I found a tutorial that said everything needed to be grokuped, so I tried that. Still can't select Profile or Edges.

Best,

Jim

Capital Worksheet.skpI'm using TIG's extrude package and having trouble with reconciling these two shapes into a capital. The line is the profile.

When I try Extrude Edges by Edges I can't select the profile curve

When I try Extrude Edges by Faces I also can't select the profile curve.

Questions:
Is there something I'm not getting about the Extrude package?
Is there something wrong with my computer/installation that I can't select these profiles?
Is one of these the right way to do this?
Is there a better Ruby than Extrude?\

Thanks for the help,

Jim

Cool.

Thanks, Jeff.

Jim

@pout said:

Jeff,

I would not go that far to put the ruby plugin dev under their wings. I think the way it works now is ok.
There are a lot of good plugin ideas being put in a trash can caused by the lack of some basic classes.
The handling of problems with (and responsibility for) the plugin must be handled by the plugin author, not by Google SU.

Pout—

Sure, developers should write good code, but I think Google SU is pretty irresponsible with the way they handle Plugins.

It's okay if they want the program to be a platform for developers, it builds community for giveaway software. However, they know full well that the vast majority of developers are unpaid volunteers, by definition amateurs. And who says amateurs should know how to code as well as a pro, let alone be able to afford the time to debug a plugin to the professional level?

Issue 2— Google hosts the forum, including a discussion for Plugins. However, there is no central directory, no place where all plugins are listed, rated, reviewed, explained and linked to. Right now you have to ask around, search around, track down all the posts and do a lot of homework. If this is what it takes to make a functional program (and the consensus is that plugins MAKE Sketchup, why not make it easier to figure out what you need to do the job you are working on?

Issue 3— You download a Ruby, open the folder and dump all its contents in the Plugins folder. No wonder there are naming conflicts! Give us a Plugins Manager. Rewrite the program so that you put Rubys in the Plugins Folder inside their own folder. With a moderate selection of Rubys I have 50 some items in there and no clue as to what goes with what. How are we supposed to debug if there is a problem? Dump everything and download it over again? Get real!

This stuff isn't rocket science, it's basic software management. It's just fine for a giveaway program, but lots of us have the pro version and for $500 this isn't a big upgrade, it's pretty simple and obvious.

Jim

I'm trying to model a carving to show a CNC operator. I've outlined it and made a profile that I'd like to extrude over the outline. Problem is, I can only extrude the round end. No matter which Extrusion Tool I use, I can't select the straight sides.

I'm suspecting Extrusion Tools were not made to work a straight side. Can anyone give me a hint about how to form this?

Thanks,

Jim

Petal.skp

Frenchy, thank you for the beautiful links. This is part of a Tabernacle for a Catholic church, patterned after America's mission churches of the American southwest. They in turn were designed with an eye to 16th century Spain, with its Moorish, Roman (Renaissance) and early Baroque architecture.

We were inspired by the muquara in one of your links, Masjid-i-Shykh, but saw similar details around sculpted doors in many photos. Watching one being drawn explains a lot, but not the biggest mystery: how can you conceive of such a beautiful, complex three dimensional sculpture/architecture? The time to execute is staggering. The effect of the finished piece, at least in photos, is so soft and mossy, so unlike anything I know of plaster.

On the drawing: I'm not sure why things are so chopped up. I took out some crossing lines, and patched a couple of holes caused by offsetting halves of a semicircle, but even given that it came out ragged.

The part I was having trouble with was different. I outlined a triangle several times and it did not close. As a triangle, it was by definition planar. On close inspection I could find no holes or doubled vertices. Weld could not find faces. By working triangles in, it finally filled.

Weirder still, when I'd reducted it to a small triangle I extended a line across it, across an edge and the filled face beyond. When it attached to the next line, part of the filled face disappeared instead of the opening getting smaller. What could cause such an effect?

Thanks for your comments,

Jim

Curiously, when triangulating, if I drew a line across an existing triangle and extended it across a filled face to the next line, part of the filled face disappeared making the hole larger. This is the problem I was asking about. There were two areas like this on the drawing, mirrors of each other.

Can anyone tell me what's going on with this file? I'm tracing from a .tiff, and a couple places I have had trouble making a face.

I'm tracing the lines on the surface of the .tiff, best I can tell. I make a connection that closes a polygon and most times the face occurs. A couple times it hasn't, so I retrace the polygon. Still no face. I start making triangles. The opening I'm referring to is in the right bottom of the figure, and as you can see it is inside a triangle. As I keep tracing in the triangles, it should close up but it doesn't.

