On spheres, I just had another go and got some weird results, but I did manage to get a sphere by using a different method from the one I used to use. I was using SketchUp 8 (I think, or 7) before which was a bit different (for example it had the 'follow me' tool as a button instead of a menu item, which I preferred - I've looked hard for a way to create a button for it in SketchUp Make, but perhaps that's only now in the 'pro' version.)

By making the guide circle a group, and then positioning the thing to be made 3D very precisely above its centre and not touching it at all, and then exploding the group, I managed to create a sphere. A warning message flashed up for an instant, but I couldn't read it before it disappeared.

I then went into my current project to repeat the feat. No luck! The results seem quite random. Sometimes it disappears, sometimes it becomes a 2D object with bits missing, and other times it becomes a bizarre 3D shape that defies description, but which involves lots of apparently random missing bits and even floating pieces.

I never had this much trouble with spheres in SketchUp 7 (or was it 8? - it might have been 5 or 6).

As I wrote, tenths are very common on British rulers. Possibly you are an American, and things are different there? When I was using fractions, I typed in 9/10" and I did NOT get a rectangle of the correct length. When I measured it with the ruler tool, it was the wrong length. Wait! I just checked that, and it seems you (Jeff) were right! What it said and what it did were two different things!

Anyway, today's problem is that I have followed several how-to-draw-a-sphere tutorials to the letter, and SketchUp refuses to do anything of the kind. Instead, it is creating many different bizarre and apparently random shapes, and sometimes causes the shape to disappear entirely. But that's another story for another day...

Thanks to all those who took the trouble to reply. I found the place where I could alter the precision, and I was already at 1/64th. Changing it to decimal enabled me to enter 9/10 and apparently GET 9/10, although then 1 3/16 came out as a decimal, but then I changed back to fractional, and then I had 1 3/16 and ~29/32, which I'm guessing is close to 9/10 (but the actual rectangle is exact?). This is awkward, but may have solved the problem. I find it odd that the fractional setting does not cope with tenths. These are a very common fraction, no? It is standard (in Britain, at least) for rulers to have divisions of tenths on one side and sixteenths on the other. This seemed even odder when the programme happily turned 1 3/16 into 1.1875, which is correct and exact, and it was able to display the rectangle.

Hello,

I have just downloaded and installed SketchUp Maker and the very first thing I needed to do was create a rectangle 1 3/16" by 9/10". The geometry needs to be precise because of what I am planning to do next with it. I cannot do this. Whenever I type in the measurements for the rectangle, it changes 9/10" to ~7/8". ~7/8" isn't good enough. I need 9/10". I tried scaling it up and using feet instead of inches, but the same problem occurred. Can anyone help me? I've looked for an options menu entry, thinking that there may be some rounding setting I can alter, but there appears to be none.

Lloyd