Dylan, I am sorry, I wasn't ignoring your post. I just took it for granted that we are meeting for coffee.
put it in on your calendear. Somewhere in the week before Oct 27 you must be available.
I will give you more details when I have them.

Any chance to make it a real SketchUp get-together. I know there are lots of you in the UK.
Is Allan hanging around here any more?

Very Clear.Thanks Jeff for all the time and trouble you took.
Thanks everyone for all of your help.

okay, I have re-read jeff's post.
Let me get this straight. They can't just start to drag, they need to "customize toolbar"
first When the window is open then they can drag the tool bar they don't want, away? Do they drag it back into the "window" with the tools or do they drag it up and out of the bar accross the top.
Thanks, sorry, see I don't find this intuitive at all.

jeff is understanding what I am talking about.
But b janzen I think maybe I wasn't making myself very clear, sorry.

I don't want to collapse the entire toolbar. I need the toolbar. It is just that some of the tools on it need to go. others need to stay. The button you are talking about appears to hide or collapse the the entire toolbar.
So, now, Jeff, if I am right and you are supposed to be able to drage away the "getting Started" toolbar, how come none of my MAC people are able to do so?
Any ideas?

YOu say there is one button. But I want other tools to be open and only the Getting started to go away. That is I want to pick and choose which toolbars stay. Surely there is more than one button?

could I ask you for a screen shot of that upper right gray button?
Thanks so much for the help.

No, not the Welcome window.
This is View>Toolbars in Windows.
When you first open SketchUp, whether it is the Free version or the Pro Version,
The only Tools are in Toolbar accross the top. It is " baby toolbar" with only the most often used tools in it. It is meant so that it isn't daunting for the new user. Accordingly it is called the "Getting Started" Toolbar in the View>Toolbars Menu for "Windows" In Window, all you do is UNCHECK it and it disappears. Instead we use the "Large Toolset" wich we Check. In Mac there is all this draggin going on to get the tool palettes in place.
So how do you get rid of them, any of them but most particularly the Gettting Started Toolset.

I'm on PC teaching MAC people remotely. I can get them to open the "Large Tool Palette" but I can't get them to get rid of the Getting Started one. I thought that on the MAC you just "Drag" away (up and out) any tools that you don't want but that doesn't seem to be working for anyone.
Can any one give me a hand here? Many thanks.

Jackson, when did you move to Malmo? Do I remeber seeing something about that here on the forum? Prickle prickle in the brain. I may have.
Yes I need many tips abouot London and surrounds. Although I hate the idea, I may end up doing one of those "if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium" type trips. I just hate the idea of not seeing something on a once in a lifetime kind of trip.
I would just love to get up to Edinborough for a day as well.

As for the artist. His work just floors me. I you coulc watch one of his painting demos, I think there may be one his site, you would see how quickly and easily he does one of these. He is using loose brush strokes and spatter and it looks like he has spent hours with small deliberate strokes. He is a talent for sure.

That's so amazingly cool. I want to join. I think I will. Thanks for bringing to my (our) attention.!!!

I am going on a "painting holday" led by one of my favourite watercolour artists, Joe Francis Dowden, of the UK. He is conducting it in Croatia for a week starting Oct 27. It originates from London so I probably spend about 1 week in the Uk before the painting trip.
Anyone available for coffee?
I am sooooo excited. Haven't done anything for myself in so long. It's been all about the kids.

This artist, BTW, throws one of his very realistic looking paintings together in a very short period of time and he uses a lot of "spatter" to achieve very convincing looking foliage.
take a look at his work here: http://www.joedowden.net find the "Croatia" trip link here http://www.joedowden.net/Croatia_2009.htm so that you can all envy me.

Thanks Bruce. I really still don't want it. Trust is gone and I really loved your idea of helping out SketchUcation with something like this. If I thought it would have been accepted and workable, I would for sure have wanted to go this way.

Bruce that would be an interesting idea, but I think the client would want to have a say in that, don't you?

