I need some help. I am running SU 15.3.330 32 bit for now.
I'm getting a new 64 bit PC in a month or so and will upgrade to SU latest.

Why is irrelevant at this time, but if you need to know, ask me.

I ran SU 15 from my old installation but the Fredo Lib was partially corrupted and many tools do not work. I lived with it till now when a tool I really needed was not working.
I want to reload Fredo Lib but the only one I can find is for SU 17+.

Where can I find a copy of Fredo Lib for SU 15 32 bit?

I do exactly the same thing.

I just need to visualize the object in real size. If I needed to extrude something 6 mm I just pull up 6.

No mental math involved unless I have a real world object whose dimensions are in inches and I have to model it. Then I use a calculator, (inch to mm), again, no mental math.

Our methods are the same, just the scale is different. For what I am doing I need to mentally imagine the item at true full size from the measurements I see in SU. 10:1 is easier for me.

Yes, quite true, especially for really small printed stuff.
But for me, divide by 10 is mentally far easier than divide by 1,000.

Further to my previous reply, I forgot a very important parameter to set in SU.

Model scale.

For the size most printers can make, you need curves with very short segments, but SU doesn't work well with very short lines, especially at the high resolution most printers are capable of.

So you need to use a large scale for the drawing. Then in your slicer scale it down to life size.

The simplest way is to go metric for the drawing, and draw in centimetres, where 1 cm is 1 mm printed. A 10:1 scale that is easy to visualize and compute. It is just a simple mental moving of the decimal point in your measurements.

I know it is tough for North Americans to work in metric. Even for me, in Canada, which is supposedly metric, but not us old folks. I only use metric for 3D print designs. F.P.S everything else.

Then all you need to do is set the slicer at a 10:1 ratio and print. No complex ratio conversion math.

One other thing. For curves in your model, such as bearing mounts, gear teeth, use a high number of segments. That will allow a smoother fit. Same with bolt holes that are not threaded by the bolt. For screws and bolt holes that are force threaded by the screw/bolt, go with larger segments, I use 12 for a full circle. That will give a bit more thread bite in the final part, so fewer segments in the hole are not critical.

Where curve surface smoothness is not important, use large segments. That will also speed up the printing a fair bit.

Finally, you really need to experiment with practice parts at various segment sizes, nozzle sizes and slicer parameters before printing for real.

The top back edge is also smoothed. If you unsmooth just that line and the one below (in the back) then the top will not be over smoothed.

The only other way you can get less smoothed top surface is to create a small smoothed radius on the top & bottom back edges. The size of the radius will control how much smoothing you do want.

Turn "Show Hidden Geometry" on. Then using the "shift+Ctrl+erase tool" select the lines you want unsmoothed and unsoftened. You can play with combinations to get smooth unsoft or soft unsmoothed lines and that will take care of your over smoothed surfaces.

Then turn show hidden geometry off.

You can also select any line(s) and change the smooth or soft or hidden attribute in Entity Info.

Normally, my large models (250,000+ lines) saves in about 2 to 3 seconds to my SSD and autosaves are equally fast.

I started a new model a few weeks ago and some time back its save time went to over a full minute, averaging 70 seconds. Its size is about 110,000 lines. Autosave is normal, 3 seconds or less. This new model is similar to another model that saves normally, and that model is way larger as well.

I ran "fix problems" and after about a minute, no problems found. Copies of the model save the same way.

All my other big models save in the usual time of a few seconds.

Any ideas?

SU 2015, Win 10

I have been considering that path. Just too lazy to do it.

In the mean time, ver 2015 is up and "almost" working. A lot of KB shortcuts are missing.
And when I cold start 2015 I get a long list of load errors (attached). I have a long list of plugins and extensions some seem to work, others are MIA.

I know I have to reload some (hopefully not all) so if someone can tell me which plugins failed to load, I would appreciate that.
If you need it, I can screenshot the plugins directory.

L I Am

I can't install 2017. 2016 is as high as I can go. My system is 32 bit and 2017 and later are 64 bit.

Actually my hardware is all 64 bit but long ago I inadvertently installed Win 10 32 bit and now I am stuck with it.

It was a fresh install, but on a new clean SSD. Now all I want to do is recreate the same old directory structures with the configuration and settings files copied over from the old SSD.

I just need to know where those dirs and files are located on the old SSD. For RBZ files I can reinstall, but there are some native SU files that contain general settings like KB shortcuts, etc.
I have no idea where they are as they are usually buried deep in some obscure tree.

I had to install a new 480gb SSD when my old 128gb SSD crashed. It is fully readable but not bootable. I have both SSD mounted, 480 is 128 id E:.

I reinstalled SU 2015 on but none of my old settings are there (expected)

Which directories/files on the old SSD do I need to copy over to regain my toolbars, add-ons, materials, etc?

The RBZ file was created in 2015.

