@unknownuser said: "makes it a bit hard to swing the end like that" No need to get "funny" Sorry, I didn't mean to offend, I knew you were trying to help.

Every now and again you will run across a correction to a plan in a later issue of the magazine. Doesn't help the fella who jumped right in and went to making the project, and I suspect that is how many of the problems are discovered. I've never been very successful at cutting all of the pieces of a project to the cutlist, then assembling the project. Incorrect dimensions in a plan is only one of the problems with that method of building. A bigger problem is that there is some small amount of error in every measurement and cut that you make. Some of this is due to the measuring device being used, and then there is parallax error. Even the thickness of the marks on the measuring device can throw you off sufficiently to cause a visible seam where two parts come together. And, as Murphy would have it, these errors are cumulative rather than canceling each other out. Over my years of wood working I have developed the attitude that dimensions in the plan are no more than suggestions and approximations. When actually building, I use the plan dimensions for the perimeter parts, then more or less toss the measuring devices aside. These perimeter parts are then dry assembled, squared and clamped, and I use a story stick or the actual workpiece held partially in place to mark them for use in setting up for making the final cuts. This is an old hand tool method that lends itself well to machine work.

Dave R., and Bert. Thank you for your input. I plan on using SU for much more than woodworking, and a presentation product is important, so it looks like SU Pro is the way for me to go. Bert, your PDF looks great! Thanks for sharing.

Well I am at home now and am able to use SU7, I don't think I should have because now I will miss the extra features of 7 when I go back to work in a week. Any who here is a simple model I knocked up in about 20 minutes because the on-line game I am addicted to is doing it's weekly server inspection and I can't play: Limbert Wastebox [image: download?mid=9d6ac6df54e4d849b97ad864945165a1&rtyp=lt&ctyp=other&ts=1237874900000]

@unknownuser said: I just got a reply for Mr. Lang. If you are not drawing the units as components you will not get recognition for the drawings. owwww...... that must sting, the requirements for the models are there on the blog entry though.

@dave r said: Details, sir. Details. If the chair was built as you've drawn it, the front legs would likely get broken in a short period of time. The short grain sections won't be very strong. Doh!!!.... I saw that and thought the same thing but hey it's on the plans so.... now I can see that I missed a piece.

@dcauldwell said: I am currently trying to develop a workflow link from SU to CAD drawings for architectural work (small scale stuff - houses). So far I have worked out that the plans and sections can be exported from SU with a thickness applied to the section cut, thus eliminating the need for linetype adjustment later. I am currently using CAD to add dims and some shading to the SU import. That just leaves the actual detailed drawings and as I import these as 'standard' details (to be adjusted per project) this is quite simple. With discipline in the creation of SU model, so far this is working quite well. David Your response got me thinking, because one of the major issues of exporting a section cut aligned view from Sketchup are alle the single lines you end up with in the drafting program. Then I thought about Archicad and I think there is a nearly automatic solution for this problem: Since version 11 Archicad has intoduced a feature called "linework consolidation", that lets you transform all the 2d lines you get from a cad in single polilines. It allows you to transfer all of these lines on a single layer of your choice, change the colour of those lines and so on. This comes from the need to create more polished drafting from an autocad import, but now it occurred to me it would work nicely with a dwg file coming from SU as well. Will havo to try it out!

Thanks Hazza for the heads-up and restoring the solution - and sorry for the crash again.

Hi, I now can use hardware accelerator without having SU to hang So it much faster Template is much easier to save at the right location Dynamic component is a great improvement Layout is much better and more....

My most "popular model" is a model I made a while back; a low-poly large beanbag chair, that I don't even think I did a very good job on : with around 400 views and 330 downloads a week. 8 people have added it in their collections, and it has 55 ratings. HOW!??! it has to be my least detailed model, easiest model(done in like 10 minutes), and doesn't even have that many tags! model found here: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=de862f78d1412e5268d4f5a3519f61be My second most "popular model" is a photo-textured version of someone else's posable version of someone else's colored version of someone else's extract of master chief from halo 3: with around 430 views and 250 downloads a week. model found here: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=ec26ff8e5bcd25a25dfd2d7998768282 after those two models, the download rate plummets to 70, the 50, then 30, etc. I REALY don't get why certaion models are so popular

@thomthom said: http://www.zermatt.se/ I would rather something that is Open source or at least free. Since the Quake 3 game engine is GPL I live in hope that one day someone will develop a GPL SU to EXE convertor.

It's easier to model from a good plan with cutlists, but I like to model from a rough plan, dimensioned views, just a picture, or just an idea. It seems to me to be more find it more fun/challenging to model interesting pieces instead of pieces which happen to have clear plans already.

Yup,I saw your post - commented there. Keep up with this useful but fun stuff!

Nice.

@solo said: Lets take my furniture 'designs' I did recently, they were not done with an intention to be manufactured but rather to explore the new tools in SU, I did not have any parameters or rules to conform to and thus I was not restricted. So besides the artistic intention behind them they are useless? Could they not serve as inspiration for a workable product? In my opinion design should be with the aim of bringing something in to the world. Anything less than that is coming up with ideas, they are nothing more than that unless they are then made in to something real. Your chairs are not useless because of this, though. As you said they could serve as the inspiration for a great piece of furniture, but then anything can be serve as inspiration, there is a lot between being inspired and then making a real product. @unknownuser said: is artistic design not the foundation of great architecture? I dont know enough about architecture to comment, but an often lauded phrase in the industrial design world comes to mind "form follows function."

The boxkkversion.rb needs to be renamed box.rb and replaces the box.rb in the plugins/examples dir to load properly. Sorry that I omitted this important step. This works for ver6. In ver7 box.rb only works if loaded after SU is loaded and running. I use a script script_loader.rb to do this. Yes a dynamic component would do this if we can get a pro user to write the component and share it. Keith

I have updated the code... The procedure you wanted is not possible without problems... Pages don't always keep their active layer. Here is the new procedure : Read the components and their names. Create a layer : the name is the same as the first component + "- sizes" (A layer called "Leg - sizes") Repeat for all components. Create a "Scene 1" if it does not exist already. Create a scene with the same name as the first component. (A scene called "Leg" is created) Repeat for all components.

google

Ok Dave I finally got it-I think I'm loosing it-heyhe and thankyou very much, I also found your video on animation great.