Another one where it seems everything's ok, but apparently not. SU wants to fix it, but I kept it unfixed, as it doesn't solve anything anyway.

No idea what I'm doing wrong here

lathe2.skp

The Follow me refuses to use that simple ogee curve to properly go round the circle.....

For that curve I used the Cyma Curve Tool in combination with BZTools B-Spline, which I think is the trouble maker here. Before Welding it, it used to be segmented somehow, so....

Tried different kinds of approaches, but it never worked properly.

Any ideas how to cure that? Or just stop using all these plugins altogether?

The .skp is attached...

Cheers

lathe.skp

Guess you're right, such a feature would rule though, I think

Is there a way to select everything within a particular layer?

I've got big mess, components within components with each of them on various layers and I'd like to clean up, reduce the number of layers. It would help to 'see' whats on a particular layer....

I mean when I try to remove a layer thinking its empty, the dialog appears [wants to move the contents] and often times I have no idea where to look for them as unclicking the 'Visible' box in the Layers dialog might make it seem like its empty/there's no change, visually...

Cheers

@chris fullmer said:

Please don't start a general question thread and reuse it. We prefer new threads with appropriate topics. Its so much easier to search through later, making it easier for people who look for the same thing in a few months to be able to find the correctly titled thread, thanks!

Ok no problem, just felt a bit of a douchebag to start a thread everytime google/U is of no help.

Jean, that would be a neat idea, but I guess choosing the axis with holding down the click is the easiest way.

@cotty said:

For rotating, you should use the 4-click-method (The not-so-basic method of using Rotate).

I think there is no need for futher plugins...

So its done by holding down the first click, that was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

Think I should start a general thread for all my questions so I don't bombard this board with threads every day....

And yes jim, I know.

Been meaning to ask this for a while now, is there a way to switch between the [main three] planes/axes when drawing/moving/rotating?

Sometimes its a bit tricky to find the right axis, orbiting the view helps, but it would be great if I could quickly switch between the [RED/BLUE/GREEN] by something like a TAB key, is there such a functionality at all? I mean I could use the Workplane plugin, but that seems like a waste of time especially for such a trivial task...

Cheers for reading/answering

HG

Can you please explain the formula 2Y/sqrt(XX+Y*Y), particulrly the /sqrt part, i'm not familiar with the american way of math writing. Thank you!

Also, I thought the two parts of the curve were supposed to be different, based on Chord proportion [to make them undulate in such beautiful manner ]?

Even if X and Y are different, the radius is the same, but I might got this all wrong

actually no

Hey, nobody knows everything, thats why I'm on here

yup most of the time bool tools needs cleanup even after dissecting simple components, which is a big shame to ask money for such a thing. i mean its kinda neat, but coulda draw the darn thing by hand 10 times by now if I didn't had to go to paypal and pay for it, extract the zip and complain about it hahah

oh well

OSCoolean doesn't seem to work either. I think such a thing should be worked out by Trimble into the core of Sketchup.

umm, perhaps I chose the wrong forums section....

Holy shit it works! The trick is to move the object WITHIN the 'edit component' mode and not 'outside'! Didn't know that.

Its always small things like this with sketchup

Cheers pal.

OK Cheers guys for the input, will have a look at that....

I've got an idea for a plugin (maybe there's one already??) that would be really useful for woodworking and other departments where you work with symmetry, where you adjust one side and have to do the other half.

For instance, I've got two 'pillars' on a single base and need to find out the correct position/distance from the base edge. Lets say I'd like to move one pillar 1cm towards the centerpoint of the base and the 'mirroring plugin' would automatically also move the symmetrical twin pillar. This would be like million bucks. I know that a cloned component does change in accordance to its original, but that only applies to adding new lines/rectangles/objects, it can't copy the movement/positioning, not to mention I can't control the way it mirrors [its axis, or at least I don't know that yet?]

I hope you can follow what I'm trying to say, english isn't my native tongue.

Please if there is something similar to this please let me know, thank you!

HG

Although it looks good, I doubt you drew those curves 'by hand'..

Maybe I do it wrong, but [curly] linework turns into straight lines with [SHARP CORNERS]when I draw with the native Freehand tool, which makes it absolutely useless, for me at least (the freehand from the Tools on Surface set ain't any better]. If there is a better way of DRAWING [straight into SU] please let me know.

Hey, I know SU wasn't built for this, though it would be cool if I could draw straight into SU without having to convert/import vectors from other software (which often times gets kinda messy anyway).

H.

Yes I know, Pshop and Illustrator also 'break' them, thing is Sketchup draws them very ugly.

Looks great, although I'm not really sure whats this plugin good for? (Hey, I ain't bi engineer )

Hi there

I've been searching for this for quite a while but still couldn't find a freehand tool that would actually be useful for me, meaning, the lines I draw whether with the native freehand or the 'Tools on Surface' one, are just no good. They both simplify (destroy) my linework. I know its probably not that easy to get it working in Sketchup enviroment as such a 'freeform' line is a bit complex (and needs to be as simple as possible so it won't slow down the pc if it was further processed)

But still this shouldn't be THAT much of a problem, or?

Cause right now, I have to convert my line work (I use sketchup for illustration/sketching) from photoshop/illustrator, or better yet from a scanned piece of paper.

Or if there is such a thing out there please let me know of it!

Thank you and goodbye

H.G.