Get an earlier version of Sketchup that still includes dwg/dxf import/export options in free and pro. You can have more than one version installed. There are good download links in several posts on the forums here - search...
Hint: http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60107

Thank's for the tips everyone!
I'm working on getting the poly count down a bit, and converting other pieces to components. I'll let you know if it helps.

@Mrosk
Huh... lol that got it to work. which is odd considering i could have sworn i was in parallel before XD
Thanks a Bunch!

@ Jeff
I'm running Win 7, though mrosk had the solution.

Thanks again guys! I appreciate it.

cool, thanks for the quick reply.
I think I'd seen the Crackberry trackballs before. though if i go with those at least i'll know where to get them cheap 😄

I don't think that the kind of tablet is a problem. I use an old 12"x12" kurta, that can respond to a multi button mouse. My cad menu consist of a small drawing area, standard CAD functions, and a area for custom commands. My pointing device is a multi button pen.

The system can be configured to replace a mouse with the pen for other programs, but I do not use it that way as the pen is harder to pick up then reaching for a mouse when switching from the keyboard.

thanks, Mike...yeah you have your work cut out for you, but I'm sure you'll do just fine 😄

Yeah i noticed a few of those, as well as some other problems
Was having alot of issues trying to get it even to run a few parts of it the other night. Been reading the programming Ruby book found on the ruby-doc.org website. going to have to go through the code and tear it apart piece by piece over the course of this week, and hopefully have something workable by this weekend.
Hopefully.

I use clouds.rb for generating terrain meshes and I am wonder if there is anything which will smooth the result ... ! Right now I think the GPS I am using is not very precise or maybe all GPS are creating some wrong points... and that's why a circular (aprox) path I am tracking is it than(after translating to 3d points) shown as a iregular path... any hint ?

Hi Mike, hi folks.

Make sure that the values that you will import are not too small. SU has problem creating faces with edges smaller than about 1 mm.

It is best to import using meters as units and/or scale the points after import, if you want to make surfaces with them.

Just ideas.

Exactly. Applications like Wintopo may be good for vectorising a big area of contour lines (you would simplify them anyway at the end) but not for such fine "hadwork". Often cleaning up a badly drawn/vectorised model is much harder than starting it over from scratch.

Nonetheless, I wish luck and looking forward to what you come up with and I'm sure everyone will be inclined to help once you get stuck somewhere.

thanks guys, this has helped explain alot for me.

I think the subdivide & smooth plugin would really help you with this. It's probably the easiest way of building complex organic shapes.

aaahhh....
ok, that makes perfect sense now...
great images btw.

thanks for helping out a noob 😉

Now we are waiting the new fashion clock watch 😎

@mike ravenwolf said:

ok well i tried to make them all convex, and in fact i got some results.
yet when i tried to do three rings, it failed to work, as if something was getting stuck on somehting else. When i ran the combinations of the rings, two at a time, they worked fine.

the lines in the model i am posting is probably because i copy and pasted the rings.(without the joints of course)

i tried to attach the file though for some reason it is bigger than 512 kbso if you'd like to take a look at it, PM me your email and i'll send it to ya

Its the same problem. The rings need to be broken up into more pieces. Each ring should be made with one convex object per segment (24 of them in this case).

Easiest way to make a ring is to create one segment, group it, set it to convex, then use rotate and copy to make the rest

Chris

cool, i'll give that a shot and see how it works... thanks

lol, now that you mention it, i dont know what i was thinking when i first built this...
It took me a while to recognize where i got this shape from, and then it clicked that is was based off the chain links that LEGOs use....

@deano40 said:

hey cool , I made that tutorial ,glad it helped

Thanks Deano! I have pointed a lot of users at that tutorial. 😄