Hello -

When I open the Extensions > ExtensionStore (4.1.0), the graphics are messed up... See attached image. Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks -

Doug

Hello -

I have a +/- 100MB file that I'm trying to export to 3D DWG. It crashes almost instantly when I try.

I have purged the model (model info / statistics / purge unused).

I also tried exploding all components and groups. Still doesn't work.

Reading through solutions that I found in the Sketchup User Forum offered no solutions.

I can export other, less complicated models with no problems. Here's my setup:

MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2017 / macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Sketchup Pro 2018 (Version 18.0.16976)

Any thoughts?

Thanks -

Doug

Hello -

We have a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina and are having trouble with our direct HDMI connection to a 55", Samsung 4K TV. Under higher resolution settings, when viewing Sketchup models - rotating, zooming, etc. is painfully slow. Would an external GPU be the answer to our problems? Any other suggestions?

I googled eGPU's and it seems that there are few options for the Mac.

Thanks for any advice you may offer.

Doug

Hello -

We are working with an out-of-office consultant (interior designer) on a large residential project and would like to be able to coordinate our Sketchup work as seamlessly as possible. Within our office, we have worked using the method of updating external components within a model using right-click "save-as" and "reload" and it has worked reasonably well.

We use Dropbox and could work with our consultant in a similar manner, but because the consultant is not extremely adept at using Sketchup, I'm concerned that things could be confusing and get screwed up pretty quickly. The "Master File" (from our office) is about 70MB and quite complex, but well organized in terms of layer naming / management.

I'm wondering if we should just occasionally send the consultant updated versions of our model and let them copy our information into their model and vice versa(?) Is it worth trying to use the Dropbox / external component method, or would I be asking for trouble?

Thanks for any feedback you may have.

Doug

Hi -

I have an 3D sketchup model from a surveyor which is made up of several hundred triangles, all of which are interconnected. However, the faces defined by the triangles have no fill, so the faces are not defined. Is there a tool (ruby script, perhaps) that would allow me to select-all then automatically generate faces where possible?

Thanks -

Doug

Sketchup Pro 2015 - Mac OSX-Mavericks

Hello -

I received an email from Sketchup indicating that SketchUp "Maintenance and Support" is expiring for our two SketchUp Pro 2014 licenses. I have never used phone support, so is there any need to maintain this?

The email states "Please renew now to avoid reinstatement fee", but if I follow the link in the email, it puts two $95 charges in my 'shopping cart'. (Is that not a reinstatement fee?)

My fear is that if we don't pay for the Maintenance and Support, that we might have to pay full price for future Sketchup Pro upgrades. (when 2015 is released, for example)

Does anyone understand the implications of not renewing?

Thanks -

Doug

Hello -

Over the last couple of days, an employee in our office is getting a "failed to save" error message whenever Sketchup tries to do an Autosave.

Mac / Mavericks / Sketchup Pro 2014

The files reside on a shared USB hard drive. We only started experiencing this a couple of days ago, and it is possible that the problem was coincident with upgrading from OSX 10.9.2 to OSX10.9.3 (which was just released). I am not experiencing the problem on my computer, but the USB network drive is plugged directly into my computer.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I decided to create layers for the section planes that can be turned on and off. FYI, the model I'm working has many rotated angles and the section planes seem to obscure things because they are not parallel or perpendicular to other section planes.

Doug

Hi -

I am working cutting a bunch of sections through a relatively complex model. The section planes are all through the whole model (not within groups). When the 'section display toggle' is on, I am having trouble seeing the model when I double click to enter groups. It appears that the graphic representation of multiple layers of section planes is obscuring the model. Is there any way to lighten these section planes?

Any other tips?

Basically, my problem is that I need to create additional section cuts within some of the groups so that multiple section planes can be activated simultaneously, but I can't see what I'm doing.

Thanks -

Hello -

I would like to be able to draw multiple objects on a horizontal plane then drop them down to a contoured surface. For example, I'd like to make a fence picket component, repeat it hundreds of times on a horizontal plane, select them all, then use a command or plug-in to drop them down to a contoured terrain.

I tried the "Smartdrop" plugin, and it drops the objects to the terrain, but it also rotates the objects so they are perpendicular to the terrain.

I found a tool on Smustard called DropGC that sounds like it would do the trick, but I'd rather use a tool from Sketchucation so I can update and track it using the Plugin Store / Manager.

Thanks -

Doug

Howdy -

I have downloaded and installed the latest Sketucation Tools to use with my freshly installed Sketchup 2014, but it appears that the plugins that I had installed in Sketchup 2013 do not magically transfer to the Sketchup 2014. I presume that the best way to get plugins into Sketchup 2014 would be to go to My Settings > My Downloads (which sees what I've downloaded in the past), then re-download everything. Is this correct, or is there a more automated process?

Thanks -

Doug

Hi -

I have created a model of a house that has non-orthogonal angles in the plan view (37 degrees, 23 degrees, etc.) and none of them align with true north. I've been using the Axes tool extensively to do this. However, I have discovered that the entire house model needs to be rotated slightly to be precisely positioned relative to my CAD drawings.

