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    • RE: Smallest Sketchup capable hardware

      SU should run fairly well on a new MB Air, not fast but well enough. I use a 2 ghz Mac Mini with the 9400 graphics chip and it works quite well. The slower processor will be an issue but as long as it has enough RAM (opt for the 4gb) and the machine should be good to go.

      A bit pricey but if you travel it would be a great machine to demonstrate the model and actually be able to do work. I wouldn't mind one of the small ones for when I travel and a new Mini at my desk to do a bit more of the "heavy" lifting. Personally I never use my laptop screen day to day (a 24" 1920 x 1200 monitor on my desk) and using Dropbox its easy to have working files in multiple places. The only times I use my laptop screen is doing presentations where I barely look at the screen or if I am traveling and then its primarily an email machine interspersed with light work. I know I am likely a bit of an outlier.

      Karl

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Have you built what you design in sketchup?

      We use SU heavily for a wide variety of product design, application and so on.

      Pic of me, a brief article and a few SU indications of a few of the products.

      A few years on and we still use it in much the same ways.

      Link Preview Image
      Page Not Found

      Web word processing, presentations and spreadsheets

      favicon

      (docs.google.com)

      http://lh5.ggpht.com/_p6QJ9sCiHL8/ScK45c-R4bI/AAAAAAAAC1w/HYVBjfGBLRU/steelcase_2_sm.jpg

      http://lh5.ggpht.com/_p6QJ9sCiHL8/ScK45a5RlNI/AAAAAAAAC14/gktCww-YoPc/steelcase_3_sm.jpg

      http://lh5.ggpht.com/_p6QJ9sCiHL8/ScK45hMctWI/AAAAAAAAC2A/0yswq0ButlI/steelcase_4_sm.jpg

      Karl

      posted in Corner Bar
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Assisted Suicide/Voluntary Euthanasia

      There has always been the opportunity for voluntary euthanasia, I believe it is referred to as suicide, at least in English.

      I know that isn't quite what you are talking about. I have seen a few different documentaries on this subject. Personally, I don't have an issue with this be it assisted suicide as it has been called in the US (Dr Kevorkian) or euthanasia, for those who are suffering from a malady whose conclusion is clear and may entail extreme hardship.

      I know a man who has ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and has been in a hospital bed using a ventilator for a decade. His ability to communicate is exceedingly limited but he chose all those years ago to go onto a ventilator knowing that short of an infection he would remain in that state for a long time and would never be able change the moment of his departure. Sadly in the years since, his wife has divorced him, his five children really don't know him (his twins were born after he went onto the ventilator). His deep religious convictions and his desire to see some part of his children's lives drove him to this path which for him is the right way.

      Last week the son of a coworker, age 22, chose to end his life, he was a Iraq occupation veteran and was in the midst of getting a degree at a large university. He was physically healthy but apparently there was something within him that was not.

      I grew up on a farm, things there are a bit different. When a horse gets old you put them out to pasture, presumably for a long time until they die. A dog you love and keep as best you can, in time they slow no longer doing their job and become a fixture by the wood stove until one day they expire or just disappear. There are things one intends to eat which have a specific date with destiny, some of whom you become the reaper for. Periodically a creature becomes ill well before their expected time, I know city people who intercede with extreme medical care. On a farm it has always been reasonable to 'put them out of their misery', I have to say that more than once I have heard a country person mention that they hope/wish the same could be done for them should the need arise. It may seem a bit cold I suppose but there it is.

      I think we all have our limits of what we are willing to endure relative to the value our lives offer us. For the man with ALS his motivations at the time he made his choice have propelled him until now, one may wonder what he wants now. I don't know as I would be able nor want to make the choice he did. My Dad died a few years ago of a rather unpleasant illness, he had to have many transfusions over time to the point where he said he felt like a vampire. Although he died sooner than he expected, I think he eventually intended to check out, stop eating and just go away before he had to leave home and go into hospital for the end.

      I think people should be allowed the choice of how they wish to end things in a safe, complete fashion that ensures some other poor soul doesn't have to find the mess we can make of ourselves. I think there need to be clear rules of how it is allowed, how it is done and what your personal involvement is or must be to enact ones end. At the same time I think one also needs to have the choice of riding it to the end, taking all possible measures to get there if that is the way you want to go.

      posted in Corner Bar
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: 300 dpi

      @pmiller said:

      SNIP
      The default 72 ppi dates way back to original Macintosh 9 inch screen when the size of the pixels was about 72 ppi and dot matrix printers were 72 dpi (whence what you see is what you get). SNIP

      Actually this refers back to the printing industry, points and picas. PPI is Points Per Inch, not the more modern Pixels Per Inch. There are 72 Points to an inch and 12 Points to a Pica. Points are used for vertical measurement, particularly of type size (24 point etc) and Picas are used for horizontal and vertical measurement of the actual page layout.

