On a Mac, under the "Windows" menu, choose Colors (or the key combo ShiftCommandC), which will open the standard color pallete you are used to in most Mac programs.

You can then either double click on the text or use the text tool to highlight the text and change the color to what ever your heart desires.

Hope that is clear.

Karl

@unknownuser said:

Nothing like taking something that wasn't broken and engineering some disfunction and annoyance into it.

I believe it has always been there, just not something most of us accessed or noticed.

I too want SU moved forward and most days that I visit this forum I see people doing so with the work they do using SU or the excellent plugins that are authored and available here. Periodically Google (and previously AtLast) makes substantive baseline adds that markedly change SU's baseline abilities. We all want improvements to SU, I just think people need to be realistic about what those improvements should be or even can be.

In all cases, the work, the plugins (rubies) and the things Google does, may or may not be of much value to me. Oft times they are.

In terms of the baseline features, I look forward to Google making deep structural changes but at the same time hope that they keep the program open as it is now and just as easy to use but with even more depth than it has now.

One does need to be careful about what one wishes for, in the past the major changes made by the developers were not always appreciated. Google having closed the old forum allows us to forget the calls from the past of malfeasance and incompetence. From minor issues like tool icons, the addition of the sandbox and even the ruby language enablement.

Yes we all yearn for more, I am looking for more functionality in SU, not necessarily just better hardware utilization which will come as OS's get more adept. Hopefully things like OpenCL will enable developers to make software that can access more hardware features, as multi-core hardware advances got well out in front of what software was able to make use of. The combination of multiple CPUs and GPUs working together is tantalizing but so far no one has fulfilled the promise.

As a product designer I likely use SU a bit differently and as a result my expectations are a bit different. I started using SU in v3 as a conceptual tool to create product concepts and applications to illustrate solutions. I still use SU that way as do many others at the company I work for.

SU really performs well at the conceptual level and becomes less and less appropriate as one tries to push it beyond that. I recently used it to successfully model a complete product and although I was able to model the 120 parts to make the various solutions. It was a ton of work and any minor change required that I adjust models throughout the various assemblies. As a result of that experience our work process now moves to a high end parametric modeler once the concept is complete. The point being that there are different tools that are appropriate for different parts of the development process. SU's area is at the beginning, not the whole process.

SU is not: Autocad, 3D Studio Max, Alias Studio or any of the other high end 3D modelers, drafting/drawing/CD generating programs or a high end renderer. It may not even be an appropriate front end for any of those. Expecting it to be all of those is a bit unrealistic given the price point and feature set. Google bought a program and is continuing its development in the same direction as the original creators, which I frankly applaud them for. They have kept it fast, light and true to its origins and intent.

Is it good for modeling Google Earth, apparently yes and is part of why Google bought the software. They do have other interests as well which the additions to SU are hinting towards.

As for 64 bit support, its likely a nice to have but hardly needed by the vast majority of uses, few of whom are actually pushing up against the memory limitations of 32 bit OS's.

Multi processor support would be great for the same things other software uses it for: rendering. A rendering can be cut up into discrete activities that are linear and fully predicable, turning those activities into something several different processors can chunk away at is a fairly easy thing to do. For most of the activities of modeling, a single processor is waiting patiently for the user to press the mouse button and aside from turning on shadows there aren't many of those clicks that are particularly taxing for that one processor or have much delay for the user.

Where this changes is when the model becomes complex, be it the model, the textures or what have you and the user wishes to change the view. The problem SU faces here is that dynamic environment, which is not linear in what the user will do next and as a result it cannot be parsed into a series of discrete activities that can be run in parallel. An analogy is a pregnant woman, a baby is built cell by cell one upon the next until the baby is complete. Nine women cannot make one baby in one month versus the 9 months it really takes. A SU model is very much like this, a huge number of discrete clicks, rotations etc. built one upon the next until the user is satisfied.

Some rubies end up taking time to run because they are performing a large number of tool calls and manipulations. Could rubies be multi processed? Maybe if Ruby allows for it and the programmer writes to take advantage of it. I doubt many will.

I think some of you really need to evaluate what you hope to accomplish and then understand whether you are using the right tool for the job.

@sake_boy said:

So, I should use the Info Palette's layer assignment function to move an object onto a different layer? And how to explain several objects being turned on and off when the layer is turned on and off, yet those objects have different colors when using Color by Layer?

Yes you should use the Object Info palette to change the visibility characteristics of an object. Try not to think of it as a place like other CAD programs: a layer(s) of onion skin layered upon the lower layer(s), in SU its about being able to see it or not. Layers came from the past when the model was 2D and you were showing information that was at another height, orientation or was info that is in the same "plane" but you may wish to hide for clarities sake. This last feature concept is the way that SU uses the concept of Layers, because SU is a dynamic 3D environment there is no single view that this feature works in so it works in all of them and as a result confuses the heck out of new users.

The other complication that comes up is that sub groups can have different layer information than the top level grouping or component. Which is also a strength as you can use this feature to ease your work flow.

Hope that helps.

