It would be leading away from the topic if we continued too much, but you’ve probably seen many posts of mine with the trouble I have had with the native tools. It can work but it’s just so delicate. I’ve been using Simple DXF for everything for a while and have a lot of confidence in it. Although the face orientation for direction and grouping does take a bit of getting used to. Simple DXF is the best solution for me.
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Yeah, I don’t want to hijack the thread, I recall how much we went back and forth before. The point is that figuring this out once and for all is my resolution. I’m sure I’ll be contacting you when I get down to it next year.
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Ummm . . . prepare for 3D Basecamp? It’s easy to look like you know what you’re doing in front of high school students who’ve never used the program, but an audience of experienced SketchUp users is another story.
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I am a beginner at sketchup and 3d printing. These are my goals for 2020. It looks like I will need lots of help.
I do all my design development and construction documents with SU and LO. I want to eliminate Cadd and do my conceptual design phase in SU and layout as well.
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Would love to see an example of that 
Perform simple SU architectural renderings where both the execution and appearance do not exude “digitalis”, such that the experience and viewing are enmeshed as a flowing creative drawing experience untainted by digital constricts and digital constructs.
To this end, where is SU right now in meshing with Wacom upper end drawing tablets? I want to buy a large Wacom Drawing Tablet, plus design software that is easy and flowing, and do not want to fight with forcing SU to cooperate nor spend creative time in the trenches of “digitalis”.
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Try Traditigital rendering!
Instead I’m going to spend less time trying to put everything in the model and use GIMP more.
I design robots. I wanted to make a robot that moves much more like a human does. I had success with the design, but getting it to move in Sketchup is so so difficult. I think Sketchup needs to tackle rigging. It makes no sense that Maya has the topic of rigging all locked up! The Autodesk learning curve is so steep, whew. For example, remember the puppets with strings attached to their joints? Why can’t Sketchup make that as a feature one could turn on and off. Little red boxes with little red strings that float down out of their own little red box and movements of these strings move the joints of a Sketchup model that the strings are attached to. Actually move the structures of a Sketchup model. One could move the little red boxes around in 3D space and !gasp! let Sketchup have an ability to “remember” the motions with respect to time, so that one could not only move the structure to where they wanted it to be, but one could also use this time memory feature to sequence the motions to create animations with ease. Why not? And, please, Sketchup, give us an ability to specify joint motions like Maya rigging. Setting what axes of motion are allowed for each joint, and what the limits of range of motion are. Why not? And it’s so sad that organic shapes are such a fight. I have Artisan, but its suggestions of how to move a selected plane group is never what I would have picked. So, Hey, remember those little red boxes and little red strings? So, why can’t Sketchup place a sphere around any group, put the boxes on the sphere and set the strings so they always pull perpendicular to the plane area where the box is located on the sphere. Then, in Artisan, one could modify organic surfaces where it isn’t so confusing…by telling which box on the sphere has its string connected to which selected area on the model, and one could pull the string in or let it out, and the selected area would move only in the direction square to the axis of that string. Why not? I put the robot out in the trees to say “Hi.” I sure wish it were easy to let him wave his arm.
Just a thought. and of course Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all. Dr. Gray
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@patrickgray, perhaps an option for now.
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Thanks, endlessfix. I like your extension in its abilities to stipulate movements of groups and collections of groups. It sure is better than what I was doing, which is moving my model piece by individual piece. However, Here’s just page one of a Google search of Autodesk Inverse Kinematics:
“With inverse kinematics (IK), you move an IK handle to pose an entire joint chain. An IK handle is an object you can select and move that affects the joints it is assigned to. … When you pose and animate a joint chain with an IK handle, the IK solver automatically rotates all the joints in the IK chain.”
