I do not completely follow what you are saying. When you say: "you must have 'Materials' folders for both yours and SU's" are you saying that I must name the folder on my PC "Materials" and then point SU to look at that folder for materials?

I have tried changing the folder with my files to both "Materials" and "My_Materials". I have subfolders named uniquely and the same ("Stone" and "My_Stone"). In all cases nothing shows up inside SU. If I copy a folder of materials to AppData>Roaming>Sketchup>Sketchup 2017> Sketchup > MAterials then it will show up at the bottom of the list in the materials browser. As far as I can tell changing the folder locations in SU via windw > preferences > Files > materials as no effect. I'm sure I'm missing something which is kind of driving me nuts.

I don't know why I am really even trying to get this to work anymore, certainly isn't seeming all that convenient. My goal is for sketchup to forget about what comes stock with the program and use the materials and subfolders of my choice. I suppose I will just go back to the way I have been doing it which is to change the structure in the OS files.

It seems simple to me. Don't try to sample the material through the section plane. It's simple enough to turn off the section plane so it isn't in the way. You can't sample a material through other planes in SketchUp either. This doesn't seem like a bug to me.

You are welcome, I am very interested what you find out as I am bit confused with the Ortho functionality when dimensioning.

I did notice the blue # and saw that my "problem" must be related to this after I posted. I poked around but couldn't find where to change this. I don't know if this is workable but if there was an option to change start page numbering in a context click menu on that hashtag I might have found it.

In any case thanks for helping me with this. I will be sure to check out the official forum next time I have an issue.

Thanks for the tip about paste in place into a file. I use paste in place a lot when I am modeling for different reasons but never thought about trying it in a new window. I didn't realize it would work across files.

I don't think it will work for my current issue because I'm just making very small adjustments and I need the rest of the model to reference but it's a great thing to keep in the back of my mind for later because you never know. nice tip

Thanks, I will give that one a try as well

Just remember if you use two different versions of a material (horizontal and vertical), you increase the file size and potentially reduce performance and speed. If you have to edit the materials, you have to edit them both. You waste even more time that way. Applying and aligning a material isn't at all difficult to do in the model and once you've set it to each required orientation, you just sample the needed orientation when applying the material to other faces. Still, as with most other things in SketchUp, you can choose how you want to invest your time and how much to invest.

Take the s out of https and it will be fine.

You're welcome...
I'm just happy to help... 😄

(actually the answer was so easy I thought there were something I had misunderstood... 😆)

Hooray! I'm so happy someone made this. Thanks

After looking at my model I do think that it was a style update issue. Thank you very much for the help with that one, it was getting quite frustrating.

@Dale: Yes it will just be native SU output

@pbacot: That is a good idea I will play with that a bit and see if anything comes out

@earthmover: That is a very helpful thread indeed. I think this may get me pretty darn close to what I want if I take some careful notes about distance and such. It seems like I could get something close by measuring the angle of the field of view and use this to set the scale. Hmmmmm..

Awesome, and quick responses. I love it! Anyone else?

thanks that seemed to do it. Something I was never aware of is that directly opening a model from the warehouse gave me this error and the DC functionality did not work. However when I loaded the same model into my existing model it worked fine. Seems like a significant bug to me. I prefer to open a model by itself and see if it is worth using before I import all the junk layers.

I am looking for this as well...!
Hope someone will make this a ruby...
like angular dimension...
For now...I sketch in top view...up along green axis...
(the text will align to screen...to the right)...
the dimensions is put on one by one...
from midpoint of component to starting point(zero)...
each has text position set at start...
I have an example jpg to show...but do not know how to insert here...
Edit: Thank you Dan for assistance...!
Greetings Jakob.

dimension from zero.jpg

What I discovered is that when you dimension from the first point to each successive stud you will start to get numbers that overlap since by default it places the dimension in the center of the two end points. If you double click on the dimension you will drill down to the native parts (for lack of a better word). At this point you can grab the text and drag it to where you want it. Pretty painless work around and the number stays linked to the lines in case you move them later.

We call them running dimensions. RD. I like them a lot. Would be good to have in layout maybe someday but there are tons of other things I would like to see first.

@mwm: In my workflow I group/component everything that is a physically distinct object for the most part. I feel like it makes the model behave more like a real world object and is easier to edit. I do not use any geometry that is not in a group or component because it always seems to create way too many problems when I move or alter things. I use components for anything that is identical or symmetrical so I only need to modify one of them or one side of it. In this case each stud is unique so I use groups. This way if I duplicate a stud and alter one of them later they both don't change. I use layers for assemblies that are related (wall framing, roof framing, wall skin, windows and doors etc)

I use sections seldomly since SU doesn't render solids I find them to be of limited use for my work. In this case I am modeling the walls due to the complexity of the angles involved. I have a 5 man crew at the moment and If I can give them a plan with the angles and lengths called out it makes the work much quicker.

I am in Taos