevels. Then just scale the bottom lines uniformly inward to get what you want.

Chris

Oh good, glad I could be of help! Thanks for the nice comment on the presentation too. I had a blast at basecamp,

Chris

I generally select what I want to export and then wblock it out to a f file. This generally requires binding all my xrefs so they are actually a part of the file. So yes, I always take my file and save it as a special "su-export.dwg" file so I don't mess up the original.

So I would save my file as a new copy. Then bind all x-refs. Then I make a mark in the file to use as my base point. Then I copy all the portions that I want plus my mark off to one side so I can work on it, but leave the main model all intact for future exports. On the portion i copied off tot he side, I cut it down, delete unnecessary parts, explode things I want exploded, etc. Then I select the stuff that is leftover, including the base mark and wblock it out. I repeat this process everytime I want to export a new piece. I also never import preserving real world coordinates. This often gets really ugly in SU if the model is far from 0,0,0.

So maybe later I realize I missed the sidewalks and I need to wblock them out. I go back to the cad file, copy them plus the base point off to the side, then wblock them out. Then when I insert them into SU, I line up my mark with the mark already in SU. Then it all lines up nicely.

Here is a web page I put together compiled of everyone else's work flows. It is a little different than what I described above. I prefer the method I described here, but there are important parts listed on the webpage too. Specifically I really like to run qbrick in CAD, and lfattening everything to z=0 is soemtimes important too.

http://www.chrisfullmer.com/la3d/cad/cadexport.html

Hope this helps,

Chris