I tried the follow me with a cross section before i posted - couldn't get it to work.

However, I have cracked it! I constructed a doughnut with follow me and isolated a thin section from its centre with an extruded circle and then intersected the two faces and deleted the outer bulk of the doughnut. Phew.

I'm off to try your method again.

how would i approach drawing a cooling tower? I realize there are many in the warehouse but I'd like to learn how to construct a relatively simple shape myself (a tube with a 'pinched waist').
thanks!

I have a flat rectangular block of 2mm depth by 20mm square.
I have drawn a circle on its surface and i want to make a hole through it by push/pullig the circle.
As i P/P the face of the circle, it will extrude above he surface but its behavior going through the block is erratic. it will seem to do nothing and then appear on the other side of the block. sometimes i get the error 'cant PP hrough a curved surface' (its not curved)and i don't get the message to say its in line with the opposite face - even if i enter the exact width numerically.

any ideas?

that's a really nifty approach.

Thanks for everyone's help on this topic.

I have to say, though, that for such a sophisticated drawing package it still seems strange to me that it can't do something that the most basic MS office program can do with it's drawing tools!

@jean lemire said:

Hi Merlin 7777777, hi folks.

See this SU file for ideas.

Thanks for this - it's shown me several useful things. Please could you explain the smoothing part at the end for me - don't quite understand.

@dave r said:

Do you have a lot of gaps or just one? If there are a lot of them, perhaps the CloseOpens plugin from Smustard would be a good idea. If it is just one or a couple of gaps, you could simply draw in the joining lines with the Line tool.

That's exactly what I need. Unfortunately i don't have any funds for this. Is there something similar which is free?

@dave r said:

Do you have a lot of gaps or just one? If there are a lot of them, perhaps the CloseOpens plugin from Smustard would be a good idea. If it is just one or a couple of gaps, you could simply draw in the joining lines with the Line tool.

@honoluludesktop said:

Below the input box is a "Upload attachment" tab.

aha! - thanks for this

thanks for this driven. It looks like a useful tool but in this case an arc will give me the corner I need.

I just wondered if there was a way to draw the rectangle with rounded corners in the first place?

I'm trying to extrude a rippled surface from a flat shape made of a line of touching arcs and a line to close the shape.

I can't find a way to actually join the lines into a closed shape. Is there a way?

I hope i've explained myself - can't find a way to include an image here.

@prismcnd said:

here's a hint

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=20485

i find that searching for topics first using the search bar speeds up my processes for finding stuff.

I did search first and I found the topic you've linked to. I even have this plugin installed. However this is for 3D shape and doesn't seem to do 2D shapes.

I'm trying to draw a rectangle with rounded corners in SU.

Is there a way of doing this or do i have to draw a square edged rectangle and use the arc tool, erasing the corners afterwards?

OK - added the fredo6, all works ok except still egtting this error on startup:

Error Loading File bootstrap_FredoScale.rb
(eval):1: uninitialized constant FredoScale::T6

Maybe something to do with the double extraction I did?

ah - no. can't see that info in the OP. can you direct me where to go for it?

in fact, no files show up in explorer in the plugins apart from the ones that originally installed with sketchup!

ok - i clicked on the link and the open/save dialogue came up or textures082809.zip.
I saved it to the plugins folder and during this process i could see all the files i've saved there.
i went to this folder in explorer and i can't see these files.
i used 7-zip and i could see your 'textures' folder and the wood and soil textures within it. however when i looked back in explorer the folder can't be seen (I did refresh).
I tried moving one of the jpgs to the plugins folder thinking a jpg is bound to show up but this jpg doesn't show either in explorer in the plugins folder or even if i search on the filename for it.
i'm mystified.

I'm getting this error when i start SU (v 8):

Error Loading File bootstrap_FredoScale.rb
(eval):1: uninitialized constant FredoScale::T6Error Loading File ZLoader__FredoScale.rb
no such file to load -- LibFredo6.rbError Loading File __loader.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::Plugin

I'm fairly certain the directory structure is as you specify. I extracted the files from the subfolders into their own folders as specified but I also extracted those files to the plugin directory just in case.

any thoughts?

Thanks for this TIG but i'm still not quite with you.

I have only downloaded the file that's on offer to the plugins folder which is a zip file. when i go to explorer to unzip it there's nothing visible for me to unzip anyway.

do you mean that i should download the zip to the plugins folder then restart SU and it'll do the extraction itself?

Sorry to be thick...

When I downloaded models I put them in the resources subfolder by mistake. When I went to windows explorer to move them into the compnents folder they didn't show up. I assumed they hadn't downloaded but when i tried again and the save dialog came up... there they were. What am I doing wrong with explorer? (vista and

i think this is related to the problem i posted earlier about zip files not showing up i.e. an explorer problem rather than a download or sketchup issue.

I think i must have a different problem - i can't actually see the zip file in explorer. I can see the .rb file though.

Any thoughts?