So, do we have any idea when Sketchup 9 will be out or are we all just again subjected to the usual Google guessing game

@hellnbak said:

Well, I've tried everything I can think of, so once again I've come to the experts

I'm trying to apply a wood grain texture to a steering wheel. The right way, with the grain running around the wheel instead of in bands. I've got no problem with projecting textures, but nothing I've tried has come close to looking like a real wooden steering wheel, and you just can't have a decent 67 GTO without a nice wooden steering wheel. Hopefully I'm just overlooking something obvious. Any suggestions?
'

If you divide the steering wheel into an equal number of segments around the centre point, then make one segment and texture it with the wood grain running in the desired direction, you can then multi copy this segment around the centre point, the wood grain will then run concentric to the centre point

@kate-art said:

@paulside said:

Kate,

Really looking forward to the full release, I've been using the demo for the past few weeks and I've been really impressed by the quality renders that can be produced quickly and best of all, 'interactively' from such an easy to use toolset, can't wait to try out the lights and bump maps in the full release, At last! we now have a full featured, quick, simple, and 'fun to use' renderer to match Sketchup itself!

Hi Paulside
This would make a great quote for our website - can I use it?

I'd be honoured

Kate,

Really looking forward to the full release, I've been using the demo for the past few weeks and I've been really impressed by the quality renders that can be produced quickly and best of all, 'interactively' from such an easy to use toolset, can't wait to try out the lights and bump maps in the full release, At last! we now have a full featured, quick, simple, and 'fun to use' renderer to match Sketchup itself!

Will check back on release day, 5th October ( Thats my birthday - so thanks )

Ahhhh so Sketchup v8 around mid November then

Well I Know they wouldn't want to disclose details of any new features, thats fair enough, but surely wouldn't it make good business sense to at least give some indication to current and potential users as to when a future release could be expected?

So, is there ever going to be a Sketchup 8, Google - is it really asking to much of you to keep loyal users informed of future plans ?.

Talking of Precision Measurement!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s.
The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and

CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else

Dimensioning in Layout!
Its so much more useful now - thanks Google,
If you could now just give Layout: an offset line tool, a hatch pattern fill option and a parallel line tool (Maybe SketchUp 8 ?) I can ditch all my other CAD software.

It orbits so much more smoothly as well,

Thanks SketchUp Team

Have you looked at Model Info> Rendering> Anit-Aliased Textures, uncheck the box to see if that makes any difference,

just a thought