Hi folks.

While at incredible pieces of art and craftmanship, see this:

Chinese ivory gone berserk - The Boston Globe

Occasionally, as an art critic, you come across an object so marvelous it seems utterly berserk. When it happens, quite often you look around and realize that you are in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Case in point: this single ball of ivory carved into 15 concentric spheres.

BostonGlobe.com (www.bostonglobe.com)

I had the chance to see a few of these incredible sphere in an exposition held here in Montreal and I was simply baffled when I figured out how it was possible to create these. The article linked above explain it.

I also found a video on youtube showing that the innermosr spheres can revolve independently but the cameraman did not use a macro lens so the focus is poor at close range. See it here:

Just ideas.

Hi Pilou, hi folks.

The resizing inside a group or component definition is a good idea but it will work on all directions.

So, if you resize the length of a rectangle, the width also changes. Then, if you resize the width, the length changes.

Just ideas.

Hi folks.

If you want to practice with native tools, it takes only two quickly done rotations.

Don't forget this trick from the help:

http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=94897

See this SU file for ideas:

fastest_rotation - V6 - JL.skp

Hi Sketchman, hi folks.

@viking72 said:

@bep said:

Try http://drivingdimensions.com/SketchUp/overview/

Bep

That is a really cool plugin which seem to have the feature I was asking about, so thank you very much.

However, I'll agree with @Dave R that it is important to get familiar (or at least somewhat familiar !) with the native tools before installing plugins as they probably require one to learn even more which will only lead to more frustration and confusion.

Excellent writing from you.

IMHO, it is much efficient to learn and get a strong knowledge of the native tools before plunging into the universe of plugins. Once you know all native tools and use them to their utmost possibilities you will get a very good understanding of SketchUp (SU) and then will be more apt at judging which plugin can better help you to perform complex tasks. This will avoid loading too many plugins of which a lot might be used very infrequently and will only bloat SU, slow startup and fill your screen with way too many icons.

Just ideas.

Hi Pilou, hi folks.

You are right. Imagine with square gears. Yes, they exist.

See this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-circular_gear

And this one for even more strange looking shapes for gears. Look for the fish shaped one at mid length. Really funny.

Just ideas.

Hi Rick, hi folks.

If you want to practice with native tools, click on the scenes tabs of this SketchUp file for ideas.

Bench leg with rounded edges.skp
Dont forget that there is a Woodworkers sub forum here.

Welcome to SketchUcation.

Hi enhydra, hi folks.

In your image, you show two small circular gears meshed with a larger elliptical one.

For this to work, you need a way to accomodate changes in axis distance.

Normally, elliptical gears are meshed with other elliptical gears.

See this web page for some formula:

http://www.technicaljournalsonline.com/ijaers/VOL%20II/IJAERS%20VOL%20II%20ISSUE%20I%20%20OCTBER%20DECEMBER%202012/225.pdf

You will see that defining the exact shape for the teeth is not so simple.

Just ideas.

Hi Aureus, hi folks.

@aureus said:

Anyway, one thing that Jean said came under my attention.

He said in Canada they use another symbol for this kind of annotation.
I'm keen to see it.

In some jobs, we use this:

Level anotation.skp
We also use the Metric system and the coma as the decimal.

Just ideas.

Jean

Hi Paul, hi folks.

On a Mac, you do exactly like on a PC.

Use Window menu --> Model info --> Units.

Choose the type of unit in the rightmost pull down list (inches, feet, millimeters, centimeters, meters) and then the format in the pulldown list to the left of the other one. Notice that the available formats are dependent on the type of unit. Fractional do not applies to mm, cm and m.

Then you can choose the precision that will be shown from 0 to 6 decimals.

While at it, I suggest to uncheck the box labeled Enable length snapping. I use that very rarely since SKetchUp allows very precise positioning of objects.

By the way, all this is in the help that you can each using the Help Menu --> Help Center.

Just ideas.

Hi folks.