Further, when it's reduced to a small triangle and I cut across an internal line, what had been a face is eliminated in one section. Play with it and see if this happens to you, and if you have a sense of why.

Thanks,

Jim

Tab Crown 5.skp

Maybe I don't mean inferences, but here's what happens.

I upgraded to 10.6 and I'm using SU Pro, v 7.1.6859, on an early 2008 MacBook Pro.

Since the upgrade, when I draw a line, I click one end, then line up to click the other. When I click, it sometimes jumps to a nearby location, perhaps 6 mm away. If I zoom closer, it does not jump. This also happens with Rotate.

Also the ends of a line show as white squares about 3-4mm across, regardless of screen magnification. This means I have to zoom in really close to see where I'm clicking. It's a problem in close quarters and when dealing with intersections of curves, where very short segments get made by crossing lines. Sometimes the line ends show as the more usual colored dots.

Best,

Jim

Another way that NURBS curves are better for defining the path of the road is you can pull the handles to make them more parabolic. My understanding is that if roads are built using circular arcs, they are hard to drive. You have to pull the wheel from straight to the proper radius at an instant, instead of a smooth transition over (a brief) time.

Just a design consideration, it says nothing for modeling.

Best,
Jim

I'm reworking a model, and I copied a curve from a group in order to remake it. Turns out the curve is not coplanar, it's off by a little bit. Is there a simple way to make it planar? This is one edge of a vertical panel.

Thanks,

Jim

How do people model a helical column? I'm using K Tools but it only does one rotation around the axis, and it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what numbers to use.

Thanks,

Jim

Aaah! I figured it out!

On the Model window, I'd unchecked Auto Render, and though I'd updated I had not re-rendered.

Love the Forum, it helps me think clearer.

Jim

What does it mean when a window in LayOut has a caution sign (like the Topic Icon I picked for this thread) on it? I've Updated the Reference but that doesn't do anything.

Thanks,

Jim

Cool. I get it now, thanks.

It takes forever to render if there's a lot of edges, but it makes for a really nice output when I set the Model Window output choice to either Vector or Hybrid (depending on the amount of surfaces) and set the Export/ Options quality to High.

Jim

Whoops, I didn't see your answer, Jeff. I'll try that using Canvas (I don't have Photoshop). Looks like I would do that under File/ Export/ Options, then set image size. I presume a larger image size gives better resolution, e.g., the resolution is fixed and a bigger image gets more fine detail?

Thanks,

Jim

That works nicely from SketchUp. It looks like the image quailty has already been set by the time it's in Layout? Is there a way to up the image quality so I can compose images like in LayOut? Or should I export individual images from SketchUp and compost them in separate graphics software?

Maybe this is a stretch, but I'm trying to export presentation documents from SketchUp or LayOut. My curves have a case of the jaggies, even when I use LO to make a "fine" quality PDF. JPG is no better.

I seem to remember a choice somewhere between vector & bitmap, perhaps— does this relate to exporting, and if so, where is it? If not, what controls export resolution/rendering?

Do most folks use another render engine for this?

TIA,

Jim

Control (or Command in Windows) Click on the view. Change scale in the contextual menu. You can also change scene, standard view, and perspective here.

Note that if you are editing the view, scale will not come up.

I'm still trying to figure out resolution....

Jim

I like Layout. I tried to get away without it for a while, but it is invaluable for sending drawings to clients and subcontractors. Aside from the bug just mentioned, my largest frustration is that I have to command click on each view repeatedly to set scale, scene, and view. If the contextual menu could be rigged to stay open until I'm done it would make the work surprisingly faster, especially given the bugs I just mentioned.

BEst,

Jim

Usually but not always when I set scale in a LO view it sets to a different scale. I command click and set scale again and it goes where I want it.

When editing a LO view, the object often jumps when I double click, though my cursor does not. Sometimes the scale jumps as well, from close up to quite distant.

The file I'm attaching suffered from both sometimes. It also suffered from a third and more recent bug— when creating teh LO document as an export from SU, a blank first page is created and the work shows on the second. This is frustrating because I sometimes discover it after I've paid a copy shop to print the document and end up paying for blank paper at printed prices.

Jim

MacBookPro 15" 2.4gig, OS 10.5.8, SU 7.1.6859, LO 2.1.6859

Budget Flagstand.layout