A Group of entities can have the same 'Instance' name as any other group of (different) entities. The Group instance name will not be unique unlike a Component. You can name your new spline instance with the same name as the original. Place the new version where you want and just delete the old one. That would be my take if you only need to replace a few instances. Not sure if there would be any other way to do it other than the Component option but of course that would not allow unique numbering/naming. Hope I have interpreted your query correctly, I so often don't!

Found TTs "Transformation Inspector" which seems to do something alike. First showing the transformation matrix and second giving the opportunity to change values, eg. swapping a "-1" for a flipped object with a "1" - resulting in a reset. Seems like its only possible for one group/component at a time.. IF I was able to globally set the "-1" to "1" (flip along the green axis) I guess Id be totally fine already - in this particular case. (Strange enough flipped geometry from SU does not come in negatively scale on that axis only, but on all axis.. Don't know if this is relevant or not though..)

ThomThoms's 'groups to components' Smustard ApplyTo

Hey guys, thank you for your responses and ideas I guess this wont work for the intended use in the pipeline to 3DS Max.. First, thanks @Dave for clarifying the correct term, great I can get back to guide point as the proper term, just read "construction point" pretty often in SU context and therefor though it should be like this. Better to stick to guide points though I totally get the point that in a SU context there would be many workarounds - and using a component, e.g. a cross of lines with some "meta"information would be ideal and I would have done it that way. Wouldn't work in 3DS Max like this - and the programs that follow. I need to set up a certain hierachy in 3DS, linked to guide points. And I have to process a bunch of objects from the same file - ideally e.g. exporting FBX with autmatic naming of the linked elements based on the guide points name. Thats why I was asking for guide point naming informations in SU.. And actually in 3DS all guide points come in in a numerical order, which makes it hard to identify the correct relating guide points. If I'd use components in SU I maybe could realign guide points in 3DS to those components - but then I'm left with the same: guide points in a numerical order without any name.. Maybe some scripting could help but this is beyond my knowledge, sadly. So I guess I have to stick with whats given and resort / rename the SU guide points in 3DS as I did it now. But dont you know of any option to change the viewport representation of guide points in SU, to eg. make them larger? As I need to keep going with the SU guide points workflow this would make the working with them a bit easier. Just a rough guess: Maybe I could nest a single guide point in a group and name that group - MAYBE that could be used for carrying over some information - but I guess it's not helping as guide points come in loose, no matter if they are inside a group/component or not.. At least through the native .skp file import in 3DS. Maybe any other ideas? Best, Niko EDIT Ah, shoot, putting a single guide point a group won't work.. If I have eg two lines in a group (+ a guide point, guidepoint + one single line won't work) - as soon as I delete the lines the group disappears, and so does the guide point.. EDITEDIT It DOES work indeed.. The guide point disappeared as it was somehow connected to the line I drew from it. Putting all objects a bit to the side and adding another guide point at the worlds origin worked. Dont know if this helps me in 3DS - but its something.

Yep, we've all been there and it is painful. Usually this happens with imports from AutoCAD. I usually run ThomThom's Flatten script in his Architect Tools set, just to make sure everything is on Z=0. Then I use S4U's Make Face script. Most of the time this works, but you might need to find little unconnected gaps, in this case, try ThomThom's Edge Tools.

Ladies and gentlemen - no idea?

I know... it's just I use it as often as pushpull if not even more...

Sure, send me some, I'd be happy to peek. I'm on a crappy iPad now, I'll answer more indepth next week.

Thanks Rich! That was very useful! I was never using unwrapping on large scenes but single / multiple objects only. Actually even for rendering animations this will be MORE than helpful. Great, thanks again!

Hey, thanks for this guess and sorry for my late reply. Could not get the point of the proposed plug that quick.. Seems like this is not the right for this purpose? It helps keeping track of components and updates them from / to external libraries- right? Actually it does not seem to allow me to copy all of those components I'd like to (even if they are inside of some other groups) and keep the original place, so I can insert them into an seperate file? At least I couldn't find a similar explanation in the description and changelogs.. Am I right?

