Thanks for the thoughtful reply, TIG. I've been using SketchUp for years, though somewhat casually. Nevertheless, I thought I understood the minutiae of how layers worked, but I guess I didn't. Thanks for straightening me out.

I have a lot of layers in my drawing, so I turn visibility of various ones on and off depending on what I'm working on. I draw a square on one layer and get a warning that my "recent operation has caused visible geometry to merge with existing geometry on a hidden layer."

1. If the layer is hidden, why is my geometry merging with it?

2. How can I prevent this from happening?

3. How can I identify which hidden layer is being merged with?

Thanks.

The style syncing seems to have been the problem. Upgraded anyway. Thanks.

Thanks, Sonder. Do you know if there's a charge for upgrading? I'm not using any styles, and the default Engineering and Design styles don't affect the guides.

I'm using Layout 2 and SketchUp 7. When I import my SU model into Layout and select a view in which guides are turned off in SU, the guides appear in Layout. How can I suppress them? Thanks.

Thanks, mac1. Using follow me on 0 thickness did the trick.

Dave R: Long ago I got in the habit of typing 100s after creating my first circle or arc as I usually would want more than the standard 12 segments (or whatever the number is) but wouldn't realize it until later in the design process at which point it would be very difficult to change. Large files is the price.

I'm trying to create a rectangular slab with radiused corners and a half-circle (bullnose) edge on three sides. If I start with a rectangle in the XY plane and radius the corners, then pull it in Z to create thickness and use a half-circle profile and follow-me to create the bullnose, I can't get past the first corner for some reason; follow-me won't let me round the corner (see temp2.skp). If I pull the slab to create thickness before radiusing the corners, then create a radius and push the excess back through the slab to eliminate it, the bottom of the slab gets pulled up slightly at one end of the raidused corner (see temp1.jpg and temp1.skp). This also makes it impossible to round the corner with follow-me. What am I doing wrong?

temp2.skp

temp1.skp

Unchecking "On ground" in the shadow settings dialog seems to solve the problem.

I'm planning a backyard remodel to my house that involves adding a pool and deck. The backyard is slightly terraced, so the pool will be on a higher level than the house. For the purpose of doing some shadow studies to figure out where to put, and how to orient, some chaises, I've traced from the civil engineering plan the outlines of the pool and retaining walls associated with the pool level, and placed some solids representing the chaises. I also imported a model of the house made separately by my architect.

My problem is, the house casts shadows on its level, and the the pool stuff cast shadows on its level. I'd like the house to cast shadows on its level AND the pool level (for obvious reasons), but the shadows pass through the pool level as if it wasn't there. How do I achieve my desired effect? I've attached a zip because the .skp is about 4.6MB.

I'm running SketchUp 7.1.686 Pro.

Thanks.

Scale plan.zip

I'd like to do my dimensioning within Layout, so it would be nice to be able to turn on guides that were placed in SU, apply dimensions between the relevant guides, then turn them off, leaving the dimensions behind. Is that possible? If not, how do others solve this problem? Not all geometry has easily located features for dimensioning purposes. Thanks.

Aah, got it. Thanks.

Thanks, Gaieus. I've updated my profile, and I was able to open the file, but what are the "back faces" of a round cylinder? I can only think of inside, outside, top, and bottom.

In the attached file I've created a hollow cylinder (.125" thick wall) and placed a cube inside. I've applied a color to the inside and outside faces and set one opacity to 4 and the other to 5. I can see from the outer wall to the inner wall, but not through the inner wall across the interior space (so I can't see the cube). I'd like the cylinder to be sufficiently transparent to see things behind it (not just inside). What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

transparency.skp

All great tips. Thanks loads.

My inserted SU drawing displays all its guides (even if I saved the file with guides turned off). Is there a way to turn these off in LO? Thanks.

I'd love to get this to work, openhatch, but I'm unfamiliar with plugins. Can you give me some pointers (cut and paste the code to a file, save it in plugins directory, etc.)? Thanks.

Aah, thanks.

I have a cylinder I'd like to rotate in a plane parallel to one of the cardinal planes, say green-blue. It's currently perpendicular to the green-red plane. I need to "attach" the protractor to a point on the cylinder such that the protractor is parallel to the green-blue plane (or the green axis). How do I do that? Thanks

So I've been evaluating Alibre Design Pro for the last week (they're offering $100 off plus free video tutorials through Monday, btw). I can see how it can do some things more easily than SU, but for a lot of things it's a lot more cumbersome and idiosyncratic than SU. I'm planning on using it for things I will ultimately CNC, either on my own milling machine or outsourced (either things that are too large for my setup or things that need to be laser-cut or 3D printed). So, I was wondering if anyone here who uses both regularly can provide a quick summary of why they like Alibre and how they decide when to use it over SU. Thanks.

Thanks, dedmin. I'll check it out.

Too much $$$ for me, Pilou.