Well, this is interesting! I started deleting things, and the the file size didn't get much smaller. Finally, I did an Unhide All and a Select All, deleted everything in the file, and saved. There is nothing in the mode, and the size is still 13,288 KB! Statistics show:
edges 1882
faces 685
groups 14
materials 7

I did a Purge Unused, and nothing changed.

Your thoughts?

Dave, Tried to attach the file to a PM, but it won't send files > 2MB. This file is almost 14MB. Is there a way around this? J

No scenes. There were scenes before, but I deleted them all. Sorry about the profile -- I've updated it. Sketchup 8 Free, Win 7.

Dave, Sorry, but it don't work! I clicked on the thumbnail, then saved. the instant the save completes, the edges disappear, and the edge color changes from "all the same" back to "by material." Any other thoughts? John

Help! I have a drawing where the edges are colored "by material." What I want is "all the same." No matter how many times I make the change in the Style menus, the instant I save the file, the drawing reverts to the old style. What do I have to do to make the change permanent? Thanks.

For the first time, I'm having trouble with solid operations. I have 2 solids. When I subtract one from the other, the result is not a solid. When viewed in X-ray mode, there are a lot of spurious hidden lines drawn inside. If I delete the spurious lines, sometimes I get a solid, but sometimes not. Very frustrating. Anyone experience this? Causes? Cures? Thx.

Thanks, guys. I tried all the formats mentioned so far, and none worked for me. I'm using Windows 7.

I am trying to reduce the size of a Sketchup viewport in Layout 3 to 97% of its current size. When I try to do this by dragging a handle on the viewport, it jumps from 100% to 94.3%, and only then does it start reducing size smoothly. When I try to enter precise scaling factors from the keyboard, they show up in the text entry box, but when I hit <return>, it says "invalid string" no matter how I've formatted the information. I've tried with and without leading zeros, different numbers of digits after the decimal point, etc. Arg! Finally, I gave up. What am I missing? Thx.

Gaius, Just ran into this problem again and can't remember how I solved it last time. How does one set Sketchup to vector or hybrid mode? Thx. John

I have a Sketchup 8 Pro model of a building with a scene that shows a section cut in plan view.
I inserted this view into Layout 3.

1. In Sketchup, this view shows nice, clean lines. In Layout, the lines are ragged, with variations in width - almost as if it was undersampled or slightly off-axis.
2. More serious, when I use Layout's dimension tool, not all the dimensions match the dimensions Sketchup model. Some do, some don't. The differences are significant.
   This is driving me nuts. I have a good model, but can't give the drawings to my client because the dimensions aren't accurate.
   Is this a known problem? If so, is there a fix or a work-around? Thx.

Graphics is Intel GMA 4500MHD (integrated).

Gaius, My laptop runs at 2.1 GHZ, has 4 GB main DDR2 memory, over 200GB free disk space, and is running Windows 7 x64. Is it normal for it to bog down so badly when navigating, or perhaps something is not set up right for Sketchup?

Just moved a model onto my laptop to show to a potential client, and brought the poor thing to its knees - really slow jerky movement rendering. I can almost hear it moaining and groaning. And this is by no means a big or highly detailed model. Looks like it's time for a new laptop. What are the general requirements for a laptop that won't run out of steam as I get more advanced? Thx.

Tom, I got it figured out. Very nice tool. Thanks. J

Thomas,

Thanks for your reply. I downloaded the plugin, and also the prerequisite library. Now I get about 30 or 40 error messages when I open SketchUp (variable not initialized, etc.), I no longer have access to the plugins that were previously available, and I only have read-only access to the model I'm working on. ???

Greetings! I am trying to reproduce an ornamental column (see attached). The column was made by taking a square cross-section column and turning it on a lathe. At the top and bottom of the column, the cylindrical turnings move through the outer surface of the square column, making a decorative intersection. I thought I could create a lathe extrusion solid and then intersect it with a square column to get the same shape. But my lathe extrusion isn't a solid, so I can't use the intersect tool. What did I do wrong? Is there another approach to accomplishing this?

LBC column.skp

I'm confused by the conflicting opinions on when to control visibility using hide/unhide, and when to use layers.

For example: I have modeled all the storefronts on both sides of one city block. Some, but not all, of these storefronts are going to be replaced. I need to display many different streetscapes with various combinations of old and new storefronts. I also need to be able to make all the stores on either side of the street invisible, so I can look through them to see the entire other side of the street at one time.

If I do all my modeling on layer0, that means that I will have multiple overlapping models of some storefronts (as-is, proposal#1, proposal#2, etc.). Don't know why, but that makes me nervous. Plus, it requires constant toggling of hide/unhide in order to work on them.

There has to be a better way. Thoughts, anyone?

1. I made a component. Then I re-scaled the component. (There was only one instance of the component.)
2. Later, I dragged a new instance of the component into my model from my In Model collection, and what I got was the earlier version of the component, not the rescaled version! I had assumed it would be updated automatically.
3. Then I opened the component and did a "save as" and got a warning saying that the component had a non-standard scale. I saved it anyway, overwriting the existing component, and that solved the problem.

Question: When does Sketchup automatically update components when they are changed, and when not? Any recommended procedures for dealing with this?

How do I take an existing component, take one instance of it, modify it and make it into a new component with a new name, without disturbing the original component and its instances? Thanks.

JHAUSWIRTH: Thanks, that worked. Found it!
SLIMDOG: Strangely, I do know the name, and Search doesn't find it. I have folder options set to display hidden files, too. Strange! Any insight here?