Some very good points here, and I definitely agree with the suggestions to spend some good money on the monitor/LCD - that's not a good place to go cheap. I got a deal on a 1680x1250 for $145 - but it's missing features that a better quality monitor would have, and I do find myself wishing for them more than once in a while.

As far as the power supply goes, I've got an 850W, but I spent extra to ensure that it was "green" power, energy star, and had the highest efficiency rating I could get. Yes, it's more than I need, but it's good quality and will last at least through 1 or 2 more re-builds (5-7 years) which is important to me; plus I use my comp for gaming a lot, and I wanted to ensure that notoriously voltage sensitive graphics cards and other high performance components did not lack in any way for stable, efficient power.

If you don't game (much) or plan on stuffing your computer with high perf. parts anytime soon, just get your hands on a good quality power supply of less than 600W and you'll be just fine. One key point is that if you plan on upgrading your system by adding extra hard drives, going with SLi or CrossFire, or anything else that requires more or specialized power connectors - make sure you get enough for what you might want. I've had to spend money on returns or buying new power supplies because it was short an adapter or plug, and that's pretty frustrating.

Just my $.02

Hi there,

From the look of it, the surfaces your are joining are not planar where they meet and that is what is causing the ridge you see. At least, that's what it looks like without seeing the .skp file. I don't know that there is a plugin to force the edge creating the bump to become planar with the nearby faces, but maybe someone can come up with a solution.

I'd probably just "view hidden geometry", then select the offending edge(s) and align them with the edges/faces to each side to get rid of the bump. Tedious, but effective.

Think it'll get an Energy Star rating?

@ecuadorian said:

It's called Paranoia. Welcome to the Post 9-11 world.

???

Worried a bout big brother looking over your shoulder?

@teezer said:

Another bit of high-poly porn: Telematics

That's pretty impressive!

That is amazing.

Fantastic plugin, I can hardly wait to put it to use!

Thieves.

That pretty much sums it up.

We tried to refinance our house a couple of months ago, we could've shaved off nearly 2 points interest. We were denied the re-fi. Same house, we've got more ready cash than we did when we bought and less debt. There's a lot of really impolite words I'd like use in reference to banks right now. They've collected "bailout" money that will have to be paid for by the taxpayers (us), and as stinkie points out, are handing out fat bonuses along with not giving out any loans to the very people that are saving their collective behinds. I hear people say that the bonuses are contractual and needed to keep top talent. If they were that talented, why did they get where they are now? If companies can break blue collar contracts and get concessions from those workers, I see no reason to think that those bonuses couldn't be taken in the same manner to help the company out, just like the rest of us have taken cuts or layoffs to prop our companies up.

Oh well. It's "socialism"* for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us.

Must be nice to have your cake and eat it too.

*Businesses cry about government interfering with what they want to do by regulating them (socialist, in the American psyche) but are only too happy to receive government money; while the rest of us suffer the realities of the market.

OK, I pretty much had to do it "old school", like the modeler in Pilou's video. Every time I tried to use some fancy tools like Blend.rb or RoundCorner, something either didn't work, crashed, or returned something unusable. So - it was basically "extrude" followed by "scale" and some minor fussing with the alignment of the resulting shapes, and lastly "soften edges". It's by no means precisely what I wanted, but it's pretty good. I guess I just have to remember, just because we've got all these fancy, fantastic scripts from the community it doesn't mean that the simple things should be forgotten.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and I appreciate the help!

@jwlyon1 said:

[

@unknownuser said:

Some drawings planes

WOW!

X2

WOW!

I'm working on an aircraft model and am having a lot of difficulty creating the wingtip. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to create a compound curved surface that would work? I've used SD&S, but unfortunately it: a) distorts the shape enough that it no longer lines up with the rest of the airfoil, b) creates a "lumpy" output that simply looks bad. I just can't think of a way to create the shape and still get it to match the rest of the wing.

This is as near an example as I can find:

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274/rum_monster/wingtipSM.jpg

(Attached to a neat thread, BTW, they're of a Lancaster being restored)

Looks interesting, but throwing around an iPhone is a bad way to prove your point. The G forces of impact are still going to be high, a few millimeters of compound cannot magically disperse all that energy.

That said, it's a nice clean looking cover and I bet it would do a good job of protecting your phone against everyday abuse.

As a side note, I got my wife a thin silicone cover for her iPhone (she's notorious for breaking phones, 3 in the last couple of years) that came with an adhesive screen protector - the cover is quite thin, only 1.5-2 mm thick, but it has done a fine job of protecting the phone. I don't like those other protectors that look like tire treads, and neither does she. It would easily allow the phone to be thrown in a shirt pocket. Got it at the Apple store. I guess go with whatever is affordable and/or makes you happy.

Fantastic! You guys are fast!

Thanks!!

I say (Schematic) because I have no idea what they are called. I want to create an aircraft, but have no reference other than real-life photos. I'd like to find one of those cards that look like aircraft identification cards used by wartime pilots for recognizing silhouettes. Even better if someone could direct me to an image like those books that have images specifically for 3d modelers that have top, sides, front, rear and bottom scale images for use in modeling. I haven't been able to find anything similar on the web. Anyone know where I might be able to find such an image? I specifically need an AT-6 Texan.

Pictures of atoms?

That's pretty neat software, it's doing things that not even sketchup does at this point.

Mythbusters. They have one of, if not THE, coolest jobs in the world.

And they use Sketchup.

What's left to do in life?

Oooh, that's just mean!

@martinrinehart said:

@escapeartist said:

I made a diamond a while back, copied the cut from a jeweler's website.

That render is magnificent.

Yes, it is brilliant cut.

You've got me beat in too many ways! Your kite facets are real facets. I faked my not quite coplanar ones by hiding the line that divides each into two triangles. Ditto on the bottom. Your girdle's nicer than mine, too. (That's the wee edge that separates top from bottom.)

Hat removed. Bowing in your direction.

Many thanks! I really appreciate the compliments a lot. Just FYI about the model/render: I used pre-made textures from kerkythea's online library and tweaked them slightly - so I can't take full credit for that. The bevel-less skirt was accomplished by making the diamond faceted all the way to a zero-width edge and then centering a cylinder on the diamond, or to put it differently I put the diamond inside a cylinder, and then shrank the cylinder until the diamond's edge protruded a little outside of it. I then did the usual "intersect" and deleted the cylinder and the sharp bevel, leaving the smooth cylinder wall as the skirt (Thanks for letting me know what it's called). The whole diamond was about 10 feet in size in order to make all of the small triangles/faces work, and then reduced to life-size. Sorry for being long-winded, but I hope it helps.

I'm not Bruce, but I think it's great!