Answering my own problem here. It seems that Sketchucation tools is the culprit. I transferred the version I was using with SU 2016 and used it alongside the plugins that the Trimble extension manager had installed. Having removed the SU Tools extension, memory requirements dropped dramatically to something reasonable. Doing a bit of research, I found SU tools v. 3.1.3 but could not get them to install in SU2017 Pro 17.3.116 - I unzipped the rbz and put them in the plugins folder then relaunched SO but to no avail. It seems that Trimble are determined that one should use their extensions manager.

Thanks István, Yes, I have known of the company in Praha (and have always thought that it was quite stupid of Google that they put several countries under the same hood) and indeed it's nice to see that finally it can be purchased in Hungary, too. Not really (or necessarily) the full version as we can buy that straight from Google but educational licenses (of any kind) have been impossible to buy so far (not as if I needed one any more).

I just switched over to 8 yesterday and saw the same behavior as well. I couldn't pull it down to reveal more of the pane. When it next happens I will send in a bug report.

Scott, Modelhead, Thank you very much - some great recommendations there. It is clear that Photoshop (or it's various cousins - I'm on a Mac and using Gimp, Pixelmator etc.) is pretty essential. I have had some success with Gimp by taking a basic board, and copying/modifying it in various ways to create larger panels. Gimp's Liquid resixe and bump maps help create some pretty good looking images that then serve fairly well for the size of furniture I am working with at the moment.

Johnny,Gai, Thanks for that link. Chris

Gai, That is indeed impressive! Thanks for the link. Chris