Dude! Way over the top. There are no adequate superlatives for this level of work. Flamtingletabulous doesn't even come close...

@l.frisken said:

I'm having trouble getting this boat hull for a paddle steamer that I'm building to subdivide nicely (it looks ok in sketchup but when rendered you can really notice the problems with it). Can anyone help me? It is to exact dimensions so I don't really want to change the overall shape too much.

Take a look at this one. I made a few minor changes to the geometry and got rid of the outright glitches...
paddle_steamer_x.skp

Edit: After I uploaded this, I took the top off to see what it would look like without being enclosed. This exposed another accidental surface on the inside of the hull that needs to be removed.

@marked001 said:

first image is so simple and clean...love it.

First computer room I've ever seen with no wires...

You're probably better off going with the material, but it's an interesting thing to model just for fun...

@smallfry said:

More views please!

Welcome to SketchUcation, Smallfry.

Here's another view, and the zip file below is the .skp for this model. It includes a five-twist moebius strip as well.

MobieusStrip.zip

@fbartels said:

PS Is the dome house still around?

I don't know if it's the same one, but I see this house every time I drive Interstate 40 through Yucca, Arizona...

The picture is a screen capture from Google Maps street view.

@escapeartist said:

OK, I tried a couple of variations on both suggestions to see what would work.

Excellent results! Persistence pays off...

@escapeartist said:

I see what you were saying... No, I'm definitely using the first function, the "ball in the box" icon in SD&S. It does add a lot of geometry though.

One of the things that you can do after the Subdivide & Smooth operation is to manually remove unnecessary geometry that was created in areas that remain flat, like the surface of the liquid in the glass.

Otherwise, there are lots of rendering experts on this board (I'm not one of them), so I'd recommend that you upload your model and have one of them give it a look.

@escapeartist said:

How to, in Sketchup?

I created a wineglass and added a surface to create the liquid. The only way I could think of to create the meniscus was to draw a bezier radius at the intersection of the liquid plane and the glass surface and then use the "follow me" tool around the edge. That went well - but when I applied SD&S, it created little "dents" at certain intersections which creates issues when the object is rendered.

Any suggestions on how to get around this, or how to create a better model in sketchup to avid this issue?

My guess is that the follow-me tool didn't create a perfect connection to the edge of the glass, and when you applied SD&S, the edge of your meniscus pulled away from the glass at every point that failed to connect.

Instead of the follow-me tool, make a flat surface that connects to the glass all the way around, then make a concentric circle inside that surface with the offset tool and pull it down with the move tool. That will make a meniscus that's properly attached, and it will generate less geometry if you SD&S it...