FredoScale works beautifully on Groups and Components. It’s always best to wrap your geometry in a group before applying complex twists or bends to avoid "sticking" to other geometry.
Unleash the Power of SketchUp with the FredoScale Plugin If you’ve ever tried to scale a complex 3D model in SketchUp only to find it distorting in ways you didn't intend, you know the frustration of the native scale tool. FredoScale fredoscale plugin sketchup
FredoScale is a comprehensive suite of transformation tools that extends SketchUp’s basic scaling capabilities. Instead of just pulling corners of a bounding box, FredoScale allows you to orient the selection box around any axis and perform geometric "gymnastics" that would otherwise require hours of manual work. Key Features at a Glance: FredoScale works beautifully on Groups and Components
FredoScale requires two other libraries to work: LibFredo6 (the framework) and TT_Lib (Trimble Library). Don't skip these! The plugin will prompt you to install them automatically. Don't skip these
In native SketchUp, if you rotate a component 45 degrees, the scaling box stays aligned to the global Red/Green/Blue axes. This makes it impossible to scale the object along its own length. FredoScale automatically aligns its bounding box to the object’s local coordinates, giving you surgical precision regardless of how the object is rotated in 3D space. Pro Tips for Efficiency
The FredoScale suite includes several specialized tools designed for precision modeling:
| Feature | FredoScale | Native Scale | Shape Bender | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Bending | Radial, precise, interactive | No | Yes, but along a path (glitchy) | | Twist | Yes (gradient) | No | No | | Taper | Yes (smooth transition) | No | No | | Performance | Fast on groups | Very fast | Slow on complex meshes | | Learning Curve | Medium | Easy | Steep |