Hi All
Being a bit of a newbie to the world of posting, I hope this one is in the right place.
Help needed for frustrated user of Pro 13 on Mac OSX 10.8.4 here in Darwin Australia.
Here's my problem:
Have pdf version of architectural drawing and want to covert it to dxf/dwg as the pdf is fuzzy and not precisely to scale when brought into SKU. AI CS3 will accept the pdf and pretend to export it as dxf/dwg. File exists in Finder but Sketchup won't import it - Bummer. Tried to find a pdf to dxf converter on the web, but they only appear as Windows versions. Does anyone know of a free or cheap pdf to dxf converter for Mac or got any suggestions.
Thanks
Orchard Collie.
Darwin NT
Australia

Hi Guys
I am still working with SKU8 Pro on my relatively ancient MacBook Pro which won't easily load SKU2013 without serious system upgrade. I just want to locate and download the Simplify Contours plugin and am directed to the Extensions warehouse page which only seems to work if you have 2013. Help!
Any advice on how to get at plugins would be appreciated.
Thanks
Orchard Collie
Darwin Australia

Thanks Dave
Best regards
Orchard

Hi Dave
Don't bother replying to such an insulting question. As soon as I pressed send I realised that the Font colour could be linked to the line colour and when I tried it, it was!
Dumb Dumb Me
Thanks again
Orchard

Thanks Dave
I don't care if it's a bug or a feature, I just wanted a solution, and you gave me one that works!
Thanks heaps.
BTW how did you get your leader line and arrow in white to match the text colour?
Regards
Orchard

Hi Guys Greetings from Darwin Australia
Being a real newbie to the Forums world I hope this is in the right place.
Currently using SKU8 Pro on Mac.
I want to label a 3D aerial view of an Island with buildings located all over it. I want to use the Google Terrain, not the 2D snapshot layer. Every time I try and label an individual building the arrow snaps to Origin and not the building under the cursor.
I've tried unlocking, exploding and moving to a different layer - still no success.
Frustrating
Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?
Orchard Collie

Thanks TIG at least I know why I can't do it!
Many thanks
Orch

Hi Guys
Have played with earlier versions of Shadows.rb (on Mac) and experienced the "blackout" problem. Found this post a few minutes ago, downloaded the latest version (thanks TIG). Set up model elevations as scene tabs and ran the script. Saved each scene with shadows on but it seems that the 45 degree shadows don't change direction for each elevation - the shadow direction is constant regardless of whether I save/update each scene with shadow settings on or off.
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Cheers from Darwin Australia
Orch

Hi All
I am using a rather nice tree which uses semi transparent surfaces of varying levels. Problem - the trees dont cast shadows. I have a vague recollection of a plug-in that allows you to over-ride the SketchUp default level at which semi transparent surfaces begin to cast shadows (60%?) and apply your own settings. Can anyone point me in the right direction
Thanks and greetings from Darwin Australia
orchard collie

Hi Gaieus and Mavie
I think I have tracked down what the problem is, and it's pilot error.
The whole issue revolves around active section planes as far as I can see.
Unless the correct section plane is set to Active before you save a scene in SKU, Layout will revert to whatever section plane is currently active at the time you redraw the scene within layout. Because Section Planes are hidden most of the time its very easy to not know which section plane is the current one, so I now turn Section Planes on and confirm the one I want is blue before turning them off again and creating or updating the scene. Since I implemented this double check I haven't had the problem recur. Touch Wood.
Cheers Orch

Hi Gaieus and Mavie.
The file is currently 19.5 meg (is that anything to do with it perhaps?) so its not really uploadable. I have just tried it on the Windows side of my Mac and it does the same thing. Section disappears to be replaced by elevation view as soon as I turned "Keep Scale on Resize" OFF.
Still a mystery.
Cheers Orch

Hi Gaieus
Thanks for your reply.
I must confess I'm still mystified as to why Layout switches from a section to an elevation view when I just change the scale of the view. The Style hasn't changed between the two views so I'm still not sure how to get the Section view back again within Layout.
Regards Orch

Hi All
I'm a nearly retired Architectural Drafting Teacher here in Darwin Australia who is having a real problem with generating Section views in Layout. I can create them OK in SketchUp (most of the time)
Save the file and open my Layout File and the update goes OK. Select Last Saved SketchUp View option and the Section View I want appears but at a scale of 1:184. I need it at 1:200 so i select the rescale option and voila = I get an elevation view. This happens regardless of whether Preserve Scale on resize is on or off. I've been wrestling with this annoyance for over a day now, and am feeling really stupid. A Google search hasn't really given me a clear and easy routine for getting this right. Has anyone got a really straightforward way of dealing with this issue. I can't believe that Layout doesn't handle Sections easily as every Architect and Interior Designer needs them all the time, so it must be me getting senile and missing the obvious.
Any help would be much appreciated here Down Under
Cheers Orch

Hi there
Greetings from Sydney Australia
While not new to SKU, (started with V5) I'm new to this forum and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction because I'm feeling a bit stupid. I downloaded ToolsOnSurface, LibFredo6_31c, Freescale_20c and JointPushPull from the Ruby Forum yesterday. As I'm working on a MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.5.2 4GB RAM, I saved the folders into the Library/Application Support/SketchUp7/Plugins folder. Opened SKU and they weren't loaded. OK, open SKU Preferences to add them and they weren't available.
OK, (deep breath) go back to Plugins folder and take the .rb files out of their respective folders so they are now at the same level as all other .rb files. Restart SKU only to be told that "no such file to load -- /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp/Plugins/TOS_Dir_13/LoaderOnSurface.rbError Loading File ZLoader__OnSurface.rb
no such file to load -- /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp/Plugins/TOS_Dir_13/LoaderOnSurface.rb."
What am I doing wrong? Told you I felt a bit stupid!
Cheers from Orchard Collie, Architectural Drafting Teacher, Sydney Institute of Technology.