this looks to be a great plugin. I would not want to miss out on it! however, I am a mac user. any chance of it working on mac os in the near future?

there are free conversion services online. one is this.

too soon to evaluate. but I am sure it will be fine, as most apple stuff is. what is certain is that I will wait a few months before I upgrade, as I usually do.

I have been using macs since 1995 (!) and never wavered from my loyalty. you certainly cannot imagine what a leap in the dark it was adopting macs in Brasil in 1995.

so, go ahead and move to the mac side of life. I have never met someone who did that and regretted it.

it took me a long time to decide to upgrade: I am always afraid some of the apps I use most will no longer work after I do so...

however, going from lion to ML was smooth and I am not disappointed by it. I do use Mail but do not use Finder (i use PathFinder instead).

well done, miguel! this is really a pro's work.

it would be great to have a short video – like the ones Rich produces – to show all the plugin's funcionalities.

I am afraid it just does not work for me on mac. I tried selecting some components, not selecting, different input points, etc. nothing happens.

could anyone explain the correct workflow to make this plugin work?

thomas,

I am really happy for you but also for us.

your hiring is one more sign that Trimble means well for Sketchup. in a short period of time they have given us more indications that Sketchup has a future than Google in years.

but also congratulations on getting rid of the grinding routine of a large architectural office. I am doubtful that anyone save the bosses can be happy in that atmosphere.

best regards.

the Sketchup crew have just posted a new and excellent video on site modeling. it takes a little over an hour but it is worth every minute of it!

watch it here. written explanation here.

ok. we will wait until you can release the plugin, hopefully with explanations as to what it does and how.

@richard said:

@unknownuser said:

PushPullBar Component depot ?

Certainly another great resource and free! Though most of the models have been there for YEARS so mostly rather low poly.

the problem with PPB is that you don't just register and start using it. they demand you contribute regularly to the forum to be able to download stuff and even to see images posted there. to me it is a very annoying policy. I just do not have the time to do what they expect from their members.

@rich o brien said:

Type...

Sketchup.find_support_file('materials')

into the ruby console

thanks, Rich.
I confess it would never occurred to me to look for it this way.

For anyone who has the same doubts as me, the folder is at
/Applications/SketchUp 2013/SketchUp.app/Contents/Resources/Content/materials

in SU 8 the Materials folder is at HD/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp. thus it was very easy to add new sub-folders with skm files.

in 2013 the SU installation moved to the the User folder and I just cannot find the Materials folder any more (as well as I cannot find the Components folder).

my questions: where is the Materials folder? if it can’t be acessed how can one add new skm files to the collection that ships with 2013?

@chris fullmer said:

Not a bad suggestion. Its too late at this point, but it could be a feature for the future. For now, you can differentiate by the default tool icons, if that helps.

Chris

in macs, if you have 8 and 2013 side by side on the dock, you can see that the 2013 icon is noticeably smaller thanthe previous one.

I hope this will not have a ton of abusive replies heaped up on me. if it does I shall ignore it gracefully.

but I just cannot understand why people bother trying to convince others of something they think and dedicate precious time to heated and sometimes offensive exchanges. (it is amazing how a simple discussion about software can become personal: you this, you that...)

experience has shown that people do not change opinions on the basis of other people's diatribes. thus in my opinion if you like using Sketchup you stay with it and try to contribute positively to its development. if you do not like it, is fed up with it, does not agree with the way its developing, etc, you are free to go and start using some other app.

as simple as that.

a good example of that is our friend kwistenbiebel who had been unhappy with Sketchup for a long time. he vented his disatisfaction here for some time and, not seeing Sketchup evolve to his satisfaction, moved along to greener pastures. or so it seemed at the time. without bothering the rest of the membership.

I have done it many times: export a dwg/dxf file and import it into SU.

@swasacase said:

What works for me is to apply a "hatch" material to the insides of the walls. Sort of a striped poche. Any changes to my walls, my hatch fill will update.

I have tried this long ago. it works but not always: if your walls have a surface below them you can never be sure the hatch will show. for this workflow to work one must make sure there is nothing touching the walls.

@krisidious said:

@unknownuser said:

Save the line work in scenes. It is much, much faster. I stopped using the copy paste method for anything that can change. For site work items like property lines and setbacks I still use this method, but for everything else it is a saved scene in SU.

You saved what as a scene? the section cut as in the special section of the current geometry on another layer and scene? or just the section view as a scene? I guess what I'm saying is are you recutting section vectors when doing modifications? I'm using "section cutface" to make the vectors that I dimension and hatch.

I think nick means one must save a scene showing just the linework. in this way you can assign it to a layer in LO and place it above the one that shows the cut view of the building.

I have not tried his system myself. what attracts me to it is the possibilility of updating plans and sections without too much redrawing.

@dave r said:

Edson, I watched videos 3 and 4. I've been using his trick of getting multiple line weights via separate SU scenes for some time but I'm intrigued by his use of a watermark to create the hatching. I'd love to know more about that.

dave,

could you explain how you do it?

so far most of us have been producing construction documents with Layout by way of creating 2D linework in Sketchup and moving it to Layout (it does not really matter if it gets there through copy/pasting or through scenes).

as we have seen in the videos done by nick sonder and in many docs posted here this method allows for the creation of great-looking documentation.

however, its weak point is that there is no true dynamic relationship between the model and the 2D docs: if one changes the model the 2D in Layout does not change automatically. one has to go back to Sketchup and change the linework or even produce a new section cut to include the changes.

now someone has come up with a way that seems to provide that longed for dynamic relation. his name is Michael Brightman and he is the author of a just released book called "The SketchUp Workflow for Architecture: Modeling Buildings, Visualizing Design, and Creating Construction Documents with SketchUp Pro and LayOut". I was a reviewer when his book was been evaluated for publication and it impressed me a lot when I read the book summary.

in short, what he does is the creation of 3 scenes: one for the walls, one for the openings, furniture, fixtures and the like and a third one for the hatches/fills, the appearance of all of them being controlled by styles.

there are six videos related to the book. the ones that deal with the topic discussed here ate numbers 3, 4 and 5. the exact way in which the walls get hatched/fill is not totally clear in the videos. for that I think one must get the book.