Dave R—

Boy, I got that wrong! That's how I used to do it, but I thought I read here that the proper way was to group and move everything to the layers including the geometry. That certainly changes things!

I'll start by moving all the geometry with TIG's plugin, Default Layer Geometry.http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=7638 and see what I have then. I don't think I'll have problems but I think I'll try it on a copy to be sure.

There are nested groups, but I'm afraid of making things sticky when I explode them— that is, that there might possibly be geometry grouped with groups, and if something gets unselected it would stick to its neighbors. Not everything in this model is groups. For instance, at the end of modeling I intersected selected components. That geometry of intersection would be separate— how do you attach it to a group, when opening a group unselects the other group:?

Thanks,

Jim

I'm working on a commplex drawing. While I was revising it, I opened a group (Doors), opened another group inside that (Door R), and selected that layer to draw. I kept drawing as I remade another unrelated part, a Capital.

I noticed the Capital was in the wrong layer so I moved it to its proper layer. Now Entity Info shows the capital on layer Capitals. It does not show as part of any of the door groups when I select them. However, when I make the Doors or Door R group invisible the capital disappears as well. It also vanishes if I click off the layer Capitals.

I like that I can make something invisible in different ways by putting the object in one place and the groups its in on different layers, then turning on and off those layers separately. However, I can't see any way to leave the capital visible when the doors are not except by exploding and starting over, and frankly I'm confused as to how to do that. It seems very easy to lose one's way here, and I've got a lot into this model.

Is there a way to separate the object from the layer it was created created on, when it was created in a group?

Is there an easy way to manage objects in groups, other than the rather cumbersome Cut (when inside the group) and Paste (when outside it)?

Dave R—
Thanks for the tip, I have not tried Shape Bender. I'll look it up.

The arches are elliptical and the carving, on all the small edges, is a series of incised diamonds leaving raised squares.

This is the Deacon's chair for a church I'm designing. I hope to have it built within the year.

Best,
JIm

Whups, try again.

JIm

's V4.skpDave R— For some reason, SU was not snapping with precision regularly, only once out of many tries. It would only rotate in 0.1° increments. I wanted a precise snap rather than a specified increment so I could use solid tools later to clean up internal structures. Your model is working perfectly, I don't know why mine didn't.

Part of the problem was I couldn't snap to the image of the block I was moving, though that's how I usually duplicated with rotation. I had to back up a block to grab and that worked fine. SU has been acting funky since I upgraded to 8 Pro, that might be part of it too.

Thanks for pointing out the Units Panel, ThomThom. I will play with the settings and see what that changes.

Jim, it's a carved arch, actually a chair leg. I carved a block then duplicated it and smoothed, rather than extrude the arch and make a million small carvings. Later I found I needed an elliptical arch so I had to do that anyway ;—)

Here is the file of the almost finished piece.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Jimbo

I'm building an arch by making a radial array of tapered blocks. The taper angle is about 2.616°, and I'm trying to make a solid, so I'd like to snap. Problem is, SU is only giving me 10ths of a degree, either too much or too little.

The message at the bottom left of the screen says to stay close to the protractor to snap, but if I do the selected block moves in huge increments. If I zoom in close it moves in 10ths of a degree.

I built it once before after much frustration and had no clue what I did right. I had to take it apart to fix an error and now I can't get it to work. Any hints?

Thanks,

Jim

Charlie—

I'm not sure what you mean. I get this all the time in LO. I usually draw starting with a front or top view, above the red-green axes. Most of my scenes are looking roughly from the red or green direction. Is that what you mean by blue positive?

Another bug: Scaling often takes two tries. For instance, when going to 1":1' it often hits 1/2":1' first, and I have to select 1":1' again. And no, I'm not missing.

Jim

Thanks, that's a new one on me, too.

jim

That was easy to fix— I just installed the key a second time and it worked. Don't know why it didn't the first time, the program acknowledged the license.

Jim

Thanks for responding so quickly, John. I apologize for not checking back sooner.

I do have a license for SU pro, though the program thinks it's a trial version and has expired on me. Ironically, it happened just after I entered the license and key.

Thanks, Jeff, this looks like just the ticket.

However, I can't help wondering why a tool that's smart enough to know that my group is not a solid can't highlight the reason why and offer the option to fix it. Once again, a plugin patches the program.

Somewhat disillusioned,

Jim

When you set out to make a simple program, it's easy to mistake simplicity of use with simplicity of programming.

Case in point: circles. You use the same tool to make a polygon. I'd prefer true arcs and circles but okay, that's your choice. You simplify the controls so that dimensioning a circle gives the radius, unless it's grouped and you are outside the group, when there is no inference. That's simple enough no?

Okay, now try it with an equilateral triangle. Or try to draw that triangle, or pentagon, or any odd-sided n-gon, inside a square so that it touches the outsides. Well, maybe you can't get it the right size at first, because the dimensioning is from the corners. So try scaling it to fit. It doesn't work, because the size you need is not considered by the Scale tool.

Very quickly, simple controls become a nightmare to use. Sure there are workarounds, but if you put the right controls in there to begin with users would spend much less time remembering the proper controls than they would figuring out a kludgy workaround.

