@tig said:

There are many commands that only appear in [context-]menus IF certain criteria are met

Yes, I knew that, but I thought that in the general preferences there should be all possible entries independent of the model or the selection. So the general preferences are not as general as I expected... good to know

@lecra said:

People,

I noticed the same!! In the shortcut menu 'Explode' is only available if you have already grouped an object! Maybe a bug.

In german it is called "In Einzelteile auflösen" and the possible bug is not in the contextmenu but in the preferences:

• If no group or component is selected, the entry is not there (see picture)
• If a group is selected, you can find the entry in the shortcut list

Is there a subdivision property in your render engine which smoothes the rendered mesh during export without changing the geometry itself?

My Duh! of the day was in this thread: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8046

• Use the eraser tool to select some edges
• Don't release the left mouse button
• Click the spacebar
• Release the left mouse button and the selection still remains without deletion

@oganocali said:

Actually you can get it almost right in all views if you do

view
edges
back edges
profiles

set the transparency of the material around 70 %
set the profile width from styles to 1

With your technique and the face style "Hidden Line" the illustration is getting better (the vertical hole lines are not dashed...)

Is this a task which can be solved by a ruby-plugin?

loop through all geometry
for all circles
copy (viewdependent) the two hole lines which are furthermost
paste on a new layer
end
end

(...arcs?)

Another way ist to unsmooth some of the hole lines (see picture), but this only works for one of the standard views naturally...

EDIT: OK, some minutes to late

Is there a way to show holes in a geometry (a) like shown in (e)? this illustration would be helpful for engineering drawings...

I tried these ways but they didn't lead to the desired illustration:
(b) show back edges
(c) back edges and hidden lines
(d) x-ray mode

Thank you for helpful hints!

I have tested some of these with the indigo renderer:
http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4141

Here is another exercise for beginners to practice the tools rotate and move:
http://bit.ly/xPWUSn

I miss the infinite loop button within youtube...

Thank you TIG for this one-liner which shows me that I have to learn ruby...

Only if there is no native way to do this
(If there is a native way, it would be my Doh! of the day...)

Is there an easy way to delete all section cuts in a model at once even if they are nested in groups and components (e.g. for section cut animations)?

Windows -> Components -> Select component in list of components in model (home button) -> change to panel Statistics
(I don't know the exact translations of the menus, but I hope you will find it in your SketchUp)

Another one with some examples: http://www.renderplus.com/wk/RPS_3D_PDF_w.htm
I have never tried to make a 3D PDF, but I am interested in some experiences...

Try the mirror plugin (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=31410) or scale with a factor of -1 (+ Ctrl to retain the position).

@jo-ke said:

Absolutely great stuff.
And thank you for showing the proxies. I'm learning a lot by looking at them.

+1

@tig said:

Some options are only available to 8-Pro users.

Are these advanced options or are the basic functions affected?

I tried with the testmodel which didn't work for me with version 4, and no problems anymore!
Thank you!