dsafety
Yes you can put a zero thickness skin on that way to form a warped surface. I think each non zero thickness panel may have a compound miter cuts and make sure you ask the contractor about the details of his bid so you don't find your self in the situation of them claiming later that type of work is out of scope !! BTW I think each rafter is the same case. Also make sure you and the contractor understand what the code requirements are if any and that is factored into the cost. Many years ago I was a city inspector and a recent roofing contractor tried to play that game with me. Believe me they will in many cases unless you get all the understanding up front and written down. Attached is a rough idea of what your roof profile will look like

No reafters, soapa kin and bubble plugin ref the eaves and ridge beam edges

ref ????? http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/plugin-loader-for-sketchup/

dsafety Model looking good
Sorry for jumping in the middle of TIG's help but did take a quick look at your model and thought these comments may help:
There are numerous stray lines which may give you trouble down stream with many along the ridge line ( 35 or so). There is a plugin called stray lines http://www.smustard.com/script/StrayLines which can help to ID and remove them;
It looks to me you are a little confused how layers are used in SU. Layers are used for visibility control and not isolation of geometry so all primitive geo , lines etc, should be on layer 0 and then components are assigned to layers for the visibility control. Keep layer 0 always as the active layer when you are drawing, ie select an edge and it shows layer 0 ( entity info) but select the component that edge is used in and it will show the layer for that component (If you have assigned it to a layer diff that 0 that is). Use of more components may help you ;
The roof is truly a warped plane because of the fixed rise and splaying of the beams(causing variable run of the rafters). TIG will have some thoughts here.
If you are planning on building this design, live in a locale that has code requirements for detached structures and are planning on pulling a permit then brief talk with the locale inspector may help just to get some input on the direction you are going. A couple of spans seem large to me and I wonder if long 8x8's($$$$$)vs 2x8 etc are required also. Some times they have printed cheat sheets they will give you.

There is a plugin called component stringer that may help. Have not used it though

Making the corrugated roof a component then installing a possible approach. See this TUT which may help you http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11042

@escapeartist said:

It is a scaled component, but I'd hoped that "Scale Definition" would take care of the issue. If I get a bunch of holes again I'll cut the section out and attach it here.

Any chance you have check for problems and auto fixed checked in windows preferences?

@roger said:

What is inaccurate about SU" If I increased all my measurements by a factor of 10, wouldn't I also decrease inaccuracies by factor of 10? If I build a cube that I designate to be 12" x 12" x 12" will not the dimensions shown be infinitely accurate? I realise that I might not want to drive a CNC machine with the results, but it is the measurements shown that need to be accurate and not any measuremetns taken from the drawing.

I am looking for solutions that are fast and accurate. There is something called CMM (don't remember what that stands for)that uses an articulated arm that gives highly accurate readings each time you touch it to a surface. Photo matching bothers me because there is a lot of work that goes into factoring out lens distortion. Laser theodolites are interesting, but I am not sure how they will handle medium scale organic shapes with a lot of sloping reflective surfaces.

Oh and did I mention cheap?

Looks like I have a lot of research to do.

CMM= Coordinate Measurement Machine( Google search) ok for planar but probably problematic for your spherical or cylindrical case unless of course you are only concerned with the walls. I would question if photogrammetry can be used for the same reason but could be worth a check. Many of the techniques can get costly quickly and I assume you have a limited budget
As I am sure you are aware there is a huge difference between measure resolution and accuracy. More is not necessarily better. SU is a mesh program and approximates curves by line segments so you will still have to answer the question of what accuracy you want and that will drive the sampling required. I cannot think you need a highly accurate system and think you must have your needs in mind before going very far with your project although taking with some of the measurement community will give you some ideas. The tick stick looks promising and somewhat along the lines I was discussing above. Cross section of a smooth hull vs your van I don't know because of zero understanding what your real requiremnts are. IE is it tricked out on the inside or????

