Not sure if this applies to a Mac, but I upgraded my Logitech mouse last year and had the devil of a time getting the wheel down click to work like my previous mouse.

Try this; Open your Logitech mouse settings dialog and redefine the wheel down as "Middle Button".

It's a mistake I made by the bushel when I started using SU.

I made multiple copies of grouped geometry instead of making them components.
My rule now is if ANYTHING is more than 1 occurrence, it is a component.

So when I did convert one of the group copies to an identical component (select, explode, make comp) I was faced with the task of replacing the same groups with that same component, in the exact same position. When I moved the comp into the groups position, it would snap into position and I was not able to select only the group to delete it.

I tried several things with variable success, until I stumbled on this simple solution.

Before you move the comp onto the group, edit the group and add a single line from any point to outside its existing bounding box, then close it.
Move the comp into place. It will still snap in place.

Now simply click on the extended group line and you can easily select and delete only the group.

There is also a TT tool that replaces identical groups with an identical comp, but it does the whole drawing, which is not what you may want, and if even the slightest difference is present, or the group is nested, it will not replace the group.

I have an important model originally created in V6. I opened it in V8-free and saved it after some edits because I expected to convert everything over.

However, soon after that I discovered that my GPU is not up to snuff for V8 and I cannot export 2D drawings, which on this model (my Silver Dart) is crucial, as my work in progress is being reviewed by the aviation museum and the builders of the flying replica for accuracy. The model is too big to send as an SU file.

My GPU is at OpenGL 1.2 and can only be upgraded to OpenGL 1.3. V8 needs OpenGL 1.5.
I can upgrade the GPU, but the age of my system makes this problematic in other areas.

So to overcome this problem, I would like to revert my model to SU-V6 (temporarily) so that I can export 2D images. I am NOT using any V8 features in this model, nor are there any that would be of use in THIS model.

So, is there any way I can save it back in V6 format?

I was contemplating exporting it back by clipboard copy in chunks.

@thomthom said:

If there's a quick way to do this via the Ruby API I'd love to see it. But it might be something SketchUp would have to implement nativly...

I honestly expect that to be the case, as HLR is a native function to 3D display. I doubt the Ruby API has the extents needed to get down to that level.

Ah well, maybe SU V17 judging how fast the SU team implements NIH (Not Invented Here) ideas.

I'm no expert at 3D programming, my programming skills are at least 30 years old, but to me "backface culling" as EscapeArtist terms it, should be not that much more complex than hidden face/line removal.

The general sweeping select collects everything in its' lasso. Then you do something akin to hidden line removal within the collection of elements, leaving only that which is visible. To me that should be relatively straight forward to implement.

Here's one!

Maybe ThomThom (or somebody) has a tool for it, but I haven't seen it.

Make the "Select" tool a bit more selective; in optionally, selecting faces and edges that are only currently VISIBLE. No elements you cannot see, like objects hidden behind what you select, or the back side of the object.
Maybe use the ALT key to force the restricted select.

Example; suppose you have a sphere and you need to select a bunch of faces. Right now you have to hunt and pick each one. If you use the sweeping select function, it will select the faces & edges you see and want, as well as the faces & edges on the back side you do not want. Then you have to hunt and pick those back side face & edge selections to de-select them.

With an "ALT-Select" it would only select the visible front faces & edges.

I was advised to update my GPU drivers as SU made some driver changes in V7.

SU8 needs Open GL 1.5.
The highest available for my old ATI-9200 card is OGL 1.3.

So I need a new GPU; which means an upgrade to my old power supply as the new cards are power hogs.
But my old case may not be able to mount the new form factor P/S, so I may need a new case, which may not mount my old Gigabyte M/B.
And so it goes............

Bloody easy to use.

I used ACAD since version 2a. I really wanted a 3D app for ages, and I tried as many (free ones) as I could find and load. NONE got me further than a few days sweating their learning curves. Then ACAD came out with their "2 1/2 D" abomination. I spent 2 full weeks trying to draw a 3D fuselage of my big airplane project, and never got it right, or even close.

Then I came across SU. No BS...
In less than 2 hours (including install) I had the fuselage drawn as I wanted.

One of the really brilliant SU design features is as simple as the red/green/blue axis representation. Compare that to ACAD's dumb arrow.

I have not touched ACAD since that day.

