Why complicate your life when the answer could be easy. Draw a circle with any amount of edges.You now want to draw a tangent line to this circle.Chose any vertex, it connects two segments, go at the end of those and join them with the tape mesure tool, then slide a //guide line to your chosen vertex you now have a tangent.Et voila

thanks guys

Andrew, If you want a certain special set to be your default, do as I told above and save the file in the Templates folder of your SU app. with a custom name (actually you can have as many changes in everything as you want). Then go to window > preferences > Templates tab and select your newly created file. The next time you start su, that will be your "default".

I found an answer, if you use the weld.rb script then you can offset a open polyline Andrew

@unknownuser said: Well then - that must have been fixed! Nevermind! Todd, I don't know of any former glitches - I just tried it out (being kind and helpful) and to my greatest surprise it worked. Hm...

Well the real value of the 'paste in place' command is it will paste the copied (or cut) selection in exactly the same xyz position as it came from. In contrast any regular paste or duplication requires you to place the geometries where you want them and sometimes precise placement is difficult. A real-world example of using paste-in-place is as follows: Let's say you've modelled a house and used components and groups for major elements. You put all the grouped site & landscape elements on a layer so you can turn it off to see just the house. Upon turning off that layer's visibility you find a bunch of stray lines in the pool deck area are still visible. Shame on you! They are lines that should have been within the group that made up the pool area. Being oriented towards perfection as you are, you decide to fix the sloppy modelling rather than beat yourself up. You select and cut the stray geometries so they are in your system's clipboard. You turn back on visibility of the relevant layer and open the pool area group for editing. Then you use the 'paste in place' function with the confidence of knowing the lines will end up just where they were in xyz space but now within the proper group. As an aside, I add that because of this feature (paste-in-place) it can make working with the component/group editing feature 'hide rest of model' more practical. Regards, Ross

Another trick which would help a lot is the option of making it impossible to put two things in the same space at the same time. I don't know if that is possible in SU, but I note that in the "walk around" mode, you have the option of not being able to walk through objects.

Jean Lemire is one of the most helpful people in this forum. His posts are always enlightening. Thank you, Jean Lemire.

As Tom says, the view of angle (and the area covered by the "largest" third of the co-ordinate system) will allow you to draw on any of the 3 default planes. You can also use one of the standard views (top, left-right or front-back) to draw on the blue, red or the green axis (just push the button and it gets you there then push the "back" button in the camera menu bar to get back where you were previously). However this is mostly a handy way when there isnt too much geometry around to which the circle tool tends to snap easily. And also it is a kind of a matter of workflow - whatever you get used to (first). Eventually you can even rotate a circle into a desired alighnment.

I don't know of a "crust" ruby. But you've sure got me curious.

thanks I actual think thats just as easy..Andrew

Perfect..thanks again

How about that? http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180%26amp;t=9406K

Andrew, Most of us here keep learning new things and little tips&tricks every day. I still often go through sections of the SU Guide for it documents SU so well that you always find things in it that you don't remember (or do but forget to use): http://download.sketchup.com/sketchuphelp/gsu6_win/gsuwin.html

Thanks..

Ok, explode the terrain group and intersect with the hidden 'road' block to get the intersection lines actually on the terrain, then select the eraser and Ctrl click on the lines you want to soften. You'll be left with the road as one surface to texture.

wow thanks for the great info.. thanks a lot