Metrology = "The science of measures and weights".
Before you can determine how one needs to determine how accurate. If you are using SU for the model then I assume the accuracy needs are not very high so using the old saying "KISS" maybe the way to go. IE grid, plum lines and tape ( or cheap laser from local big box store). Even if the VAN has cabinets etc it is almost certain you can find a location to establish an axis origin location and the old standard 3,4,5 triangle ( you can build easily) to get two perpendicular to each other. My guess is you can probably measure to plus /minus 1/4" this way. Away from the established origin you will have a plane ref , the floor (van needs to be level), which in combination with one of the axis references allows a vertical axis. If you have many high frequency surfaces to deal with then the sampling period will be so short this may not be time effective for you. For this case an interior photo match maybe a consideration ( not good for organic shapes thought)??
Just some thoughts from a non expert with some experience in missile instrumentation.

Spfireengineer
Short answer is no but:
SU is a surface molder and you would not have say conductance value. I guess you can assign an alpha over e by what material used on the face. However, I have seen post of some ( I think they were from NREL using SU for thermal analysis input.I also seem to remember they have done some models for the building code ( IRBC?)Possible link http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=15007873)I assume they are using a finite element program but not sure. Doing a net search would help or contact them
For export I think you will have to go to an intermediate step if you are using the free version. DoubleCad has a free version that will import SU and convert to dxf http://www.doublecad.com/Products/DoubleCADXTv2/tabid/1100/Default.aspxhttp://www.doublecad.com/Products/DoubleCADXTv2/tabid/1100/Default.aspx
FYI Quick search found this http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=3870

Jim
unless I have the wrong spot my suggestion is:

1. turn hidden geo on;
2. Use line tool and green inference to extend lines from bottom circle edges to the top face, use green inference;
3. Connect the top edges and your faces will form. They did for me
   Attachment removed by mac1 9-2-01

jim
Update to your model and comments
After looking at your model found and corrected a couple of other areas and removed all the stray lines ( 53 of them). Some comments for you:

1. Use of the triangles to correct can be done but I usually do that as a last resort approach. There are a number of plugins that can help;
2. Stray lines at Smustard. It allows one to remove or label them and will quite often show the areas in your model preventing surface formation. http://www.smustard.com/script/StrayLines;
3. Under windows/preferences/extension select utilities. This will give a create face utility in the tools drop down (utility/ create face). If you select the bounding edges and run this it will respond with a reason if it cannot.Not 100% accurate though
   There are a number of others but #1 is the one I find most useful
4. Pilou recommendation is a definite must but, for your case with all the off axis lines it does not help a lots. For on axis rectilinear models ( house etc) it really helps
   Many of your problems are caused by molder errors so make max use of the SU inference engine and when you have a problem stop and fix. Other wise they grow exponentially. Your use of layers is questionable. SU layers are used onlyfor visibility control and not geo separation. I put all back on layer 0. Make components for geo seperation and then use layers for visibility control of those. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBdP499iw0Y
   good Luck

Tab Crown 5_mac1_A.skp

@genesco said:

Hey thanks for this, this is pretty close for the larger roof (top left) but not for the one on bottom right.

[attachment=0:1q4lxag9]<!-- ia0 -->tricky roof2.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1q4lxag9]

Suggest you think about:

1. looks like a line missing on the bottom left cricket or dormer
2. Think you should be able to use the move tool to pull up to get slopes etc once you can include a slope ref for the dormers. What you have looks strange to me can you post what you have for the SU model vs forcing us to try and deciher the pics.
   Give a size ref also so the pics can be set to scale
   just some thoughts

dsarchs
Several suggestions:

1. Place your drawing axis along the direction you want to scale;
2. Freod's scale tool will do "out of plane" scaling, search for it in the plugins forum. Sorry don't have the url handy now

Form your post I think you want a cutlist and layout. There are some cut list plugins in the ruby lib. Here is one.http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/plugin_details.php?id=550 I have not used it. I have not seen any that does the layout for you. Check cutlist plus( you will have to do a net search I don't have the url). I think you have to manually enter the dimensions though

good pick up Jeff, I tried several things but still same result;
Accel off
Explode one ngon
enabled snapping

@jhearcht said:

In SketchUp 6.4.265 I find most functions to be simple and intuitive. But the snapping function is the single most frustrating thing about trying to draw with in 3D.