Karl

I suspect you are suffering from a logic error.

In most CAD programs, Layer connotes an actual layer that you could paste into.

This is not the case in SU, SU treats layers more like Classes or other instruments that are utilized to regulate visibility. Like those other programs the "layer" in SU is assigned to the object not the object to the layer.

As a result of this, you are pasting in an object that already has a layer assignment but you are under the belief that pasting the object into the layer will cause the object to acquire the currently chosen layer. This isn't the case given the way SU uses layers.

What you are seeing is an artifact of the fact that the pasted in object is indeed the currently selected object but its "layer" is invisible, so what you see is a selected, invisible object that completely disappears when it is deselected.

Turning on the layer its part of will bring it back.

I am sure both the file and the program are working properly.

Hope this helps.

Karl

@unknownuser said:

in short: SU is intented and surely great for creating fast and easily 3D design layouts and sketches targeted at presentation and visualization purposes.

Although this may be in point of fact true, its not the way I end up using SU.

As an industrial designer I design furniture using SU and often will send parts to be made by our model shop directly from SU data. The parts are from a variety of materials: wood, steel, machined plastic, vacu-formed plastic and so on. I can send DXFs to be cut on the laser and then the drawings to the guys on the brakes to make the bends, then off for weldments and so on. The accuracy of the files are off into 4 decimal places which is as good as the laser can deliver so I don't worry too much about things failing to fit up.

I find I am able to use SU across all the different segments of the design process, not just at the very beginning or the very end, its not just for pretty pictures anymore...

@maxosmedia said:

===========
Error Loading File skin.rb
undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

I am seeing the same error with the 2.4 version of the plugin under MacOSX 10.5.5

Good day.

I am a MacOS user and unfortunately, version 23 does not appear to work any longer. V22 does, so I don't know what the issue is. It doesn't crash SU but doesn't do anything beyond have the buttons toggle and change color. Nothing untoward happens just no change in state of the model.

Mac OSX v10.5.5 MacBook Pro 2.33, 3gb Ram, 256 ATI X1600

The earlier versions have worked fine until this point.

Many thanks.

Karl

So while I was on vacation I hiked with my sons and one of my sisters to the top of Camel's Hump. This is one of the oldest mountains in the United States and the third highest mountain in Vermont. Its a pretty decent hike of just over 3.4 miles and a rise from the trail head of 2600 feet to the peak at 4,083 feet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel's_Hump_(Vermont
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?pagename=Camel%27s_Hump_(Vermont&params=44_19.18_N_72_53.20_W_region:US_type:mountain

Attached is evidence of Sketchup making it to the top:

A closer view of the marker on top:

Unfortunately although it wasn't a bad day when we started out, we weren't able to enjoy much of a view as it socked in a bit as we climbed:

So who else is climbing mountains this summer?

I use SU primarily for product/industrial design, specifically furniture design. I also use it to incessantly redesign my house to my wife's everlasting frustration.

As an FYI, Rhino on MacOS is in process. The current beta version is quite good but as yet incomplete.

Its kind of nice to see this idea coming up again, it has a long history in micro/lightweight cars going way back. One of my classmates did a very similar proposal to this for his senior thesis at ACCD in 1992. I like the idea, some of the views of the car are a bit bizarre, in particular the view of the hood from above with the engine poking through the opening has a distinct sexual connotation.

Here is a pic of my younger son and I from our recent holiday away from the unremitting grey skies of west Michigan.

Many thanks for taking the time to give us all a glimpse into what has been going on as well as your willingness to be open about yourself.

In addition thanks for all of your great work on rubies that help us all.

Hope you enjoyed the last day.

Karl

Wow, very nice indeed. This has been asked for many many times over the last few years. And very nicely executed.

I do have a quibble which may or may not be shared by all:

The intersection of the rounded edges should meet in a semi-spherical intersection when three arcs meet at a corner, versus the hipped or groined intersection that is now occurring.

In any case, another very appreciated remarkable piece of work.

All the best and thank you.

Karl Mead

Joe:

You can easily get a Bluetooth USB plugin to add bluetooth to your machine. I don't know that you will get all of Apple's functionality when using it on a PC. They likely don't offer software to give the sideways rolling functionality.

Most Apple mice have short cords because Apple keyboards have a USB hub in them so you need only plug into the keyboard which is likely only inches away.

Unfortunately, most of the work I do can't be shared until its in production. My employer is starting to upload our collections of models though so you can see much of my (and others) work.

In June I can likely upload some of my latest products after their Neocon introduction.

In the past I did put stuff on the old forum but have never done so with the warehouse.

I believe its a Logitech driver issue. Logitech, MacOS and SU together have not been a harmonious combination.

I use only Logitech mice (with my Macs), but the corded version and as long as I don't install their software I have been fine. I presume you don't have that option with a wireless one.

My recollection from the past was that you could reset what the scroll wheel button was set to do. Making it just a second button click gave it the correct functionality.

I also made a donation and received an updated version.

Thanks Josef for a fine piece of work.

By the way his website now shows an updated version will be available on April 25th.

Karl