Pilou
Both Pcon-Planner and Mesh Mixer are 64 bit apps. Can't use them. Thanks anyway.

Box.
Thanks again. Do you know if it will be updated?

Thank you.
I will try them.

Right now I am stuck with SU 2015 Make on my PC that is win 10 32 bit.
I understand that SU 2016 is the last 32 bit I can load.
Does it support .STL file export?
If not is there an add-on or other app that can convert SU files to .STL?

Curviloft is great, can't draw anything without it.

But it has a serious drawback if used to create printable surfaces. It does not join up opposing vertices if they are not of equal number of segments in the bounding curves, and even then not quite, You get a lot of extra lines on the curved surface, where I would spend a lot of time cleaning up, just to reduce my drawings line count. The curved surface looks just as good.

To combat that with some reasonably good success with Curviloft, make sure the long curves have an equal number of segments. If they are curves made up from more than one arc make sure the total segment count is the same for the curves. Do this in Entity Info. Providing the arc is pristine just change the segment count. Otherwise draw the arcs with a preset segment count that is consistent curve to curve.

Segment length also factors in to how well Curviloft makes a printable surface. Make sure all your line segments are greater in length than your print nozzle size, usually .4mm

Otherwise explode the curves and join vertices by hand making triangles.

For printing, preview the model with smoothing off, showing all hidden and smoothed lines before you export the STL file.

Although I have been using SU for near a decade now, I will only be getting a 3D printer in July/August, so I'm no expert on 3D printing. But I have done a lot of research on the subject.

The thing to remember in creating SU models that will print well is IMHO attention to detail.

SU is a surface modeller. Any curve is a series of straight line vectors, they are not the smooth curves you see if the model is smoothed. That smoothness is only an illusion via the SU display s/w.

The printer prints in straight lines, very small straight lines, but nothing is a true curve. So to get a reasonably smooth curve in the printer you need the curve divided into a lot of segments. SU default is 24 segments in a 360 degree circle. Great for small curves, but large curves may need 120 segments. That I think may be the reason some prints come out less than desired.

The other critical thing is the bead size the printer is making. The current standard .4mm so any feature Lines or curve segments) in the model that is less than .4mm will not print well, if at all. You can get print nozzles as small as .15mm, but that will really slow down a slow print to begin with. So making curves requires a minimum segment size no less than the nozzle size.

You need to preview the final model in SU with hidden and smoothed lines turned off before you output the STL file. That is what the print will/should look like.

Please allow me my $0.02 on this.
I know there are replies that covered what I will write, but long ago I made it simple to understand layers, groups and components.

Layers are for visibility. LAYER 0 is your primary drawing layer.
There are very few reasons to draw or assign raw entities to any other layer, but in over 8 years, never found a good reason to.
More on layers further down.

Groups and components are almost the same. In fact you could dispense with groups and use components exclusively. Groups/components are used to isolate entities within a bounding box. What happens to any other entity, group or component outside the box will not affect what's inside the box with the exception of components.

You draw entities. Lines, circles, squares, boxes, etc. You group or make a component of these entities to create a visual object. All of the entities that make this group/component are on LEVEL 0, including other groups/components that may make up the object.
You assign a layer to the GROUP/Component box that contains them.

The difference is simple. Use a group if the drawn object only appears ONCE in the drawing. If you copy a group and make any changes to it or the entities inside, those changes apply only to the copy you changed.

Use a component if there is one or more copies of it in the drawing. If you copy a component, then any changes you make to the entities inside the component are reflected in every copy in the drawing, without exceptions.

Any changes you make to the component outside the box applies only to that changed component, such as layer, color, scale, orientation and a very few others.

You assign a layer to the bounding box of the group or component. All the stuff inside the box still remain on Layer 0, but their visibility is governed by the assigned layer of the box.

That's basically it, Layers are for visibility, groups are for a single collection of entities, component are for multiple instances of that collection.

OK, then how do you edit groups or components? You enter into edit mode and make whatever changes you need, exit and the group is changed and every component of that is changed as well. But if you want to make a change to only a single component, you make that component UNIQUE. Then edit it and the changes are only applied to that component.
Changes made to the other components will not affect this and vice versa.

But supposing you had a pile of entities or group or component that you now wanted to be included with some other group or component.

Two ways; just make a group or component of all the parts you want. Then edit that new group/component and change the Layer of the contained entities to Layer 0, or you will have visibility problems later on. Unless there is a good reason to have different layers inside the box.

Or; Clipboard Copy the new stuff, edit the group/component and Paste In Place the clipboard copy. Exit and delete the stuff you clipped.

I take it that those roofs have the center raised a bit. The diagonal lines are the "hip" bends. Quite normal. You need to make then "soft" or hidden.

Three ways, either select the line and change its attribute in Entity Attributes; or

with the erase tool, press and hold "CTRL" and sweep over the line.

The third way is to create a layer and move those lines into it. Make that layer visible or invisible as needed.