      The 72 DPI of an original Macintosh screen allowed for WYSIWYG as its vertical and horizontal dot density would allow you to match the printed point sizes and page layout of a printed page. The Imagewriter dot matrix printer head also had a 72ppi matrix allowing you to "proof" a layout before sending a document to be printed, albeit at a much lower resolution, with the proper sizes and relationship of the parts of the document. The Laserwriter offered higher resolution computer printing directly to paper but is/was no where near the resolution of actual printing.

      Later monitors have had their PPI (Pixels) rise to 100+ which poses some issues with WYSIWYG but for the most part its an abstraction anyway as you can now see complete pages at "100%" displayed on large monitors.

      There have always been a huge number of issues of the relationship of PPI, PPI, LPI and so on across the computer to how something will be reproduced on a printer and its resolution.

      Anyway after going through my pedantism, out put your file at a large size with high resolution and then using an image editor resize the image to the desired size and dot density for the printer you will use. I tend to not use the Anti Alias function as creating the image at higher resolution and size and then resizing will give you a sharper image with less dithering of the edges to appear smooth.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Sketchup and iMac

      I have never had any problems with ATI cards on a Mac. The ATi versus Nvidia issue was pretty much only a MSW issue.

      I would however order the best card offered with the most ram available, the machine should last a long time and graphics demands rise faster than most other systems requirements. The next iteration of MacOS will offload more to the graphics card as well.

      I run SU on a 2.0 ghtz Mini with 4gb of ram and it does well most of the time given the limited graphics card. My 3 year MacBook Pro with an Ati card and 3gb of ram does much better with larger models an ostensibly less VRAM ( 128 vs 256 on the Mini). A dedicated card is much better than any on board solution so far.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Request: Group to Component Plugin

      Thank you, I knew this capability existed (for identical groups), I just couldn't remember which specific tool did it as I generally don't need to do this in this way. I generally try to plan better with creating components in my models.

      Should per chance I end up in Trondheim, I will be more than happy to proffer a cookie or more likely a beer.

      Karl

      posted in Plugins
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • Request: Group to Component Plugin

      I apologize in advance as I know I have read about a tool which will do the following:

      Pick a group (of which there are multiple instances of that group in the model)
      Convert the group into a component and all of the other instances of that group become an instance of the new component

      If someone recalls a plugin with this capability would you please be so kind as to point me in its direction?

      Many thanks in advance and thank you for your time.

      Karl

      posted in Plugins
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: VECTORWORKS EXPORTER For Sketchup???

      Vectorworks can import a SU file. No need for an exporter.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Pan w/ 3 button mouse no longer working

      This combo works for me:
      Release all buttons. Click middle button down (orbit) then the left mouse button gives you the Hand icon.

      If you have the middle button down (orbit) and then push the left button down gives the Hand icon.

      If you start with the left down and then press the middle you get the Orbit.

      This is on my Mac, YMV.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Need help cutting a hole

      This would be a case of think like a carpenter. The carpenter doesn't need the hole to exactly fit the sink, the sink just has to fit in the hole and since it has a return around the top edge, it will cover the parts of the hold that don't match the sink.

      The lazy man's way:

      First, hide the sink. Double click on the top until you get through the different groupings to where the top most surface is highlighted. Draw a rectangle on the surface of the top. Push pull the rectangle through the depth of the top. Turn on Hidden Geometry under the view Menu without exiting the sink top group, you will now see the ghosted view of the sink. Using the move tool or the push pull tool, move the sides of the hole until they are under the apron of the sink edge. Once that is done click out of the group, right click on the hidden sink and unhide it, turn off the hidden geometry under view and you are done. This uses very little geometry and represents what the carpenter will really do (they may put a radius in the corners but not always).

      Hope that was clear.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Sketchup 7 pro-blem-mac version

      @salvuzz0 said:

      hi all. i've got a kind a big problem with sketup 7pro. after i installed it on my imac13", which i bought a year ago, it runs extremly slow, i cannot make it working normaly, which could be the problem? please help me, i am frinking out with this..ciao

      What iMac do your own? They haven't had a 13" iMac in a long long time. If its a Macbook with the older video chip, Intel GMA X3100 the even older GMA 500 series, I am not surprised its slow.