You don't need to fill a separate screen with toolbars, this doesn't have to be complicated. For instance, use the option key or shift option to draw a circle tangent to a line or overlaying it (point or side touching the line). Put options in the Context Menu so we can right- or command-click to find them. Shift and option are already conventions for Scale, Move, Rotate and PushPull, just extend their reach with logical additions. Context Menu is used for many operations, make it more tool specific.

Will it take more time to program? yes. More time to use? less. More time to explain, which I suspect is your rationale? no, not nearly, not if you consider how much time is spent headbanging a solution before coming to the Forums, or the fact that so few SU users even read the forums or watch tutorials.

There is a good bit of discussion on the Forums about how SU is, indeed a sophisticated program capable of intricate, high quality modeling. I have modelled some amazing things, pieces I could not have done on paper or communicated effectively except by building. But by sticking to this illusion of simplicity you make simple models easier and tricky ones much more difficult. This limits SU as much as poly counts, curves and precision. If you penalize pro users so that beginners can hack quicker you define SU as a program for simple models, not a simple program to use. Perhaps it is more useful to keep the quick learning curve but allow conventions to extend the reach for those who need it.

Best,

Jim

Okay, Solid Tools are fun and they fill a useful gap. Now make them more workable:

When a part should be solid but is not, debugging is a serious pain, especially on complex parts. How about outlining the holes instead of must giving the circle/slash?

Best,

Jim

Wow, that's interesting about Windows. Yes, I'm on a Mac, and I never would have guessed a second window would reo-open SU.

To answer the original question, I have both open. You must have been looking over my shoulder, mitcorb, you listed all my open windows ;—) I tend not to restart too often, like every three weeks or so, and sometimes I get sloppy in the housekeeping.

That's a D'oh moment there, Jeff. Of course a rotation is a refresh. I closed and reopened and it was fine, but I guess that wasn't necessary.

Thanks,

Jim

When I'm working for a long time with a lot of windows open, I'll bring up a window I've minimized. Sometimes they will show the lines of a drawing but some groups will be missing. Is there a way to redraw the screen? Or is there another workaround for this?

Thanks,

Jim

Beats me how Google can work magic, absolute magic with search engines, then design and implement something so useful and complex as Google Maps, and utterly flunk out on selling SketchUp Pro.

I mean, c'mon, if Eastern European Mafiosi can make web pages that quickly and functionally deliver products and download malware while sampling identities and stealing credit card numbers, why should America's foremost tech company have such trouble with a simple web sale?

After going through the circular links in the navigation, I find the Buy Sketchup Pro. I want to upgrade from 7, not buy, so I check that option. Whoops, no page there! Wrong link or page has expired— really?

I head back and find a Download Trial. Since everyone else sends a crippled full version, to be unlocked later when you pay the bucks, I take it. I figure I'll buy my key over the phone (no web page for upgrades). I have to fill out a web form because they don't list a phone number. It takes them 18 hours to call back. Helpful salesperson sells me the upgrade, tells me that I'll have a license and key in ten minutes by email. Damn, and I was going to keep him on the line until I was up and running, I had a sense some other issue was lurking in the wings.

Okay, so it takes a half an hour, but what's a bit of time between friends. Whoops again! The menu item for license is grayed out!!

More circular links in the troubleshooting pages. Half an hour more and I notice a help link over on the side of the page for "license grayed out". I guess they get this a lot. Answer—Install the Pro version, not the trial, for which there is no page. YAAAAAAHHHHH!!

I'm paying the bucks so I don't have to go through the tedium of intersecting solids by hand. Instead I have the tedium of lameness in web sales. Solid Tools are grayed out too, so I can't even use the trial version while I'm waiting for help.

They are concentric. They were grouped, which must have been why they didn't snap.

Thanks for the workarounds.

Jim

I'm trying to dimension an arch— two parallel curves. I want to show the distance between them. They are in harmony, with the same # of edges and orietntation. The dimension tool either gives me the radius (sometimes necessary but not what I need now) or doesn't attach to a vertex at all.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Jim

I was looking for the left shape, Fredo. I just got it with Extrude Edges by Faces. What tool did you use?

Jim

Back to basics. What's really throwing me off is that if I work too long/intensely, SU no longer groups properly. I had layered geometry in the polygons there, and when I restarted and got rid of the extra line segments things started working better.

When I use Extrude by Rails, with the polygons as the rails, the result is concave on one side (good) and convex on the other (bad). It looks like the profile curve is not rotated normal to the rails, but stays in the same orientation. This was commented on in the initial thread about the tool, and I assumed it got changed. TIG, I'm not sure if I had the decency to send you a check (I know I did but can't remember if it was for this one) and without that courtesy this seems a bit ungrateful, but if I could make a request it would be for another option that would rotate the profile to maximum projection from the rails.

Extrude by Faces works now, but I was using the faces as rails instead of using them as profiles as required. D'oh!

It's a bit disorienting, trying one tool then the other, when some require grouped polylines and others require welded. I've spent a couple hours here grouping/ungrouping & welding/exploding, between the computer problems and the different input requirements.

That said, rereading the directions definitely helped!

Best,

Jim