Sorry for the late reply but I have been away all week. The code, as presented, was created and executed in Ruby Web Console. To make it a stand-alone plugin you would need to "wrap" it in a module and def like this. module G2L def g2l mod = Sketchup.active_model ent = mod.active_entities sel = mod.selection sel.each{|ga| if ga.class==Sketchup;;Group ga.entities.each{|gb| if gb.class==Sketchup;;Group gb.layer=ga.layer gb.entities.each{|gc| if gc.class==Sketchup;;Group gc.layer=ga.layer gc.entities.each{|gd| if gd.class==Sketchup;;Group gd.layer=ga.layer end } end } end } end } end end Place a copy in the Plugins folder so that it gets loaded when Skethsup starts. Then in the Ruby Console enter G2L.g2l to execute it. Yes, you can add as many as you need.

Yep, you're right! I should have thought about that.. I had some troubles with lines lines not showing up and difficulties creating new faces.. But I just see that there's newer version, i have ver. 2.0 installed.. -> Installed the new one- works perfectly! Thanks again, where would i be without your (and the other's) plugins! Great!

GREAT, thanks a lot TIG, i'll give it a try in a minute @dave r said: Why do you need the subgroups to be on a layer if their top group is on that layer. Turning off the visibility of the top group's layer will have the same impact whether the subgroups are on that layer or not. It's about importing a skp-file to 3ds Max where 3ds splits up all groups with subgroups into seperate objects- and puts them to the layer each group was put on in SU. For toggeling visibility it would have been enough to change the layer of the top-group, you're right.

@brookefox said: Here I think the issue is that you don't hold ctrl down, just click it to engage the copy, then you can click a start point and input the distance. No, no, if that would be the case, the adjacent faces of these lines would be moved downwards as well. It happens to me quite often. I surely can say it's not the Ctrl key.. If i do the action described above and nothing happens, i can do it as often as i want to, it will just not do it- only by Ctrl+moving without typing the distance it snaps to the distance i typed in before (when it did not copy the lines). Maybe, as i assumed, it has to do with the same reason why SU does not cut faces even if it could / should / sometimes just doesn't.

Very clean, as Richard said the floor looks brilliant. John

Bezier patch==Bezier Surface, a deformable grid similar to Blender's Lattice Deformation Starting with this link: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bezier%20patch&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FB%25C3%25A9zier_surface&ei=-JVHT9r3EPOrsALRnNnqCA&usg=AFQjCNFRHwkJEdlkp2H0fOfWOhC-5NOtig&cad=rja ThomThom was thinking about this or something like it a while back.

" But yes, if a mother component/group is on a hidden layer, you won't be able to see the nested components/groups, regardless of their layer. " I understand how layers are supposed to work in SU, and there are some advantages to the implementation. But I find this aspect can cause issues, even when following the good advice above. For example if I have a large project, organised into groups and components it is often needed to bring new elements of a cad import (raw geometry on layer 0) into groups / components to update them. It would be useful to be able to isolate (visually) the different parts of the cad import by a layer regardless of the groups i've put them into but the system seems to prevent this. Is there a script to ignore nesting and show visibility just by selected layer or does the way SU separates groups make this undoable? Thanks for the help.

Ok, here are some results: i'm still not sure if this is the only problem / solution, but time will tell. I made a test file in SU containing ungrouped objects / grouped ungrouped objects ungrouped groups / grouped groups ungrouped components / grouped components in the first group of 3 all faces were frontfaces in the second group of 3 some faces were backfaces in the third group of 3 all faces were backfaces [image: ZI5c_severalfacesreversedSU.jpg] The result in Max was, that only the objects containing some reversed faces got these faces triangulated. If all faces were reversed, no face got triangulated. [image: V2qG_reversedfacesgettriangulated.jpg] Then i tried some objects, checking what i saw in the video- and i'm quite satisfied with that, i don't see the reason for me to quad everything as long i don't work together with someone who needs quaded objects or whose program triangulates everything if it's not getting quad geometry. Btw, "removeinnerfaces.rb" works great. [image: a1xV_severalobjects.jpg] [image: 0dhU_severalobjectsinmax.jpg] One thing to mention is that some backfaces corrupt adjacent faces, as you can see in the Max file. Some get triangulated themself, some triangulate their neighbours and show themself as a "strange material" We'll see if there are still problems coming up not getting solved by checking for backfaces.. Anyway, it's a litte piece in the puzzle- maybe someone can take advantage from that in the future..

Yes it moves the face created by the offset using a transform with results in an autofold creating the bevel.