Even if they did agree, who will get stuck with all the phone calls and e-mails?
It isn't the modelling time that this at issue, it is all the other nonsense around it. If it were my project, I don't think I would be happy having a different contact every week.
At any rate, I sent of an "I quit" letter and they phoned me and made nicey nicey and apologized and promised it will get easier from now on once all the preliminaries are out of the way.

Gee, I really thought someone else here would want this and jump on it.. I really thought maybe the fault is in me.
Thanks for all the support.
There is no signed contract. I just don't like leaving people in the lurch and I feel that I have made a commitment. That is why I am looking for a replacement. They first contacted me because I am the Authorized SketchUp Training Centre in Canada and they were asking me to recommend someone. Times are slow so I recommended me.
You know what it's like to get yourself into an emotional state over something and then try as you will you can't be rational. I just want to escape. I wish it would go away.
Now they say that the just need to know I'm available if they want to ask a question during the meeting so they can quickly give me a ring. Okay.
But I think one more of these shows of "chutzpa" and I won't feel a sense of obligation any longer.

Oh that's funny Jim. Thanks for the story. I don't know, perhaps I'm getting too old for such nonsense. I thought I was just being a curmudgeon and some young, hungry person wouldn't mind at all for the chance to have his/her work on TEEVEE.

Hi Guys,

I took on a job and I am getting an uncomfortable feeling from it. I think I would like to resign it and perhaps someone else here would be interested and not have my reservations.
Here goes: It is for an HGTV show for a room makeover. They want someone to model a room the way it is going to look "AFTER" they redesign it. They provide the after shot and some very rudimentary plan and elevations views with some measures. They expect some close as possible furniture from 3D warehouse to cut down on modelling time. I told them that each room should take me anywhere from 3 to 5 hours.
Then it was revealed that I will get only 1 room a week for 13 weeks and that I need to invoice each piddly bit each week. I could have lived with that. I was also asked to alert them if any room is going to take me longer than 5 hours becuase they are on a very tight budget. Sure, no prob.

I was asked to attend a graphics meeting wayyyyyyyy downtown. I spent almost 2 hours with them telling them all that I could accomplish with SketchUp. Looking at what they do want, what they don't want etc. The commute there and back was about 1.5 hours. This was all a freebie, okay fine.
Then I am contacted to attend another meeting and I tell them I need to bill for it.
So no meeting. Then I am asked to explore various SketchUp styles on a kitchen so they can decide which style they want to go with. I spend about an hour playing with different styles and naming scene tabs and I send it along telling them that I have spent 1/2 hour, I'm so nice. Then they start asking me for more stuff and I explain that I really can't be expected to do all of this for free and I hope they understand. So I am told, no prob, just let them know when my 'Free" time is no longer available. So now I think they don't get it that I expected to be paid for the 1/2 hour.
Then I get another e-mail about the same meeting only now they want me only on the phone for 1 hour. Again I tell them that that is 1 hour of "work" and I need to bill for it.

I have a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach that this job is just not going to make me happy. So if you can live with this ( rate is $50 Canadian per hour and I really think they want someone in Toronto), I'll pass your name on to them. I think I have had enough.

Ya did, Chris. It is epx which is just a Tiff with 2 extra channels. I can't think how to unravel that info because epix is proprietary and I somehow doubt they would want to share the data therein

Yes, that's right. I didn't realize that that would have been helpful info, sorry.

Al, below are 2 images. the first is using a black "Fog" in SketchUp on a Hidden line drawing. I should probably have used Monochrome mode with no edges showing instead. But you get the idea. the next one is the same view within Piranesi's Depth Chanel. The background red is the "infinity" of the Sky.[attachment=1]gapFOG.jpg[/attachment

No Al, I can't think of anything like that. But there is a neat demonstration somewhere where you can use the "fog" setting within SketchUp to accomplish the same sort of thing. Something in "black" that conveys the depth by degrees of gray in the alpha channel

That is essentially how it works in Piranesi. If you were to look at the "depth channel" ,which you can indeed do, for any image imported from SketchUp, it is displayed as degrees of Grey ( Gray?) and I believe that is how it is recognized in Piranesi as having differing depth.