Thanks for the pointers.

@djh said: @remus said: you could always just hold ctrl while your orbiting, this will turn of the 'turntable' effect you usually get. Holding control while rotating should constrain the rotation? No. SketchUp's orbit has a notion of "gravity" by which it tries to keep the horizon line (duh!) horizontal. Holding ctrl (option on Mac) suspends this action and actually allows less constrained orbiting, the opposite of what is being requested!

Now the "pluginless" method is as follows: Make one segment of the thread, make it a component Move one side of the segment up by the needed amount (here I used a default circle with 24 segments so I moved this up by 1/24 of the height of the segment - the image is of course exagerrated, see the following ones below)[image: Ic7O_MoveUp.jpg] Copy rotate it along one segment [image: Xium_CopyRotate.jpg] 4) Move it up to meet the endpoints [image: 7kog_MoveUp2.jpg] 5) repeat it with a growing number of segments (once you reached around, you can already Copy-move the whole round up as many times as you wish). [image: gXjJ_CopyRotate2.jpg] I exploded the whole thing at the end, otherwise I couldn't have smooth transitions between the segments but is you make a segment from midpoint to midpoint along the circle instead of endpoint to endpoint, you may be able to keep the components. There are actually plugins that could do this (like Follow me and keep and such) but sometimes I feel it's faster to do by hand as well as one really needs to also know how to model hings not just push buttons.

Well, I posted the problem on the ADSK Inventor help forum, but got no significant assistance. J D Mather asked me to post what I had got, but I got no reply. Using SU was so simple in comparison and the proof of the pudding is the "cock on" prototype SU isn't just for designing buildings!

Anyone driving around aimlessly in a black BMW with tinted windows, in the middle of the day is either a footballer's wife or a drug dealer. There's a lot of both in my neck of the woods. Judging by the number of such vehicles out and about, you'd think CIA Langley was just down the road.

An iPhone is worth it just for the decent web-browser. Everything else is pure bonus. You get a jolly good iPod. A nice photo album in your pocket. A moderately capable camera. It can play some games that a lot of people like. It is always net-connected. It can find you maps and soon, will be a turn-by-turn GPS nav system. It can control your Mac when playing FrontRow stuff. It can control your house lights/security/etc. Oh, and it's not bad as a cellphone. All in all, for $200 plus the equivalent of an afternoon's work to run it for a year, I think it's a pretty decent device.

Hear hear.

As this is sort of an international forum, which I frequent, I do want the Indian readers here to know that people in the US have not forgotten how other peoples showed solidarity with us after 911, and we feel sadness for the violence and suffering in Mumbai today. Also I was moved hearing how the citizens of Mumbai called for unity and restraint in this tense period. We don't get a very full picture of what it is like there, but we are following what we can. We hope peace and healing will prevail in Mumbai.

Try "Proper animation" by Morisdov! You can make all animation you want with it! See my little tut page bottom

Some observations - the screen is small, but you read that from the specifications but while small it is very clear and bright if you load up all the SU toolbars you loose out on your drawing area my biggest models are 3 & 5 Mb, moving and zooming is a bit stuttery but simpler models are smoother 5)I wouldn't use it if I had a desktop to hand, but if I had to travel and use it without large models and do some simple sketching I would. You could always plug it into a larger screen (although I haven't tried this) or even use one of these! http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?type=item&i=173834 The keys are about 15mm square. I've small fingers so I'm OK with the keyboard, but I wouldn't want them any smaller. Anyway, so far I'm happy with it and I've got it to boot into Linux (Ubuntu) on a USB memory stick although I'm not sure what to use Linux for. It's certainly easier to carry than the old IBM ThinkPad!

Seen some cool 3d illustrations which use flash and an opensource formate Papervision3d http://blog.papervision3d.org/ here's a cool implementation of 3d in Flash. http://www.cleoag.ru/labs/flex/parkseasons/

OK, here's the workflow to create unfolded sheetmetal parts - create first end of a transition create second end of transition use skin.rb to join the ends delete end faces and tweak surfaces as necessary use JF_unfold.rb to create a flat pattern align flat pattern to xy, xz or yz planes perspective off, select appropriate view, export DXF for profile cutting. Will play around with the Align feature later.