@box said:

There are many ways to do what you want, a bit of planning and knowing your final result helps you decide what method is best.

Just one possible solution....
[screenr:3a3p5u0m]n2yH[/screenr:3a3p5u0m]

What happens when you don't always start nor end at the starting/ending points of the line?

@pbacot said:

type cntrl v or /7, what's the advantage?

I was more hopeing it would require using Ctrl+V or anything and it would do it automatically after you tick an option box or something.

Generlly what I showed is a simple example, more complicated examples could involve me rescaling every single component or rotating it after I do an array. So this plugin would record your actions and repeat them automatically after you do CTRL Copy/paste.

@unknownuser said:

Yes it's a pity that the measurement box don't accept a simple Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V!
Maybe a Plugin will an make that!

Ahh.. someday

@box said:

SU does remember things, a double click with push/pull will move the same distance again, for example.
An image of what you want to do might help us give you some better workflow options.

Its not about moving the same distance, the distance always changes so you have to do it manually, however the command in the mesasurement box applied after doing "Ctrl move" always stays the same. Meaning I just want sketchup do remember to "/7" after the copy.

Different distances, same command in measurement box "/7". Imagine you have to this hundred of times.
This potential plugin would not only work on copy/paste senario but on all senarios where the user would have to continuallsly input the same command into the measurement box.

@tig said:

I'd split my DXF data for general CNC use 'by layer' - into welded curves forming 'outer-loops' and those forming 'inner-loops' [if there's a cutter bit and you need tolerances the bit goes on opposite sides of the cut for the two types], 'holes' [<~5mm diam for drilling rather than cutting], 'pockets' or 'engraving' or 'recesses', where the 'depth' is indicated in the layer-name itself - and finally 'reference tags' - where the ref can be engraved onto the top face if desired - which can be useful later on when you are trying to assemble complex similar looking multi-part...

I didnt quite get that. In lasercam u simply recolour the lines you want, to be cut and the ones that you want to be engraved. However Engraving an area (1cm x 1cm) requires you texture this area (apparently this can be done in autocad.

I could export a PDF as vector lines from sketchup, or I could save it as DWG. I havent thought about the idea of playing around with multiple layers as I don't know if lasercam reads layers as layers or if It just mashes everything into one (it would save a lot of time if it could read layers though)

Recall last tool doesnt remember the last entered dimension. I'm not saving hardly any time, its a good plugin but its not really made for this.

Sketchup has an the option of typing fancy commands into the measurement box: such as "/" or "X" etc. This can be done in most built in commands.

However lets say you have to an operation continually. Make sketchup Ctrl/move and then Divide ("/7"). This simple array stuff becomes tedious. Much like any other command that requires you to continuously type in commands in the measurement box. In an ideal scenario I would toogle a option and do the command once, and then sketchup would remember to "/7" instead of making me type it for the hundredth time.

I just really wish sketch up would remember what I typed in the measurement box and do it automatically.

@tig said:

You need somehow to tell the machine the continuous loops for each cut, AND what is an external cut and what is an internal cut: so that the cut leaves the right amount of material behind - like you might manually saw a cut on one [correct] side of a marked line, and not centrally on it, or else you'll cut too much off.
This is usually done by layering a DXF or similar file by inner and outer loop polylines.
You also need to know what data and acceptable formats the machine might be expecting, before you can have a hope of extracting the correct data from your SKP for its use...

I got some information, successfully printed it out... however it is not ideal at all. After exporting into DWG 2004 format. The laser just started cutting stuff randomly, it did not cut a single line continuously (this could be an issue where I should had welded the lines prior exporting). This of course results in much slower cutting times.

The studio used Lesercam 2D Design 2010. It pretty easy to use. Ofcourse other questions arise, how do I make the lasercutter engrave a large surface area instead of a line? What do I do in sketchup if I want to engrave an apple in a peace of mdf?

Yes the machine apparently prefers vectors.

@dieter10 said:

That's probably because sketchup could not draw "real" circels and curves.
Did you already tried with a DXF format?
Did you set the render method in layout on RASTER ?

Dunno its my first time at Doing this... I have no idea what I'm doing. I saved it autodesk just incase (apparantly theyll help at the lab with autodesk), but I have no idea which is the correct way to do this through layout.

I have turned my model in cutable peaces for the laser.

The laser cutter I will be using is:

It has an Engraving area of 610mm x 457mm (this is all I know)

Unfortunately If I just use layout to export it as pdf (turning all the lines red and the faces white)the laser-cuter will apparently start zigzagging around the contours of the pixels and will take ages to cut (I only have an hour to do this).

Where do I go from here?

For some reason launchup fails to find any plugin.

Edit: Problem fixed after I gave sketchup full administrative powers.

Sorry for late answer, was very busy in uni.

I don't really get what happened, sometimes a single plane auto-folds. I do play with axis a lot in order to speed up my modeling; I wonder if this has an effect. It is really strange.

Thanks for helping me; the holes disappeared, so I will have to re-cut them. Perhaps it has something to do with the complexity of the geometry?

Re-cutting this will take ages; I think that the smoothing in sketchup may be screwing up the model.

Thanks for the comments guys; much appreciated

@monmonred said:

with small faces? why? has there been any accounts of geometric deformation caused by the fixing? thanks.

Yep, it triangulates faces sometimes.

@cotty said:

Is this very small geometry? Did you try to scale it up? You can try the "Merge faces" option of Thomthoms Cleanup (after scaling) to erase those lines if the faces are coplanar...

There was no scaling. I will tried the cleanup; it didn't succeed.

Here's the model (just a small part of it though because the whole thing is currently 19Mb)

massivetriangles.skp

@krisidious said:

Did you by chance run intersect or intersect with model?

Yes but I reverted it.

I intersected, copied the face, clicked on undo a few times and then pasted in place. The face was perfect (no hidden geometries, triangulation etc.).

And then sometimes later... it did it for me.

Is there a plugin that fixes faces?

SIgh.. I cant even begin to comprehend this.

Edit: It seems sketch-up is screwing up my model when its "fixing it".

Its a weird bug, it seems to happen randomly in my model and its hampering my productivity.

The worst part, I cannot erase these hidden lines as the faces will disappear.

What happened to sketchup? Sketchup 2013 seems to be riddled with glitches and bugs, which none appeared in the old version.

Im using windows 7 64bit.

@larryv said:

On a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet:
Sketch Up 2013 crashes as soon as you open a template.
SketchUp 7 and SketchUp 8 seem to open the default template normally.

I have not tried to open a complex file yet.

Just wanted to update everyone on my progress.
I am looking forward to using Sketchup on the Surface Pro.

-Larry

It works fine, on the sony vaio duo 11. No crashes no whatsoever. The only downside is that the UI is not quite suited for tablet and stylus uses.

@dave r said:

Nice looking illustrations. Have you already turned it in? If not, you might want to correct the spelling of the word 'Brief' in the third image. 'i' before 'e'.

Ha ha its last years; I guess that is the downside of not having auto-correct in layout; stuff like that sneaks by sometimes.