Yeah, I have bitches with SU, but nothing that would push me away from it.

One of the main beauties with SU is the very point you rail against.... Plugins.

The way SU is written is a major advantage over any other 3D CAD. If you have a problem doing something the chances are someone else had it too, and wrote a Ruby plugin to fix it. Or you can too. Try fixing a problem in ACAD. Wait and pay for the next version please, and maybe it will be fixed.

However, if everything that needed "fixing" by anybody using SU were to be incorporated into SU, rather than as optional plugins, you will end up with a monster app (like ACAD) that does everything, but MOST of which you will never ever use.

There is a lot in SU I have never touched in the 3 years using it, but there are several SU plugins I now cannot live without. Some plugins simply correct an operational fault, like Startup.rb, others are indispensable to me like TT-selection-tools. You simply load what you need.

NO OTHER CAD can do this as easily as SU.
And it is free with a very expert help community to boot.

Well my Point #1 in my orig post is getting worse.

Not only are my comp thumbnails going black as I edit them, but now my 2D .JPG exports are all black as well. In V6 a 2D export was around 660kb-900kb. In V8 the black image is only 17kb. Preview is also black. This is the very same file. I have no such problems with 2D exports in V6.

I need to export photos of my WIP so the SU model can be reviewed for errors. The model of the 1909 Canadian Silver Dart bi-plane needs to be accurate to the flying replica, and my work is reviewed by the replica builders. I am working from a few hundred photos of the replica and a very few poor quality copies of the original drawings.

Although there is very little of V8 features that I use in this model, I have many others started in V6 that can really use V8 features. I would hate to revert to V6 for this model or any other.

Since V8 is quite good at volume calcs now, try this.

Isolate the section of the terrain where the parking lot would be and make a copy of it.
Make that copy a component.
Edit the component with a simple drawing of the parking lot, then join the perimeter of the lot to the sloped/divergent perimeter of the terrain to be cut away.
Trim all loose ends.
Close.
The component should now be a "solid" and its volume displayed in "Entity Info".

This should give you a very close approximation of the volume of the terrain that needs to be trucked away.

If you are not following this I can whip up a simple demo.

Maybe, but my card was high-end ATI when new, 6 years ago, and there are no updates for it anymore.

Been giving some thought to a new card, so I can run a wide screen HD monitor and perhaps a dual screen, so I can draw on the big HD and put all my dialog boxes for layers, components, etc on the 2nd screen.

But then, that costs $$$$ and I really want one of those navigator pucks for my left hand first, but it too costs $$$$.

@dave r said:

A bit like putting a piece of black tape over the Low Oil Pressure warning light, huh?

I think it would be a lot less work to just fix them as they occur. Make the back face color something that will be very obvious so they are easy to see.

Re: the tape. Good idea. My check Engine light is always on.
(Actually I know what the problem is. A $2.00 part in my emissions control valve is leaking. It would cost $600 to fix, as they have to take the exhaust manifold off to get to the valve body beneath it. It ain't at all serious and my car (97 Camry XLE) passes emissions tests with very wide, nearly new margins.)

As for reversal correction as I work, to fix them as I work is a lot more work than same colour both sides, (as most of my faces stay white) except where the 2 sides may be different colours and I want to export the model, which is rare. Besides, why shouldn't SU do that for me?

I've been using Version 8 free for a few days now, and just have a few plugins to bring over, and some tweaking of the shortcuts and toolbars.

I have 4 main issues (so far).

1. Whenever I create a component, or edit a component from a V6 model, the component thumbnail goes all black, even SU standard components such as Susan, or Greg. This happened sporadically in V6, and sometimes self corrected, but it is 100% all black in V8. The components thumbnails come into V8 OK, but go black if I edit them.

2. When I make a tweak to my default template and want to save it, I really welcomed the "Save as template" menu item. BUT, when I want to save it over the existing default template, the dialog box does NOT give the name of the current loaded default template, nor does it allow you to see a list of templates in the template directory. I now need to open Windows Explorer, then find and clip-copy the filename in order to save the tweaked default template.

3. In V6 I maintained a drawing title text comp in the upper left corner and a proprietary title in the lower right corner. Both are closer to the screen edge, and do not move as I pan and zoom. However, if I load a V6 model into V8, the 2 comps disappear beyond the outer edges of the screen. Its as if the V8 screen is smaller than the V6 screen. I have to edit the comps in order to drag them back into the visible workspace.