When you are inside the context of a group/component, right clicking inside the bounding box but not on any geometry shows a pop-up stating close groupor close component.

Click on the pop-up to close the group/component.

Of course, pressing the ESC key is faster.

Just ideas.

Hi Aureus, hi folks.

I agree with you that adding a few bells and wistles to the dimensionning and annotations in SketchUp (SU) would probably not add too much to its price.

Maybe that can be a feature of SU Pro, justifying even more the 495$ vs 0$ for the free version.

My only fear is that some people will want more ways to draw rectangles and then circles, and then arcs, and then polygons and then ... etc.

All of this is very valid and I would like them in a Pro version as long as its price don't go up to far from the actual 500 $ (approx.) value.

I don't need, and I am certain that many others also dont need, another AutoCAD or Catia with their zillions of icons and menus and sub menus, etc.

Wait a second ... with dozens of plugins, SU's interface begins to look like Catia and other complex software. OK, I said nothing

Lets evolve, but not too much at a time. Lets keep SU looking simple if we want it to appeal to a lot of people that are not necessarily savvy with 3D and CAD. So, yes, a free version with a decent set of tool and a Pro version with a more complete palette. Both of them able to grow with the help of plugins.

Again, these are only my ideas.

Hi Ralph, hi folks.

The nice part with SketchUp (SU) is that you can easily fix problems in some cases.

Click in sequence on the scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas, to illustrate Dave's idea, I think.

Hexagonal recess for bolt head.skp

Hi Aureus, hi folks.

Here we use another symbol for this kind of annotation and I am pretty sure that there are probably dozens of variations on that theme around our planet.

If SketchUp (SU) is to be able to incorporate all these possibilities, it would become another behemoth, and expensive, CAD program.

Lets keep it simple and use plugins to implement fancy stuff. Otherwise, if it becomes complex and pricey, it will loose its appeal as an efficient 3D sketching program.

The symbol you show can be made as a component and then a text object can be attached to it with the leader not showing.

To get the heigth of an endpoint, use the Text tool. It gives, as the default text, the X,Y and Z coordinates of the endpoint. The Z is the heigth.

Just ideas.

Hi Gonashvili, hi folks.

How about making a group or a component with the two crosses.

This will separate them from the rectangle.

After scaling the rectangle, reposition the group or component and then explode if if required to have the crosses on the rectangle surface.

Just ideas.

Hi Wo3Dan, hi folks.

I quitted SU then I changed my decimal separator from the . to the , and the list separator from the , to the ;

I restarted SU and it works.

I quitted SU and then I reverted back to the . and , and it still works ?!?!?!

Strange.

Anyway, problem solved.

The help is still incorrect unless I goofed somewhere.

Best regards.

Hi folks.

Yes, this is a bug to me. After trying a few time, it looks like if there is any non numeric characters after the integer part of a number, the rest of the Measurement Toolbar is not taken into account. This means that 210/2 will work and the circle will have a diameter of 210 and a radius of 105 but 210.6/2 will be seen as 210 and the resulting circle will have a radius of 210 and a diameter of 420.

Also, if you read the help at page:

http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151558

You will see that is written that a number can be followed by an r to be used as the radius. This is useless since the value is a radius by default. Of course I though that they migth have been tinking of using d as a diameter, but no luck, it does not work.

The workaround is to draw the circle using the diameter as the radius and then scale it by 0.5 afterward or edit the radius value in the Entity Info.

Just ideas.

Hi Mark, hi folks.

One of the edges on the triangle that defines the fillet seems to be smoothed. Thats the one against the hub.

Try unsmoothing it before using the Follow me tool.

There is an easy way to draw this kind of model.

Click on the scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas.

Just ideas.

Fillet for a hub.skp

Hi Mark, hi folks.

See this SU file for ideas.

Holes in sphere.skp

Hi folks.

I such case it is probably faster to lathe a full circle and then delete the unwanted half.

Just ideas.

Hi folks.

Beside X-Raymode, a Section Planecan help.

Just ideas.