      So, what version of the OS, how much RAM and which version of SU is it? Do you have plenty of swap space on the hard drive (at least 2GB of empty unused space) as OS X really does not like having very little swap space and will really slow down as it approaches 0.

      The latest SU version is much snappier than the early 7 version even on my Mac Mini at home with the GeForce 9400M and 4gb of RAM.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Sketchup 7.1 still NOT SUPPORT 4 CORE ????

      @huyvuvn said:

      I'm very dissapointed that sketchup 7.1 not support 4 core ????? What the IT-engineer of google do ?

      the computer nowadays 2 , 4 , 6, 8 .. or more and more cores , and google JUST support 1 core ! I can not know what they think 😞

      poor 😞

      Care to name the number of modeling products that support multiple cores for modeling?

      Since SU is not a rendering package, there isn't much opportunity to chunk the image into smaller jobs that each core can solve for.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Beware of Installing Snow Leopard if you used Sketchup

      I believe you can have more than 4gb with the existing Leopard system. The memory limitation in Mac OS based machines is driven by the memory controller, changing operating systems won't change that chip.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Bad News for Architects in the next ver. of Google Sketchup

      Tempest in teapot. If the software is making you money, pay for it. If you pay for it you get the features you need to make money. Simple. We expect to be paid for the work we do, why is Google any different.

      I am also hopeful about this development as it has been a while since I have seen that there is life at Google for SU.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Strange Behaviour (only on Mac?)

      I believe this is a fault with the Logitech drivers. I use a Logitech mouse on all my Macs and do not use their software and never have this problem.

      As for the Apple mouse (which I personally hate but I am glad someone likes them πŸ˜„ ) I would look at what the settings for the mouse are in the Apple control panel. I recall there being a setting for chording (multiple buttons pressed at once) as well as settings for individual buttons that can be set to specific actions.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Capturing different views of same model.

      @tasman said:

      @cmd said:

      G'day cmd

      Have just downloaded your folder to a Mac and its not making a great deal of sense to me as I cannot locate a valid LO file ? I did however find the jpeg examples in your next post useful. It would be great to see your LO example.

      Cheers
      Tasman

      For whatever reason the download appears as a Zip file on a Mac, instead of trying to unZip the file, delete the .zip file extension and it will be a Layout file and will open in Layout. Odd, but one of those things.

      Karl

      posted in LayOut Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Let us all bow our heads ...

      Nice work.

      The thing is its not what I am interested in doing. I hire people to create renderings when I need them. Day to day we just don't do them to that level. We don't have the time, money or real need for that level of work all of the time. Its funny we tend to do fewer full on rendering now than we used to years ago.

      I also have to say that although I can create fine renderings, I don't really care to. I am a designer, not an illustrator. SU is a good tool to design with and although I may send my models off to be rendered into an illustration, its not going to be me doing it.

      posted in Corner Bar
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Google SketchUp User Happiness Survey

      I have decided not to participate as I can't fill in the first screen correctly/honestly. They don't have my profession nor an industry. To make matters worse they also don't offer an "Other" to fill in the blank. I have never understood why they don't include IndustrialProduct Design since there are 50K of us in the US and lots more the world over. Every ID person I know uses SU.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Apple Mac Users

      Keep in mind all of the SU commands can be whatever you want them to be.

      As for bootcamp, it will make your machine a MS Windows machine running the installed OS. There is no emulation whatsoever involved as its the same processor as in any similar Dell or HP product. In some tests a Mac that is running MS software can be some of the fastest MS Windows machines available.

      The biggest negative about changing platforms is the cost of upgrading/sidegrading software.

      Get a license for Cocktail, Macaroni or some other utility to do minor maintenance and customization of the system.

      Good luck and enjoy your new purchase.

      posted in Corner Bar
      kmeadK
      kmead
    • RE: Shortcuts

      On a Mac the Layout shortcuts can be moved from Mac to Mac. The file is located in:

      Your Harddrive Name/Library/Application Support/Google Sketchup 7/Layout/shortcuts.xml

      There is also a great little application that can show you any available shortcuts: KeyCue 1.0 by http://www.macility.com http://www.macility.com/products/keycue/

      This will open a window showing all available commands that are active at the moment. As SU and Layout have commands that are only enabled when that particular command can actually be used, you won't see all of the possible commands when keycue is invoked.

      Hope that helps.

      Karl

      posted in LayOut Discussions
      kmeadK
      kmead
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