I have grouped the entire house, turned on all layers, unhidden everything. One of the elements of the plan (and model) is a 30' x 17' rectangle. I am attempting to use this geometry to rotate the entire group by placing one corner of the rectangle at the intersection of two guides (that are on the correct orientation), then using the Rotate tool. Here's what happens:

1. click on Rotate tool
2. click on corner of rectangle in model (rotate tool is blue indicating rotation about z axis)
3. click on another corner of rectangular geometry to begin rotation
4. click on guide to align to correct orientation

BUT it doesn't. When I zoom in, the corner of the rectangle that I originally selected is no longer on the intersection of the two guides. It jumps off by only a very tiny amount (+/- 1/8") but it's enough to screw things up. When I move the group back to the guide intersection, I can see that the whole model is still rotated slightly off of the guide.

I've tried turning off the "length" snap, but that doesn't seem to do anything. And I am certain that the two guides are in the correct plane.

This feels like it's happening because of the size of the model and the fact that it's not on the "world" axes, but I'm not sure.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Dave and Chris -

I'll use your suggestions. It sure would be nice if you could simply modify the world origin in a manner similar to the axes.

Thanks for your help!

Doug

Hello -

I have been developing a fairly complicated model of a building for a number of months now, and would like to change the origin and orientation for the entire model. I've read few things that make me think that this is referred to as the "world" origin, but perhaps that is incorrect.

Basically, I am simultaneously developing plan drawings using Vectorworks (a CAD program) Don't ask me why, but the origin and orientation of the Sketchup and Vectorworks files are different. Perhaps I moved the origin in Vectorworks without thinking, but I can not move it now or it will mess up too many other things. So I need to change the origin of the Sketchup model.

My typical working method is to export to DWG from Vectorworks, then import the DWG into Sketchup. I would like the imported DWG information to be aligned exactly with the Sketchup model, but it's not.

I fully understand how to change the Axes in Sketchup, but doing so seems to have no affect on where objects land when they are imported from DWG files. There seems to be an origin for the whole Sketchup model that I can't figure out how to manipulate.

Any suggestions regarding how to do this?

Bummer. It seems odd to me that Layout allows manipulation of view rotation, shadows, fog, etc. but not Sketchup layers. I have only recently started using Layout, but this is a capability that should be added in the future.

For example, I want to simply be able to rotate a view of "Concept A" in Layout, duplicate the page, then show "Concept B" at the EXACT same angle. This could be done if I could turn off Sketchup layer "Concept A" and turn on Sketchup layer "Concept B" from within Layout.

On a similar note, Layout gets a bit glitchy if NOT all of the boxes in "Properties To Save" in the Sketchup Scenes pallet are checked.

For example, I have made Sketchup scenes showing views from different angles of a building renovation / addition where the "Layers" are not affected by a change in the scene (the "Layers" box is NOT checked in the "Properties To Save" portion of the scenes panel). I have made design concepts 'A' and 'B' and set up scenes called "Concept A" and "Concept B" in which ONLY the Layers property is saved. This allows me to make 20 different views (scenes) of each concept and have only 22 scenes generated. If I want to make Concept 'C', I simply make another scene called "Concept C" in which ONLY the Layers property is saved and I'll have the ability to see the same 20 views of that new scheme, too. Does that make sense?

As a result, Layout doesn't know what to do with any of the scenes that I have set up in my Sketchup model.

Hi -

I think I know the answer to this question, but will go ahead and ask it.

Is it possible to turn Sketchup Model layers on and off from within Layout? If not, this seems to be a big oversight to me.

Thanks -

Doug

Hi -

We are working on a Sketchup model of an existing building and exploring several concepts for making additions. Each concept is being made into a component, then we are using right-click > 'save as' to save the components to external files. So, we have a file called 'base model' and others called 'concept A', 'concept B', etc.

There are several of us working on the project, and we want to be able to open the individual components to work on them. The problem is that we need to be able to see each concept in the context of the 'base model', but do not want to that base information to become part of the 'concept X' component. Doing so would create something akin to an AutoCAD 'cyclical reference'. Does that make sense?

Basically, we want individuals in the office to be able to work on separate concepts in reference to the base model information.

Thanks -

@unknownuser said:

Forgive me ..I am not a Mac user...I should probably just shut up but...

In our office we just access the library we need on the company shared drive directly through the component/material browser/dialogue....nothing special to do at all. We pick up materials and create our own folders for materials where ever.
....see I told you I should shut up!!

Thanks for your response - no need to shut up!

You would think that the method you describe would work on a Mac, but, unfortunately, it does not. For some reason, the Mac version of the Sketchup material palette/browser does not allow you to choose the destination of newly created the folders, and won't allow you to browse for external material sources. It IS possible with the Mac version to create shared Component Libraries. Why? I don't know.

Again, Thanks anyway.

Anyone else have ideas about this?

Doug

Hi -

We have several Sketchup Pro seats in our office and want to create a Material Collection on a shared hard drive that can be accessed by all users. I've tried creating a shared folder on the drive, making an alias of it, and placing the alias in:

home>Library>Application Support>Google SketchUp 7>SketchUp>Materials

-AND-

Macintosh HD>Library>Application Support>Google SketchUp 7>SketchUp>Materials

...but that doesn't work. Any other possibilities?

From what I've read, it seems like this is a very easy thing to do on the Windows platform. Why not the Mac?

We are using Sketchup 7 Pro for the Mac.

Hi -

We are exploring several options for a building that we are designing, and have created separate Sketchup 7-Pro files for each option. We would like to create a series of "scenes" (camera angles) for one option, then be able to export those camera angles to the other files so that they can be viewed at EXACTLY the same angle. Is this possible? Is there a Rubyscript for this function?

Thanks -

Doug