@tk0001 said: What a great tool. I love the ability to focus in on an item and blur out the rest. I pulled up an old model of a small sortation facility and played around. I loved the results. [image: Misc_1_zps72053f82.png] Hi, Mark. Very nice. What is it? Some part of automatic assembling line?

@tk0001 said: Thanks, Bob. No funky mega-advanced video card needed or anything? If it is still only FullHD there should be no difference to any other 5"/10"/22"/27" FullHD screen.

I'll be impressed when you post a fully-detailed Death Star (including interior)

@ntxdave said: @tk0001 said: Dave, I think the technique I used here would work well for you, as long as the views are relatively close to the camera. The further you pull away, the more the dark edges jumble up the background "unhighlighted" information. The model I'm working on is of a facility that is rather large, so I want to try to dampen the background stuff as much as possible. What I really wanted to do was replicate the view SketchUp gives when you double click on a group, but with transparency in the surrounding information. I'm close. Hopefully I can get there. Yes, it probably would however, that means all of my groups would have to be duplicated plus there is the camera distance issue. The car wash runs anywhere from 135' to 155' long. Therefore, the lines could be an issue. My other point is that everything is centered around presenting in a paper driven environment (which I fully understand since a one of the primary uses is for the builders and etc.). However, today's environment also needs to be a little more multimedia focused as well. As you described about the monitor, we also present our proposed layouts from time to time with touch screen monitors. One of my dreams would be somewhat similar to what you were describing/wanting. It would be really neat if I could bring up one of my models/layouts, double click on a piece of equipment (component/group) and have it highlighted or the rest of the equipment hidden (like double-clicking on a group). I have looked at some presentation tools that support 3D models but they do not give me the capability to "cycle through" the various pieces of equipment in my model/layout. Guess I am just living in a dream world Wish I was a good enough coder to go off and develop something on my own. Good luck in your pursuit, Dave. Hopefully an adequate solution will be presented in this thread one of these days. FYI, to give you some perspective, if you refer to the "Highlighted" image above, the outside dimension of the blue highlighted equipment is about 300'.

@wo3dan said: @tk0001 said: @smicha said: Here is my solution - works prefect for me: Define new shortcuts: F5 - parallel view. Pressing F5 twice will switch from parallel to perspective. Alt+1 - top view (I also have defined Alt+2 for bottom, and so on up to Alt+6) Z - zoom extents - it is defined as ctr+shift+e by default, but I use this function too often. So simpler Z works perfect. Now select your object among many in your model. Hit F5 for parallel view, then alt+1 for top view and finally Z for zooming on your selected object. Hope it helps. smicha, using this method, the views are still intermittent, but I really like these shortcuts! Thanks! I will use these heavily! They shouldn't be. The method described by smicha works if you apply the appropriate 'Zoom Extents'. There are two different 'Zoom Extents'. One is the default Ctrl+Shift+Z or the icon. The other 'Zoom Extents' is the one in the right click context menu. It is this one that you need to assign to a shortcut key. It isn't displayed in the overalll shortcut list untill you have something selected. So select something > then goto menu Window > Preferences > Shortcuts > assign 'Edit/item/Zoom Extents' to a key(-combination). Say you pick {Ctrl]+Z With this shortcut key it always works. Method (being in Parallel Projection): select something you want to focus on in top view > hit Top View > hit [Ctrl]+Z THERE IT IS! Thanks so much. This is something that has bugged me for awhile. Glad to know the solution wasn't as easy as I feared.

Not only that one can't print to scale another stupid thing is preview, all pages only. Printing in layout is extremely obnoxious. Also crashing, when printing, exporting, previewing.... Shame that these Trimble people can't see that. Tones of mickey mouse plugins but not one that does the real thing.. Also software's 32bit legacy and lack of real kick power behind it irrespective of what machine or GPU one uses?! Most of the work done via processor thus crashing... After all pain of assembling construction drawings etc. at the end a real pain to print it out?? That's a joke.. From Sketchup to Layout to Mental Clinic... I have a project comprising 30 detailed drawings, can't print them, export them, preview them.. I use capture software to paste all drawings in image software and print them there... Every time I attempt crash after crash, bug splut etc. Sent file to Sketchup with level 4 support man telling me that I am one of the two on the planet earth with this problem. Can't believe that they are trying to make a nag run like a thoroughbred, and at the same time pretend that everything is fine?!. Whole software should be re-written. True solids, 64 bit, proper GPU integration, contemporary GUI, Transparent Skethup-Layout interface, list goes on. I've been using it since 2003. Love and hate relationship. Presentation, visualisation, animation, brilliant. Serious construction, detailing, simply as it currently stands in particular Layout, crap. One day my prince will come, hopefully... Sorry I went a bit of tangent, but my pain is immense...[/size]

@dale said: I think this is a well executed example of the effective use of SketchUp to pointedly express a design concept. Very clearly presented. Great stuff! What he said. The execution is appropriate.

Have a look at Google Sketchup support. This covers everything that can affect SU performance including "Computer settings" which sounds like what you are after. baz http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36235

It's not a SU problem. And, I've never heard of Windows coming out of sleep without user intervention (unless you've got wake-on-lan, etc turned on). Something you're doing or not doing is causing this issue. I'm not sure why you seem to have been resistant to closing SU at the end of the day. That would have explicitly forced you to save or discard your work.

Here's the other side of the building. [image: portlandlighting2.jpg]