@penguin2 said: Thank you I will take a look at Fedo's Topo Shaper and ThomThom's guide. When I refer to stacking it is when the gradients become so steep they are vertical. This happens where I have a retaining wall when the contours run along the same line i.e. the vertical wall face. I just can't get the contour tool to recognise this. Cheers, Andrew What is the contours tool? Please post if you can find a plugin that will sculpt a vertical face. Usually if there's a retaining wall you have to model it anyway, but I don't think Toposhaper will reflect the vertical very well.

Thank you TIG, Very useful. I think I can work with this. Regards, Andrew

You bet, and you may have shortcut key (H) as a toggle for this view. S

Thank you everyone, I suspect it could be a graphics card problem. I have tried installing latest drivers but this makes AutoCAD impossible to use. The card I have is expensive but out of guarantee. Will save up for a new card. Regards, Andrew

Excellent! Seasons greetings to you, too.

It's funny, I don't remember the 2013 change, but I'm sure I'll always remember the 2023 one! The new icons are terrible, for all the reasons U. Paar states. I've been using them for a year already, and still find them significantly harder to find in the toolbar because they are smaller and are all so similar. Plus they are just graphically inferior. I do use shortcuts, but only for the 20 or so tools and commands I use most regularly. The irony is that the native tool icons used to be more legible than most of those those created by plugin developers, but now it's the opposite. This really seems like an unnecessary own goal by the graphics team. Mark

You can organize on the mac but it gets messed up all the time. Mac windows and icons have always been bad for SU.

Thank you - DaveR, Richard, pbacot & Nick. I will try both Richard's & DaveR's workarounds Trimble: Perhaps you might consider some improvements to dimensioning 3D views in 'Layout'. Thank you once again for your generous help. Regards, Penguin2

Trevor, I'm with you. I don't leave loose geometry in my models. Every edge and face will be in a component when I'm finished. I do sometimes intentionally draw loose geometry that is destined for inclusion in a component outside the component and then cut and paste it in place inside the component. Sometimes I do this to avoid potentially distorting the geometry already in the component and sometimes I do this when I want the same geometry is two or more neighboring components.

what about if it's a dynamic component and the material is selected for the component via the component options box? for example different options could be... oak, maple ash, beech etc.... I've found that if you go into the component and start messing with the textures on the faces (so i can get the grain lined up for it to look right) then when you want to change the material via the component options dialog it no longer works as the material is over ridden by the material applied to the faces... but the only way to change the texture mapping on the faces is to actually apply the material on the faces rather than the component! This seems completely daft and makes dynamic components very limited in terms of texture mapping... is there a way around this??? Thanks Matt

'On Ground' Shadows Setting was checked and yes there are Ground Level Issues. Just started introducing Contours and used Sandbox for the first time a couple of days ago (what a great feature Sandbox is). Thanks again. Panic over. Regards, Andrew

Thank you I will try that. Regards Penguin2

Thank you David & David, I guess I had Senior Moment. Everyone on this site has been so helpful. I must learn to try harder before troubling you. Have also, as requested updated my profile. Thank you again. Regards, Andrew

Yes, I like the overall look! Nice work.

Hi Cotty, I can't believe you produced the video just for me. So generous with your time. Also I tried what you suggested. Opened the group and placed the windows whilst still in edit mode. It works!! not more Z fighting. Thank you Cotty and to all others that have helped. Regards, Andrew (Penguin2)

That could be the case. 3D Warehouse sends a slightly different variant to the SketchUp-embedded view than to the normal browser. The new year has just started, so if it is a website bug (instead of a IE cache issue), it will be fixed in the coming days.

What TIG is preaching is the truth! Always draw everything on layer 0. Only assign components and groups to specific layers. Once you get in this habit, problems like this will go away, and you will find that the layer management control is much more straight forward than ACAD.

@dave r said: [attachment=0] I keep my drawing window slightly narrower than my screen and leave the additional windows outside. They stay there unless inadvertently closed. That has to be about the single best tip I have seen. It is like working in ACAD with the properties dialogue box open. I was fully amazed when I hit 'save toolbar position' closed SU and opened it up again and the flyouts were still in same position

Hello, I have developed a workflow to set layer colours imported from cad. It has a few steps. Run a cad program (.LSP) that creates a file with layer names and Autocad Color Index number. Use MS Excel and VBA to convert the Autocad Color Index number to RGB. Import the layer names and assigned colours to Sketchup using Tig's layerfromlist.rb I can share the code if anyone is interested. It does require that you have access to run AUTOCAD & .LSP routines as well as MS Excel VBA. Cheers, Miner_jeff