Thank you, Dermot.

Hmmmm.... I don't know. Maybe. I had it installed before today but only noticed the behavior start today. I didn't install anything today before running SketchUp.

One man's flow is another man's dribble...

Hi Dave, I saw an article in the Sept. 2000 issue of FWW on the Jefferson Lap Desk. I've thought about how you could adapt it to laptop use by having the top fold out to the side or having a slide out part below the top for using a mouse.

Thanks for that. I should have looked there first.

I see that, but here's a try at it anyway. It looks like it might work on simple models, but probably not so much on more realistic models. Off Register.style [image: rENI_h1icon.png] [image: 16sl_8x8_shed.png]

Hi Peter, Thanks. It's not my script and I'm still not smart enough to write them. I haven't done any new styles for awhile. Maybe I should try some. FWIW, I modeled Thomas Jefferson's lap desk yesterday at lunch. I dovetailed all four corners of the drawer using that plugin in less than a minute. [image: 4440881163_6c9d8584e8.jpg] So what have you been working, Peter?

Thank you gentlemen. Todd, I like the bench, too. I'd like to have one in my shop but the last thing I need is another horizontal surface. If I built that, there'd no room for building another boat. Dan, you're welcome. Glad to relive at least a little of your boredom. Chris, I like that quarter sawn oak material, too but I think I need to find some additional images that could be colored to match. The ray flecks are clearly repeated too often with just one board.

@unknownuser said: so that in case he had a thought in the night he could get up and write it down I can't even manage that when I am awake. @unknownuser said: His mind never rested. I make up for him on that one. Thank you, David.

So finely detailed, they look like you could get in one and drive away. Just beautiful.

I changed the axis location after creating the component. I made 3D Text components, rotated them to vertical and changed their axes to determine the insertion point.

Thomas, What I'm thinking of is being able to quickly repair (or modify) a model so that the component axes of all original instances of the components would be aligned with the global axes. My last remark was intended to say that you would select a set of components in a model and if there's an original instance in the selection, its axes would get changed to align with the global axes. Last night someone sent me a cabinet model. He had drawn some of the components laying down on the ground plane and then rotated them up into their proper position. When a model is drawn that way, it appears that materials are randomly applied and it is difficult for some to make sense of what's happening. Also, as you know, if the component is made laying down but used standing up, every time it is inserted into a model, its orientation has to be corrected. Correcting the axes orientation up front would eliminate the need to do that correction later. Thanks for your thoughts.

@plot-paris said: is there a keyboard shortcut to open up the activity monitor? and does it start even if all other programs are frozen? that would be perfect not since the invention of wireless keyboards for the iMac, but on my MacBookPro if you toggle caption-lock and the light works, your normally still in business, if it does [cmd]+[s] usually will save a SU file (even if it's not responding), then clicking on the MenuBar apple/then ForceQuit/SU will 9/10 get you back on track. frozen programs more often only lock themselves, unless your playing with alfa, beta or early release software and some unfriendly SU rubies. iStatMenus has drop-down menu shortcuts to terminal and console and itself, but most the things you want to keep an eye on are always at the top of the screen and clicking those gives you loads more info. BTW- Apple don't call them laptops because they can get far to hot, especially the 17" ones. mine lives on a sheet of corrugated ali, and is always on and plugged in when I'm not out and about. MiniBatteryLogger is also worth a look have fun john

@tfdesign said: I don't know about Pro- but I'm guessing it's the same? [image: ERsH_MM1_RR_test.jpg] [image: 8cp8_detail.jpg] QT Pro is well worth getting for full screen playback of almost anything, even if you don't use it with SU. Also just did this test, took 4 mins to export this file out of SU, it's un-rendered ( or more correctly it's only SU rendered) I've been having a play with LightUp (which exports AVI's), but my trial has runout before I managed to try an animated sequence, but it's worth a look before spending big bucks. Could you start a new thread with exactly what your trying to achieve, and maybe a sample file, as I'm sure there are SU/Mac users who have found a solution or combo. I've been working on animations of engineering product designs (as a secondary goal, to 3D printable SU drawings), but have tried out quite a lot of things in the process that may suit your needs if not mine. Outside of SU, I like bits of SharkFX, SolidThinking and the RhinoWanacheeBeta, but there not SU which overall I prefer. john

Well, I'm glad it was. Thank you again.

Thank you, Pete.

Thanks Dave, nice card!

Wow! 6 years to do!

man, that guy can hit the apex! to be honest i wanted him to hit a bollard. sorry!!