I am used to the sophisticated snapping constraints in my CAD application, which also does 3D, but with hardware intensive solid objects. It allows me to turn-off certain kinds of snap objects, such as "endpoint outside active", so the inference engine will ignore them, and snap only to the things I'm interested in.

Apparently I'm the only one with this problem, because my searches in Help, Forums, and Tutorials find very little discussion of how the snapper operates, or how you can control what it jumps to.

Am I missing something in SU? Does SU7 have any snapping improvements?

You cannot toggle or control the nascent SU snapping. It is something you learn to watch and especially look for multiple snap points at your target. Make sure you have the snapping turned off in the model info, units dialog. Unfortunately even in the wire frame view you can still snap to hidden points although geo itself is not selectable in this view when hidden

@mac1 said:

@davidwetzel80 said:

@unknownuser said:

@honoluludesktop said:

David, SU is a fairly easy 3d cad application to use for simple models, but there are tons of stuff that Acad can do that SU can not. Approach your tasks by integrating the best of both.

wait, what? your advice is to use autocad if you want to move a component because sketchup can't do it?

@davidwetzel80 said:

I wanted to attach the model but I'm not sure how to post the file to this message. Can you tell me how?

when posting, look below the reply window and you'll see "Upload Attachment".. click that then click "choose file".. navigate to the file on your disk then either click 'add the file' or simply submit..

.skp files can be uploaded directly to this forum so no need to zip them first.. (pretty sure there's a 4MB limit on the file size)

Thanks Jeff, I attached the file successfully.

Quick look
Delete your pentagon and draw a new one at any radius then use the tape tool to measure one side then enter your 4' and re-scale it to that value. I could not confirm your measurement and all sides of the pentagon are not the same and trying to scale your original will not work

Update
Explode the pentagon and then the curve and turn on end point in the styles menu and you will see multiple line segments at the corner which then gives different snap points. If you look carefully with the tape tool you will see the smae artifact. It does not show for the hexagon

@davidwetzel80 said:

@unknownuser said:

@honoluludesktop said:

David, SU is a fairly easy 3d cad application to use for simple models, but there are tons of stuff that Acad can do that SU can not. Approach your tasks by integrating the best of both.

wait, what? your advice is to use autocad if you want to move a component because sketchup can't do it?

@davidwetzel80 said:

I wanted to attach the model but I'm not sure how to post the file to this message. Can you tell me how?

when posting, look below the reply window and you'll see "Upload Attachment".. click that then click "choose file".. navigate to the file on your disk then either click 'add the file' or simply submit..

.skp files can be uploaded directly to this forum so no need to zip them first.. (pretty sure there's a 4MB limit on the file size)

Thanks Jeff, I attached the file successfully.

Quick look
Delete your pentagon and draw a new one at any radius then use the tape tool to measure one side then enter your 4' and re-scale it to that value. I could not confirm your measurement and all sides of the pentagon are not the same and trying to scale your original will not work

@davidwetzel80 said:

Hello everyone,

First off I'm loving SketchUp and this forum. I was an avid AutoCAD user and made the switch about 4 weeks ago. Any way I'm building a geodesic dome and in the process I created 2 components. 1 pentagon and 1 hexagon. The edges are the same length. When I try to move them together from one vertex to another and then zoom in really tight they are not touching. From a distance they are and the snapping claims that is is too. However zooming in shows otherwise. When I explode both components and draw a line from the vertex it seems to be a true connection. I thought it had something to do with the unit precision but nothing worked. I'm also working with the free version, not pro. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[b]If anyone can help It would be greatly appreciated.[/b]

David

not specific to your question but info maybe helpful http://groups.google.com/group/geodesichelp/topics http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=1f33552966b6f22224e5217d8a2e013a&num=50&scoring=m

Tom, if so simple why not make drawing and just have it machined vs CNC?
Don't have any experience with 3D printing but for race car application and the vibration and shock I would question that is the appropriate application.
Just some thoughts