Ever wonder why the screen navigates the way it does? Put your cursor where you want the action to happen. If you have one model in the foreground and another in the background, put your cursor over the one you want to spin & then orbit. If you are shrinking/expanding the view, you can travel through your scene by putting the cursor on the side you want to move away from. Shrink, then move to the opposite side to expand the view. Since everything moves around the cursor, you will move from one side of your scene to the other.

I work on a Macbook with a scrolling touchpad, so I can always shrink and expand my view easily, no matter what tool is up. This lets me get around without changing to a viewing tool.

From Contours Tool? I don't have one of those— is it a Ruby?

Your toolbar is much fuller than mine (v.7 Mac), and Help does not list anything for Contours. Could it have another name?

Jim

Gotcha. It's in the Windows menu on a Mac as well.

I did not see it because it was stuck to the layers window in the corner of the screen.

Thanks!

Jim

The tool does the job, it's not a problem like that.

If I type in a number the processing takes about a minute, but if I can move the cursor the exact amount it's almost instantaneous. I'm curious about why the difference.

Thanks,

Jim

That wasn't quite clear. I meant to say that I see two ways to soften, both with a right-click (Command-Click on my Mac): when I right-click to select a line, Soften is a choice and I can soften the line. But if a group is being edited and all lines are selected, Soften/Smooth Edges is a choice, but it does not seem to work. Perhaps there are too many lines in one of these spirals?

If I try to use the first option on a selection of several lines, when I right-click the selection changes to only one line.

Is there another way, a Ruby perhaps? This is a lot of lines to soften one by one.

Thanks,

Jim

Is soften something that happens line by line? When I select a number of lines and right-click to get soften, nothing happens.

Jim

I've been working on an ornamental turned leg. The problem is it tapers too much at the bottom. How do I adjust the taper? If it was a simple cylinder, I'd select the bottom, scale it, and the sides would follow. This shape is complex and I would only stretch the bottom row of polygons.

Next question: Is there a way to make the surface read like a curved shape, when it now looks like a polygon mesh?

The spiraling shell-like design is based on Klaudius Krusch's k-tools (thank you for the Ruby!), specifically Spiral Line Around Blue Axis. It took a lot of tweaking from there, adjusting diameter, scale, and angle of the individual vanes, for which I have not yet figured out a shortcut.

Thanks,
Jim

Ornamental Leg.skp

D'oh!

Thanks, Gaius

Jim

This must be a lot more obvious than I'm thinking. How do you upload a SU file to get comments?

Thanks,

Jim

When I'm trying out tools, or experimenting with different methods to render something complicated, I keep trying things in the same window until I get it. Things spill all over until I'm done.

Sometimes I need to move a line from where it was last drawn to the origin or (more likely) to one of the axes. Is there any way to snap to them? They don't seem sticky.

Thanks,

Jim

Joint Push Pull Question
by Jim57 on Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:50 pm

I'm offsetting a curved shape on the wall of a cylinder, then insetting the inner panel with Joint Push Pull. It spans 8 facets of the cylinder, and the outer curve has 20 line segments. I made sure all the vertexes of the curve lined up with the edges of the facets, to simplify the work.

When I type in an amount for JPP (.125") the VBS shifts to: "Elts **** / **% **.**sec" (where the asterisks are numbers rapidly ascending until they hit somewhere around Elts 1200 / 100% 55 sec, when the processing is over. If I can manage to offset the surface accurately to 1/8" on my trackpad, it hardly takes any time.

My question is, why the difference? What does "Elts" mean?

Thanks,
Jim

I'm offsetting a curved shape on the wall of a cylinder, then insetting the inner panel with Joint Push Pull. It spans 8 facets of the cylinder, and the outer curve has 20 line segments. I made sure all the vertexes of the curve lined up with the edges of the facets, to simplify the work.