So I think that’s what I’m really after. It’s very sophisticated. Sigh. There are so many considerations. Let’s say you have group A and in group A are Groups 1,2, and 3. Group B has groups 3,4, and 5. No problems. Move Group A and 1,2 and 3 are put in place. Same with Group B, and moving Group A and B just aren’t any problem. OK, now Group C, inside Group C, you have to put Groups 1,4, and 5. Hmmmmm. So what happens? If you request Group C to move, the program is going to have to answer the question, “OK, I moved Group C, but that meant I moved Group 1, and that really means I changed Group A also.” So, the program will have to send this question to the controller person, “…is that OK, moving Group A, even when you didn’t tell me to, all you talked about was Group C???” I have no simple answer to this issue. I think Autodesk figured this out with their Kinematics. And they really understood what people want, which is Inverse Kinematics… where all one needs to do is move one finger of the hand, and the Inverse Kinematics algorithms will “figure out” what they’re supposed to do with all the other joints in the arm. Very Nice. I just wish the simplicity of functioning of Sketchup could be applied against this issue of rigging, kinematics, and inverse kinematics. I’ll tell another story, but it’s a story, so at the very moment you get bored, its OK, just stop reading. It’s OK with me. People get bored with how I explain things all the time, but I feel I have chosen a robotics project that is not really a very simple conversation. Oh well, it is an interesting problem. I wanted to make a robot that was drawn inside of a mechanically proper program that forces the robot to be an item that really could actually exist as a physically real item. It’s not hard to make 3D looking characters that move around in a really cool and fun way, except, they could never actually exist, because they violate the laws of physics. I wanted to show that, hold on a second, you actually can make a robot that moves like a human being and it could actually be really created out of real material. I think human beings are optimized and their motions are the best approach for general purpose just wandering around bipedal locomotion in variable contour terrain. It is essential that a robot can get up if it fell down. Example: lie down on the floor on your back. Ackkk!! You just fell down. So how to get up. Bend you left knee to about 90 degress and plant your left foot on the ground. Take your left hand, put it on the ground, palm down, just to the right of your right shoulder. Lift your hips and torso up by pushing down simultaneously with your left foot and your left hand. End result, you “flipped yourself over.” Now you’re face down on the ground. Put your palms on the ground under your shoulders, start a push up. Flex your right hip and knee so you can bring your right foot up under your pelvis, put your right foot on the ground, do the reverse of a deep knee bend while simultaneously pushing down with your hands. Now you are standing up. No big deal. My robot can do this. My robot has the hips, legs, and shoulders that allow this…in just a snap. No problems. The other robots can’t. But for me to draw this is at least 1000 poses. It would take me a year. It is just frustrating. So I keep hoping Sketchup will empower rigging, kinematics, and inverse kinematics inside the simplicity and intuitive obviousness of Sketchup. Hey …it’s the New Year…who knows who knows. Dr. Gray 
Doc…have you seen/tried this…Mixamo
I realize the extension is not exactly your request, which is very detailed, just thought it might get you closer. You could import your model into autodesk if it has what you need, I go back and forth between SU and Fusion360.
Full disclosure: that extension belongs to @DBS, and I have not yet used it although it looks interesting. I just thought it might get you a step closer to your very detailed request / 2020 resolution, as full character rigging is not likely to be included soon. I think many of us would rather see future efforts go to more general improvements that would benefit the largest number or users.
Thanks Charlie_v… I see that ol’ Wiley the Coyote is an organic shape. I don’t have enough artistic talent to create or move around organic shapes. And, of course, I would say…“Well…ol’ Wiley did do internal and external rotation of his arm at the level of his humerus…how did he do that???” And at that point we are back to control and maneuvering of the structural components of a joint. pg
Develop my own workflow for generating construction documents, and of course plugin development.
I wish to finnish plugin for connecting sketchup with widely used cutting optimisation software Optimik.
The carpenters can use dynamic components as they wish in their workflow and than just send it with optimik export plugin.
Been using it for last two years as beta version and it just tripled the speed of drawing,visualization,pricing, cutting optimisation, reports atc…
Sketchup is highly addictive when you start to use it for your work and optimik as well.
http://optimik.com/
bandicam 2019-09-25 16-21-58-442.avi (15.8 MB)
Just to show you a little bit.
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My resolution for the new year is 1920 x 1200 times two.
A new pair of Dell U2415 LED monitors.
Now that I have lots of space, perhaps 2020 is the year I’ll sort and organize my dreadful ‘Miscellaneous’ components folder.
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My goals for this year is to integrate SketchUp into my work flow pipeline. Also to become more active in the SketchUp community.
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My goal for this year is to finish and release Mac OS version of:
Brighter3D
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I think SketchUp really shines for conceptual design; rapid prototyping of floor plans, door/window placement, material options…
I think it helps to expedite this process with lots of keyboard shortcuts, good use of (dynamic) components, & a model organization that stays intact through all the revisions.
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