The 0.skb problem is in SU8, the sandbox issue was in SU2013.

@pbacot said: or AutosaveAutosaveMyProject~~~~~.skp lol yeah, that too. .

I have already seen the same issue in my toposhaper model. I think the answer may need to be developed either in the tool or some workaround. I think the water line needs to be projected on the terrain surface then the vertices flattened to one plane. There are "make planar" and "flatten vertices" tools that may help. Haven't gone back to trying it out yet. I made do with the last method for now. Maybe the toposhaper tool could be designed to flatten the edges at selected holes.

That's what I did, then I made half columns, and corner columns. Actually doesn't look to bad.

And the winner is, the Gilles technique, for ease of execution. I will try the other techniques also. Thanks guys! I got to thinking in the real world, you wouldn't any one to fall of the steps, so I sandwiched the staircase between two walls, with an entrance at the bottom. [image: 6v8H_silobserv.jpg]

@massimo said: Never apply textures to an entire group/component at once. Open the group-->apply the texture to a face-->rotate it-->pick the paint bucket tool-->alt+click on the face with the texture-->paint the adiacent face-->alt+click on that face and pick the adiacent face and so on. Well, I did some more testing and this time I got the eye dropper to work so I did not have to use the alt+click methond (which BTW worked). I created my box. Applied the texture and then rotated it. Once again, after rotating I used the eye dropper to click on the rotated texture. I then just clicked on an additional face and it applied the rotated texture. I also tried a second time by doing the first 2 steps, then just selected the entire box (did not make it a group) and when I used the paint bucket while the entire box was selected, it applied the rotated texture to all sides........ Makes me wonder what I did the first time that the eye dropper method did not work........ I really appreciate the feed back from you and cotty......

Back to the original question of how to engrave text: if you have the Pro version, the solid tools make combining the 3D Text component and the rest of the model easy. For the rest of us, a few lines of Ruby make it easier to select all those faces and fill in the missing holes. See http://www.instructables.com/id/Engrave-3D-Text-With-Sketchup/

In the UK simple timber-members supporting floors/roofs spaced at 16" c/c [400mm] the rule of thumb is for a width of ~2" [50mm] the depth is span_in_feet_as_inches/2 +1; so a joist spanning 14' [4.270m] needs to be 14/2 + 1 = 8" [200mm] - if you use the reg-tables or actually calculate it that is what you'll get ! For most steel-beams we'd take 1/20 span as the initial design depth, so generally a 12" U-beam spans 20' [300mm for 6m]. Obviously these things need calculating properly, but this is useful as an early design indicator - indeed, the standard way of designing a steel-beam in the U K is to 'guess its size', then check that with its live+dead-loads for adequacy in stress/shear/deflection, then if it's under-stressed you 'go down', or over-stressed you 'go up': there are several 'weights/linear m' of most standard steel beams which are nominally the same overall sizes but have differing wall/web/flange thicknesses - since you pay 'by the ton' it can be cheaper to use a deeper beam with thinner cross-sections, as that may well be cheaper than a heavier beam that is smaller - of course is you are stuck for space you may well have to use the more expensive one ! It is difficult to estimate the depth of 'engineered' timber or steel members; however, the manufacturers will usually give tabular indications of spans/loads >> depths etc... A lattice beam may well be deeper than a solid beam for the same span, but of course the lattice version will contain considerably less material, so balanced against its fabrication/connector and additional external envelop costs it can well be cheaper than the solid equivalent - and of course the heavier solid one can have knock on affects on other members/foundations etc, and it is also less suitable for passage pipes and ducts within its depth...

@tspco said: Thanks Tig but I need to ask about SOP, in my world that is "Standard Operating Procedure". Probably not the same definition in this context. In the UK it's the Setting Out Point...

Late - just got home. And I haven't even been out on the town... My brain is trying to tow my body to bed.

This is a nice and helpful website too: http://www.colorexplorer.com/ [image: 0lgF_colorexplorer.jpg]

Thanks Tig, I was thinking about this item last night, you know you work at something for so long a time, then your mind goes to mush, and you can't think about it anymore. All that is needed is someone with a different approach, to add input. I originally wanted to use glass panels below the handrails, or between the top and bottom rails that make up the railing system. I will post a sideview later, so you all can se what I want to do.

I could, but probably not. A tornado would be hard to make in SketchUP. That said, someone here will try to make a tornado.

Jim been there done that, I just don't care for the downward movement while spinning.

If you upload these models to the 3D Warehouse, there is a checkbox that it is real and existing (or what). Leave that empty and all will be good. If you do not even upload them, there's even less to worry about.

@sdmitch said: To find the location of the highest and lowest points, you would need to look at every edge making up the terrain mesh. The only way to do this efficiently would be a plugin such as > def label_high_low > mod = Sketchup.active_model > ent = mod.active_entities > sel = mod.selection > hi_pt=nil;lo_pt=nil;hi=-1e9;lo=1e9 > hi_vec=[0,0,2400];lo_vec=[0,0,-2400] > grp=sel.first;#select the GE 3D terrain > grp.entities.each{|e| > if e.class==Sketchup;;Edge > (hi=e.start.position.z;hi_pt=e.start) if e.start.position.z>hi > (lo=e.start.position.z;lo_pt=e.end) if e.start.position.z<lo > (hi=e.end.position.z;hi_pt=e.end) if e.end.position.z>hi > (lo=e.end.position.z;lo_pt=e.end) if e.end.position.z<lo > end > } > ent.add_text(hi.to_s,hi_pt.position,hi_vec)#label the high point > ent.add_text(lo.to_s,lo_pt.position,lo_vec)#label the low point > end > This episode code is the right thing i'm looking for. It provides an addititonal option for Mesh2Heightmap. because the mesh2heightmap generate a greate heightmap but not provide the minimum and maximum elevation values without which i can not use this map to generate an accurate terrain.

You can also make the two far values a bit wider and play around positioning the whole rectangle up/down a bit.