When I type in an amount for JPP (.125") the bottom right window shifts to: "Elts **** / 88% **.**sec" (where the asterisks are numbers rapidly ascending until they hit somewhere around Elts 1200 / 100% 55 sec, when the processing is over. If I manage to offset the surface accurately to 1/8" on my trackpad, it hardly takes any time.

My question is, why the difference? What does "Elts" mean?

Thanks,
Jim

Thanks, Gaius.

I looked closer at the import. (I'd attach it but don't see how to do that) It came in as a series of outlines of arrows showing the direction in which I'd drawn the original bezier. No wonder it's a bear getting it to slose.

Best,

JIm

This actually starts earlier— I have trouble controlling the beziers in the Ruby Bezierspline, so I drew a profile in Canvas, saved it as a DXF, and imported it into Sketchup. I've worked with Canvas DXF's before, they import okay into AutoCAD and other 3D programs.

When I import into SU it starts out 12x size— what started 44" tall imports at 44'.

Second, no matter the view I'm in, it imports flat on the horizontal plane. Small point, but an inconvenience.

Third, when I use Vector Push Pull to extrude the profile into a solid object, it comes out with edges but without faces. How do I put a face on the outline of the shape? If it's not a plane, it's because it imported that way.

I'm using SU Freebie 6.4.245 on a MacBook Pro running 10.5.5

Thanks for the help.

JIm

Could it be the Ru bys, or the upgrade to 10.5.5?

I've recently discovered rubys and have loaded up on them. Now SketchUp is acting buggy— like for instance, my floating toolbar disappeared, and I can't find any way to get it back from the menus, though it was there before. And when I make groups by Command-G, they get outlined and listed in the Edit menu, but if I click on a part of them, only that part highlights. They don't really seem like groups. Same with components.

A week ago I upgraded to system 10.5.5. I haven't really had problems, but yet something feels different. Could this be the issue?

Any suggestions on how to start debug this?

Sketchup 6, OS 10.5.5 on a Mac

To really add strength, the carbon fiber needs to go on the outside of the member.

I love the idea of bent laminations. You could do much of the jointery that way, if you think about how you'd like it to look and to be strong. Then making it is just problem solving— one by one and you are done.

How do you plan to adjust seat height?

When I think of the strength of a shovel handle vs. the strength of a bike frame (thanks for the example), I think the shovel handle would win hands down. It will be heavy, though, and that will be an issue if you do much riding.

Best Luck,

JIm

Wow, that little trick ("option click" on my Mac) is great. Thanks.

I would normally start with the floor plan, but in this case I don't know, and don't need to know, the exact size of the building or its height, just the critical dimensions around this wall, chimney and roof. I figured it would be easier if I could just draw the important stuff and let the rest sort itself out.

Best,

Jim

Actually, I'd love an easy way to turn it off AND on. Sometimes I need it, sometimes I don't.

JIm

It seems that with Sketchup you have to think a lot about how to start to get to where you want to go.

I am drawing my building so I can extract some drawings for roofers. I started with the roof lines, then wall elevations, chimney, etc. Then I started trying to Push/Pull the walls into thickness, so I could show people sections, and things got interesting.

If I draw a rectangle, I have no proplem Pushing it into a rectangular solid. But if I draw a cornice and the wall behind it, the wall just does not want to Push into a volume. It seems that once a plane intersects the wall, I can't Push unless I somehow manage to keep the corner. What happens is I move the wall, but I can't leave the original face in place.

I've managed to hack my way through the chimney by pulling faces, drawing lines, pulling faces, again and again. I don't want to go through that again with the large wall in my attachment.

I thought this must be a glitch on my computer, so I've cold restarted. I still get the same thing. Any hints?

Thanks In Advance,

Jim

Icarus Roof.skp

When I'm using the Line tool, sometimes the line continues and sometimes it doesn't. That is, sometimes after I draw the first line segment, the endpoint stays selected as the starting end of the next segment.

Usually SU makes the wrong choice for me at the moment— sometimes I want to draw one and sometimes I'm working on a continuous outline. How do I toggle this feature?

Thanks,

Jim