I think animation in SU, however it is achieved, is susceptible to skipping if the model is large, or vast amounts of data are being animated. Try it in a DC. DC's animate objects and you can put them on a timer. The more complex the object being animated is, the bumpier the live animation is. But if it could be exported to a video, then it wouldn't matter so much.

@chris fullmer said: Don't forget that refresh is new to 7.1 (or was it 7.0?). Anyhow, it is new and not compatible with older versions... Chris 7.1 http://code.google.com/intl/nb/apis/sketchup/docs/releases.html

Mine took 2 mins, no hints- excluding making the png.[image: RBIe_FloorTIG.png]

@martinrinehart said: @dan rathbun said: What's wrong with the standard included classes File and Dir ?? You can do all that would be desired with their methods. That's all I've done: def cd( path ) Dir::chdir( path ) end Shell Commands are already allowed within Ruby. [Examples for PC win32 platform, but also applies to Mac OSX.] use the %x delimiter, as in: %x{dir *.skp} or backquoted strings, as in: dir *.skp (from: Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide) The Ruby Language > Expressions > Single Terms Shell Command. A shell command is a string enclosed in backquotes, or in a general delimited string (page 200) starting with %x. The value of the string is the standard output of running the command represented by the string under the host operating system's standard shell. The execution also sets the $? variable with the command's exit status. [Example - '.c' changed to '.skp';'ls' changed to 'dir'.] %(#BF0000)[filter = "*.skp" files = dir #{filter} files = %x{dir #{filter}}] ! Backquoted strings allow replacement like doublequoted strings ! Expressions > Miscellaneous Expressions**http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/tut_expressions.html** Command Expansion If you enclose a string in backquotes, or use the delimited form prefixed by %x, it will (by default) be executed as a command by your underlying operating system. The value of the expression is the standard output of that command. ! The output is a String, so any String method can be applied to the expression: Ex: dir.include?('.jpg') returns true if there are any jpeg files in the dir _

@honoluludesktop said: Martin, My apologies;-) Apologies not needed. Besides, you're the only guy here who has the correct version number on Win XP.

The add_circle returns an array of its edges, so circles_edges=entities.add_circle(......), to make a face simply use circles_edges[0].find_faces...........

I think that Martin is no longer active on this site... Did you look here ? http://www.martinrinehart.com/models/tutorial/downloads.html Remember that it is all a decade old !

@tig said: splitting out the parts of the material's 'skm' file [which is really a 'zip' file] and taking the image file part, then making that as your new material's texture [with appropriate scaling] etc etc... Thanks. I was afraid of that.

'Above' in this context is on the side of the face's front. If the face is flat and it were facing upwards your hand would be above it. The that face were facing downwards then your hand would be underneath it...

@tig said: Now right-click on each of these new Materials in turn and pick Save_as, and save each of them as new skm file, say into the ../Materials/Wood folder. Thanks to you I not only got my woods into Wood, but I've also got a Materials dropdown that doesn't overflow and need scrolling, I've got A_Personal_Palette category with the stuff I use all the time and I've got rid of, for example, Colors_Named. A million thanks.

If by chance you use Firefox don't miss this one!(free) That pick image, part of screen, or screen and directly open online in a Toshop like! (free too) Advantage? : It's free and you are not obliged to at be home Fractal is'nt it? [image: D4d9_Screen.png]

Yeah, I use start_operation and abort_operation in pretty much every script. They work with the "undo stack". So if you write a script that loops 20 times and adds a line in each loop, SketchUp will count that as 20 separate operations. So to fix wthat, you can do: ` model.start_operation "Line Adder" code to add my lines.... model.commit_operation` By wrapping the code within the start and commit operations, it all just turns into a single commend. So ctrl-z (or EDit > Undo) will undo all 20 lines in one shot. AND the "Line Adder" text will be displayed in the Edit > Undo menu. Chris

You're my target user, Chris. Hope the link helps.

In a former life, I founded and ran an Xbase (dBASE, Clipper, FoxPro, ...) aftermarket company. It was successful as we had two excellent marketing channels. The Clipper community had about 40 active clubs, nationwide. A press release about your latest and 40 stamps was all it took to appear in 40 newsletters. There was also a small magazine, DataBased Advisor that was read avidly by Xbasers. A full page ad wasn't expensive and almost every reader was your potential buyer. I'm trying to think of ways to reach my audience: SketchUp newbies. Best I'm coming up with is to turn promptly to treeware, as the newbie might head to Amazon when s/he finds out that SU has a bit of a learning curve. Treeware in the age of YouTube.

Again, I have to recommend Firebug Lite. It has a full featured Javascript console plus HTML DOM and CSS browsers. It works on IE, Safari, Firefox and Chrome and you can add it to any HTML doc with only one (long) line: <a href="javascript&#058;var firebug=document.createElement('script');firebug.setAttribute('src','http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js');document.body.appendChild(firebug);(function(){if(window.firebug.version){firebug.init();}else{setTimeout(arguments.callee);}})();void(firebug);">Firebug Lite</a> http://getfirebug.com/lite.html

Martin is/was making it far too complex... it even converted the group to a pointless component ? KISS... Jim's example is the better way to do it... Explode the group at the end if desired...

@tomot said: As a Contractor I don't care, Nor do I care as a Framer. What I do care about; is notes on the working drawings describing size of studs, dimens..... ah, ok.. i didn't see where you were coming from.. i'm a design/build contractor and i always have a laptop onsite instead of prints and i use it for certain calculations etc where it does matter in it's accuracy.. but, from that, i'll hand out cut/assembly lists/diagrams which are scribbled on scraps etc and i bet if you actually scaled out some of those drawings, a 2x4-8 might really be a 8x10-14 .. so yeah, at some point, it doesn't matter how accurately it's drawn and only the numbers written next to them are important..

I believe that they showed this during the IP conference this last year. Maybe dig through the IO videos to see if they had any sessions devoted to it. Chris

Hello MartinRinehart, Thanks you very much,