I don't think its possible to achieve this Dylan. What SU really needs is the same layout function that Photoshop has where you can save the location of your toolbars and if they move you can reload them to you preset in seconds.

Regarding toolbars, in my day job I am the only person in our company who uses a digitizing tablet for CAD work. The difference of screen 'real-estate' is amazing compared to my colleagues who have toolbars visible en-mass. I dont think the tablet would ever be useful for use with SU though.

Kwist, the dev team at ASGVIS is severely lacking in the customer service dept so I'm not surprised that they aren't saying much. I've asked them on several occassions regarding the incorrect output relationship that exists between the physical camera and the SU viewport only to be ignored or given incorrect advice. Its a shame that the best SU renderer has the worst support from its developers.

I think you've got it looking pretty good so far the only crit I have is some of the texturing applied to the dormer roof's look a bit off ie rotated, not parallel to the horizontal edges

Impressive collection guys, well done.

Alternatively to 1) my method would be: create the ellipse, draw a section profile (using array copy for the seats) and follow-me this new face around the ellipse.

Microstation uses the term cells rather than blocks. It also uses 3 types of cells; Orphan cells, Shared and unshared Cells. Orphan cells are another name for groups. Unshared cells are groups of elements brought into a drawing from a cell library file and are completely independant from each other instance within a drawing. Shared cells cannot be edited in anyway within a drawing, only via editing the parent within the library that it is stored within. This sounds like the autocad scenario that you refer to. Microstation has a toggle that allows the user to affect orphan & unshared cells during a fence stretch operation as shown on the attached image.

@unknownuser said:

I don't think any program allows that whether it is an Autocad Block, a Revit Family, a Datacad Symbol or a SketchUp Component/Group. Unless I just missed the boat on this one.

I cant comment on autocad but this is easily achieveable in Microstation by using a fence strech command.

If you read the manual it states that all materials have a reflection and glossiness highlight with a value of 1 which will provide perfect reflections. The way to solve this would be to add all your materials as linked materials and set the reflection and highlight glossiness values to 0 to stop them reflecting.

(DzineTech)

Kris, I understand the difficulties that varying window openings poses if you are trying to show a section through both at the one time. I'm hoping your screenshots will explain how your wall construction method achieves this.

Personally I wouldn't even consider taking a SketchUp model to create construction drawings. For me I keep use it for 3D only and use Microstation for all technical work. The workflow I use gives me speed and keeps file sizes to a minimum. If your method works for you then good. I'm certainly not egotistic and insisting that what I do is the only way to do it and all other methods are wrong.

PS I'm Male

(DzineTech)

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by requiring the extra faces for autocad; perhaps you can explain or illustrate with a screenshot?

@unknownuser said:

but it's for a pro to make a real house out of.... so we need to be able to cut sections at any poin where a window is and see the mullions...

I assume when you mean pro you mean that you will produce construction drawings based on the model and these will be issued to a professional kit manufacturer (timber frame/metal frame) or to a contractor for his brick layers. Your requirement to see the window components (head, cill, transom, mullions, jambs etc..) works exactly the same for section cuts in my workflow as yours does; the important factor being that the window component would need to be detailed enough to reveal enough information wherever the section planes are located.

(DzineTech)

Greetings all, my 1st post on these new forums. Well done to Coen setting this place up; a far superior environment and interface than the new google groups in my opinion.

Anyway back on topic. I've read through this how-to and felt that I should add my own thoughts on the advice given in a constructive manner that will hopefully provide some of the newer modellers with an alternate method of construction.

My main disagreement with the workflow provided is the procedure of the wall construction. There was good advice given regarding the tidyness of our drawings however I feel that one of the most important area of modelling/CAD housekeeping is to not create faces and edges that aren't required. If you follow the procedure of push-pulling rectangles to form the external walls in a series of panels as shown, you end up with 4 lines and 1 face between each panel junction that simply aren't required (note: only on panels which run parallel!). This method of modelling is akin to building blocks whereas my personal preference is to somewhat different.

Stage 1
My advice would be to trace the outline of the external wall to form a shape and offset the wall thickness inwards. This will leave you with 2 shapes (1 for the thickness of the external wall and another for the internal void) Of course the internal line of the external wall may have areas where it differs from the plane of the external but the line tool and eraser can quickly tidy this up as required.

Stage 2
With the correct shapes now drawn, a simple push pull of the external wall face to the necessary height will extrude our entire wall in one operation instead of several and we will have the minimum amount of faces required. The top and bottom faces of the wall extrusion can also be deleted as they won't normally be seen unless in section. Internal walls follow the same procedure of tracing the outline to form one face and extrude as before.

Stage 3
Window and door openings. My preference is to make components of these and I would locate the insertion point at the top center of the component. Once made I would create a guideline at 2.1m (sorry, child of the metric age here!) above internal finished floor level and place my door or window on this. A simple horizontal move will finish the required location of the component.

Previously I would create components that would cut the external wall face however now I tend not to. As SketchUp is a suface and not a solids modeller my components wouldn't cut the internal face of the wall. to solve this I now draw a rectangle on the external wall face, tracing the opening of the already placed window/door. Push-pulling this new face inwards the depth of the wall thickness (either type the distance or switch to wireframe and snap to an internal face edge). This makes the soffit and jamb faces (internally and externally) in a quick clean operation and should not require any data cleanup.

I hope it all makes sense and as I recognise a few names from the former sketchup forums I know you guy's (and gal's!) will probably be aware of the workflow already but perhaps some newcomers will benefit from it.

Time for a coffee...

(DzineTech)

Hey Ypnos1. The problem you have with this is that the discolouration where the sheet metal is rolled depends on the profile of the item be it purlin, channel etc...

You this would be quite difficult to replicate in SketchUp with a single texture would be quite awkward. There are 2 option I can suggest:

Create 2 textures (1 for the main metal and one slighty different for the change in direction that affects the colour and apply that to separate face or use one metal texture and see if the colour change can be achieved through shading/editing the material properties in a renderer.