4. I doubt there is a fix or workaround for this, but compared to V6, V8 is a bit sluggish in displaying the selection tool bounding box. This has thrown off my selections on many occasions. Anybody else notice this?

I also had the problem of reversed faces. There seemed to be no consistency with how I could draw and maintain a front face all the time. At first I used the "R" key shortcut with the push/pull tool to reverse faces, but that got tedious.

So my (first) solution was to make the front and reverse faces same white color, so it no longer mattered (or so I thought). When I exported a model to the warehouse that was colored different on both sides the result was horrifying. I had to bring it back and fix all those reversed faces.

Now I simply make both sides SAME COLOR/TEXTURE. More work, as I have to color each face twice. SU will not color both sides at once. ( Why not ) The only major drawback is when I have a missing face in a sea of same color faces..... that missing face is hard to find. And in the rare case where I have 2 different colors on front and back faces, the face reversal problem is still there.

What I cannot understand is why SU will not maintain face directionality while I draw or view the model, but seems able to get it right when I export a model to the warehouse. If SU will correct face directionality on export, why can't I have a button to do it right now, in the model?

@thomthom said:

Have you looked under Window > Preferences > Extensions and ensured the plugins are enabled?

THAT was the culprit

Many thanks. Never thought of looking there.

I just bit the bullet and loaded SU-V8 Free. Spent the whole day (not quite done yet) making V8 behave like I am used to on V6. So for the best part of today I was "bringing over" my essential Plugins from V6 to V8. I was doing them 1 or 2 at a time and testing, and most went without a hitch. Where the plugin source was a zip I copied over the zip and unzipped it, while simple .RB's were just copied over.

However the "TOOLBARS" ruby refuses to load in V8.
Filename is Toolbars_08-06-01.zip.
In V6 it presents itself in View/Toolbars/Options. It is not there in V8 (or anywhere) and there is no load error message. The main plugin file is Toolbars.rb which reads as follows

*require "sketchup"
require "extensions"

path = File.join(File.dirname(FILE), "toolbars", "files", "loader.rb")
ext = SketchupExtension.new("Custom Toolbars", path)
ext.description = "Loads your custom Toolbars."
ext.creator = "Jim Foltz jim.foltz@gmail.com"
ext.copyright = "2008 Jim Foltz"
ext.version = "2008-04-04"
Sketchup.register_extension ext*

Line 2 says it needs "extensions" but that file is not present in V6 anywhere I can see.
So if that is a missing file, why does it work in V6 without it?

It has several crucial tools I use consistently and they are a real pain to have to hunt them down in menus, especially the toggles.

Any ideas???

@thomthom said:

Only when it's made unique.
When you copy a group, you have two instances that both points to the same definition. You see in Entity Into that it lists how many copy there are of a given group. When it says you have more than one it's the same thing as if you had a component.

Sounds reasonable, but, please explain why when I did my test years ago, the file with the copies of a group was consistently bigger than the same file of the same number of the same entities but as a copied component. And it started panning faster. (Not a lot but noticeable)

@thomthom said:

Not quite - groups acts as components internally. When you copy a group you are making a new instance of that same group definition. The only difference is that groups are automatically made unique once you modify them.

I stand corrected. However the correction still maintains my statement that groups are defined fully in every instance, unlike just once for a component.

@dave r said:

You can set the export resolution to something higher if you want. Click on Options in the Export box.

No "Export Options" in SU-6 Free. I do intend on going to V8 soon.

Way back when I first started with SU I did a comparison of groups to components on SU speed, response and file size.

Keep in mind, there is only ONE Susan component definition in SU, but the graphics processor (either hardware or software) is doing ALL the work here. The graphic engine calls up the components definition and reconstructs it for each instance it is displayed. Only a components definition pointer is retained for each instance in memory or file.

So what you are really measuring is how good the graphics portion of your computer is, not so much the computational portion, or even memory.

Now a group is fully defined in memory and file for EACH and EVERY instance in the model. Both the computation AND graphics engines are working here, more computational, less graphical.

Try your million Susans again, but first explode Susan's comp and group her. I'll bet you won't get anywhere near as many, but the pan speed may actually improve a bit.