@jean lemire said: As pointed out by others, if the cursor is over empty space, the Zoom tool will do close to nothing. Zooming with the mouse wheel over empty space makes it do large jumps.

Unfortunately I figured it out too late to save my dog. I will accept donations towards the lavish funeral I'm planning.

Thanks

Man, you guys are good! Turns out I had in fact "purged" my model, moved all the hidden stuff to a separate file. I'd forgotten I'd done that, and since it was hidden I guess I never missed it when I scaled down my beastie. Can't get one past the experts!

As Thomas writes, "Use only as many edges as you need..." A small hole can look round with relatively few sides while something like a round table top would benefit from having more sides. The same goes for arcs. A small round over will look fine with three or four sides but a larger curves need more. Don't waste geometry where it isn't needed but don't skimp where it is. In models you find in the 3D Warehouse, it could be they are drawn with few sides on circles and arcs to keep file size down. This is the case with many of the components from the @Last days. It could also be they were drawn by someone who didn't know how to control and utilize the tools well or they were just sloppy. With the Warehouse you get all sorts.

(sorry, too late) Basically, curved surfaces consist of planar facets whose edges have the "smooth" property. By displaying hidden geometry you can see those smoothed edges as dashed lines. Now you have all options for rotating/moving a texture image on a face. Also there exists the "sample" tool (which is the paint bucket while pressing the alt key). With the sample tool you can copy a material (including its the texture orientation) and transfer it to neighbouring faces. Thus you can wrap a texture step by step on a curved surface (from facet to facet). Another way is to use the planar projection feature. I hope you don't mind if I just give you ths link that explains the topic in more detail: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sketchup/thread?tid=305938c70981364b

Wish I'd thought to tell you that but I've never had Randor installed so I wasn't aware of that tidbit.

@hellnbak said: Could you explain what that means? Google does that very nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSP54o_KqY

@hellnbak said: Is there a way, maybe a plugin, that will allow me to accurately rotate an object? What would be really good is a plugin similar to Nudge, that lets you use the arrow keys to move objects in small increments. I have searched extensively for something like this, have come up with zip, so any help will be much appreciated. The rotix plugin does what you want. Works with groups & components. http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/plugin_details.php?id=348

Hi folks. It is, as pointed by others, an internal face that shows through the outside face. If you cannot delete that face because it is needed, for an internal view, for example, or because it is necessary for the geometry of the model, you can hide it for this particular view. You may also use a layer that you will hide. Assign this face and any other that creates the same problem to this layer. Then, create a scene to save the setting for this layer. Create another scene, showing this layer and use it for inside views. Then, clicking on scenes tab will get you the better of both worlds. Just ideas.

Tig wins! I have forgotten the power of "think lateral" Have you try "Profil Builder" ? I don't know yet if "Profils multiple" is possible?

And the ruby API should indeed remain the same else old plugins would stop working...

For your groove, try this. The Follow Me tool looks like Push/Pull but it isn't. That's a new 'feature' in SU8.

Yes, and here is another one (of mine): http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=ab19f7632ea76be72e663865c4731bb5 You can set who can download it under the access tab. See screenshots below (I even highlighted an "apology" for not allowing access - it's not only my decision but also the archaeologist's who excavated the stuff) [image: tdm5_MyBasilica.png] Click on the image to see the settings at the bottom [image: wnfn_acces.png]

You just need to snap onto the back face - if you know its exactly 2" you can also type 2" and press enter and it should punch the hole. If you haven't make the 'box' you are punching through with perfectly parallel faces you won't get the hole to punch this way at all. If that is the case either make sure both faces are parallel OR pushpull a considerable distance through the back face, then select the edges of the pulled shape and 'intersect with model' to cut the back-face, then erase the unwanted bits and you will have a punched hole - not recommended for minor inaccuracies - fix the cause! BUT the method is useful if you have an intentionallywedge shaped wall that you want to punch a hole through...[image: efYd_Capture.PNG]

Another little tip, if you scale your whole model up by a factor of 10 you have further to move things, then just scale it down again when you have finished. This helps with small faces that SU doesn't like also.

Look at this short tutorial on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzbk8kYSmfE This shows how to snap an object from one point to another point on a different object, without dragging the object to the point. They indicate that you need to hit the arrow key a second time to make it snap, at least on a mac you then need to left click the mouse. This works great when you are moving the piece on multiple axes. I have not seen this referenced anywhere else, but I probably just missed it. Dan

If you want to have the shiny things (and all real time photorealistic effects) insideSU actively, have a look at LightUp. Once you set up your materials and run the renderer ("Tour mode"), you are INSketchUp with all the effects and can walk around, export images/videos etc.

@hellnbak said: do you mean that if I make three copies of an object, there's no way to apply a material to just one of them, that it automatically applies it to all three? There's got to be a way around this, it just makes no sense. No, that only applies to components. They are special "entities" inside your model. Make a cube for instance then select all, right click on the selection and make it a component from the context menu. Now select it again, select the Move tool press the Ctrl button and this way move a copy away. Now you have two instances of the same component in the model. If you edit one (double click) and make any modification "inside", the other instance will "repeat" this modification. This is a good way of having lots of geometry of the same kind in a model. Say you have ten similar windows on a house or four wheels on a car and you decide to modify them - this way you only have to do it once. If you want to modify only one (or two...), select it/them and right click again > make unique. You can add/detract to/from a selection by holding down the Shift key. Now back to your problem. I am not sure why everything changes the material, I have to confess. Could you attach a simple example? As for the material dialog: you can open it from the Window menu. In there, you can browse all sorts of different materials as you know. The default material is the one that you see when starting to model something and have not painted it yet. Generally it is some light colour (and the back face is some bluish/grey) but you can change these. The "In model" materials are what you have already used. They are displayed when you click on that small house icon. [image: Syht_Materials.jpg]