I expect that's because vacau provide free web hosting, and there are plenty of people who will use that for malicious purposes. The SketchUp users site, as far as I know, is completely safe, but like any other website, there are no guarantees, although I know I'll still use it.

@unknownuser said: @unknownuser said: @unknownuser said: @pav_3j said: ah the benefit of hindsight. although, this could be just as funny going the other way, if this thread were now bombarded with people, it would be awesome. Pav I'm home today with a cold so have lots of time on my hands for multiple posts - And sneezing And lets not forget coughing you're comic timing is impeccable! Pav

Thanks, Wacov: Does this mean that SP adds some capabiliies for modeling, such as being able to move things around by dragging them? I may eventually want to do more complicated simulations with joints and hinges and so forth, but can you place things carefully, or is this a tedious operation?

TIG: Thanks for the reply. In my first message, I mentioned the "limitations of the program". I failed to mention the limitations of the user. The error was really my doing. Anyway, I was able to complete the exercise by copy rotating a rectangular section to the intervals of a 48 segment circle and meticulously rotating each rectangle 3.75 degrees, so that at each quadrant, the rectangle turned through 45 degrees. After that, I simply connected the corners with lines and diagonals to close the faces. Hardly worth uploading.

@Anssi: Yes, you are right about the limitations of the hardware for in/out transactions, not to mention the physical plugging in and out. Thank you for your comments. @mac1: Yes, I understand the skp/skb file structure. skb is the backup file, and is used by SU to retrieve work after a crash. I do not believe that the version of SU is part of the issue for this thread. I mostly use the last version of SU6, because I have free version at home and Pro version at work. Since I do not have SU7 pro, I do not do as much in that version, so Dynamic Components do not exist for me, nor does the new Collada export, which replaces the dxf/dwg export. And, of course, Layout is not part of my workflow--currently. I do understand and appreciate the GoogleSU policy about promoting newest versions, however, expounding on this is probably for another thread. Thanks to all who responded, mitcorb

Hmmm: I was just speculating in that last post. Thanks Gaieus, I will check this out at home, later.

Guys, when trying top make a group/component using the context menu or trying to flip something, always make sure to select more than one entity otherwise it doesn't work (the menu items are not only greyed out but don't even appear). Make a test this way: create a sphere right click and find that you cannot make it a group/component or flip it. you can still make a group/component from the edit menu or a component from the "Principal" toolbar > Component button (I consider this not necessarily a bug but an inconsistent behaviour and keep reporting it every time a new version is being tested but so far nothing has happened) if you triple click on the sphre so that its hidden edges are also highlighted as selected, you can make group/component and flip it from the context menu. Now as for menu items that should be available but greyed out, I have no idea what causes it. Supposedly it's a plugin (and Thom also suspected that it was his selection toys at a time) but I for instance have never experienced it although I have this plugion (as well as Twilight, which was also mentioned above). Maybe it's not even an only plugin but a conflict between some plugins which of course, would make it even harder to spot.

Ok, Thanks Chris. Of course that is not the answer I wanted to see, considering all of the possibilities that have arisen in this forum. But, you never know...

Thanks again. mitcorb

Well, Pilou: My version of this plugin just sits there and I have tried all combos of group, no group, select all, select some, select none and right click select operation. No results. Just for your info. mitcorb

Ok Thank you modelhead.

ok, I think I got a working version of it up and running. See here: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=18963 Chris

Well, after we'd suffered a while to get you properly in to the forums, I thought you would like to feel that it was worth the effort.

@teezer said: If that happens again, turn on hidden geometry and the edges should show up... Not necessarily... Some times things can get messed up. I experienced this yesterday when I tried to make a plugin which converted all components and nested components to groups. A coding bug caused 'ghosted' geometry to appear. (Sang) without any lines and without any means of selecting it. When I tried to clear the scene by making a new model SU crashed on me. So when using plugins or importing other formats, basically when stuff is being generated, there is a possibility things get really messed up.

I have to say that I am glad to learn that the sketchup devs do frequent this forum - as someone mentioned earlier this is severely lacking from the giants. The ultimate responsiveness would be the developers of Cockos Reaper (music production software). They are active on the forums and respond quite quickly in terms of developing features or at least explaining why they will be focusing on something more important. Suspect that this sort of answer would at least let Solo know when they might address this or if as suggested it is too big a task for the foreseeable future Regarding blender, ah yes.......I have downloaded and installed and uninstalled. Did manage to follow a tutorial that allowed me to turn a sphere into a heart and then do a basic render. Just that sketchup would introduce some decent animation path functionality. Took a look at Truespace (but since they no longer offer a format converter to bring in and export CAD friendly files.......) but man they have nice camera tools......

Thanks, Jim: I will check this out. EventRelay also appears to pop up the Ruby console when I start Sketchup 6. I usually just click it off, as I have not had time to really utilize the plugin. mitcorb ps I hope you were able to contact ArchitectBoy, ref: skin.

Thanks,Pilou, I'll check it out. mitcorb

My TubeAlongPath.rb can fail if the path's line segments are too short. Also its cousin PipeAlongPath.rb might be more forgiving and better trapped. Also use sensibly few sides for the tube/pipe - having lots of sides adds little to its appearance but multiplies up the number of faces... Short path segments are trapped [at least an attempt to trap] since SketchUp's FollowMe tool fails on paths with short lengths where the faces it would make on the innermost part of the turns very small. Alternatively you can scale up the path x10 [and then the pipe's diameter too]... that way the face bits never get too small and so there's no bugsplats=... Scale everything down x0.1 on completion...

The whole OpenGL dialog box belongs IMO to the "if it works OK, don't touch it" category. OK, the different Antialiasing options might have an influence on how your SU screen looks like, but even with them it is mostly best to stick with what works. Anssi