I also think this is one reason why Google does not let people download them.

Scott, the correct way to locate your sketchup model in GE is to use the "Google" toolbar. You must use have both google earth and sketchup open at the same time, go to GE, find a view that has the area of work, and them import that into sketchup using the toolbar. This will give you a scaled image on which you will place your model just like you would like to see it in GE (make sure its scaled properly). Make sure to toggle the terrain on so that you can locate the poles on the Z axis correctly. after you locate the features where they need to be, you can export the model to a .kmz file that you can view in google earth. Here is a video from the 3D basecamp that does a geat job of describing how this is supposed to work. http://sites.google.com/site/3dbasecamp2008/all-sessions-2008/introduction-to-geomodeling-with-sketchup-and-google-earth Its a long video, but i recommend watching the whole thing if u can.

Thanx, John, I wonder how big a computer you need for that... and what kind of budget!! Tom

Ahha. That's the problem then! Noet that SU files (kmz files for GE) neverimmediately and automatically become parts of the default GE 3D Layer. There is a quality control first of all (and considering the amount of the uploaded models it can take a while for the QA Engineers to go through them) then the layers are only updated from time to time, not constantly.

Hello, You may find this quick tutorial useful: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11436 ... Regards Howard L'

you can put your SketchUp models (via kml/Collada) on it as well. ps. python author (Guido van Rossum) works at Google also it is easy to go phyton after you played with ruby (and vice versa)

Thanks Tom for your response on GE/SU, I have to volunteer at the hobbyist level too. I see many questions about GE on this forum, and there isn't a corner to collect these threads or meaningful contributions like many of the other SU friendly software. I believe that Google will continue to enhance the GE/SU crossover modelling, and where and how to follow these developments is my question? Certainly, it may not be in the interest of the forum board and moderators, to take on more GE/SU content. I couldn't agree with you more, Tom, there is some really good work been done, but its been lost in the sheer volume of content(3DW). I'll have to take another ride on the London Eye.(I'm sure sketchphysics could give this ride a real spin!) Cheers alpmeadow

Thanks for taking an interest. This morning I laid out a small wind farm called High Praire, with 67 turbines, in Minnesota. I'm not sure if it's been built yet. The turbines were placed by overlaying the site map from the site application form. Here is the skp file. http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/High%20Praire%20Turbines%20in%20place.skp 7MB Here is the KMZ file created by using "Place" into GE, then saving to kmz in GE. http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/High%20Praire%20Wind%20Farm%20placed%20and%20saved%20in%20GE.kmz 3.78 MB Here is the KMZ file created with the export function of sketchup. http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/High%20Praire%20Turbines%20in%20place.kmz 11.9 MB The KMZ file created by sketchup is big, slow to load, and choppy to navigate. It's only virtue is all the models are clamped to the earth. The KMZ file created by GE is smaller, and navigates much better, but as the models get farther from the origin they float higher off the ground. To see that in this model, which only stretches about 10 miles you have to navigate close to a tower and look from ground level. Trying to save the kmz created by sketchup from GE causes GE to crash in the attempt. Why does sketchup create a more complicated larger KMZ than google earth? Shouldn't they both create the same size KMZ? Every turbine is identical and has the identical orientation so the KMZ file only needs to be the geometry of one turbine plus the 67 locations where they will be placed. It should be a reletively small kmz. The size of both KMZ files suggests the model is being saved multple times. Thanks again for taking an interest Charlie

i dont know. it seems i've tried everything but i will keep trying, maybe its my browser or graphics card or something. i will keep modeling and just hope eventually they will go away and i dont have to redo all my models. thanks

... and in any case, kim frederick, I dont think Google will prefer to include a better rendering in SketchUp not before had been stabilisized the core potential and suchs things. So dont worry )) and the Earth vision is getting marvelous .

make sure your terrain settings are the same between GE and SU, ie if you are modelling on the flat image in SU then make sure the "terrain" check box is empty in the layers palette in GE, and vice versa it also helps to zoom as close as possible in GE before importing the base image into SU... your terrain will be more detailed and accurate

@pmiller said: Plus a switch to turn on 2048 resolution for openGL rather than messing with registry? Hear hear! Why are these little gems kept from us?

Yes indeed, they are great models! You should PM Craig about them really!

Hi Radicaljon, You should give some more details about your method of importing pictures. What I guess now is that you import the images but do not explode them so they appear on top of existing faces of your SU model (OR you anyway there are two faces right on top of each other). This causes the two "faces" (the real geometry face and the image) "fighting" for visibility (aka "Z-fighting"). You could do a couple of things to avoid it: explode the images and apply them as material on the existing faces (suggested method) move the images a bit (say a couple of centimetres) away from the faces (not the best method - should only use it when you want to display say a picture in front of a wall only) remove the faces behind the images - use this only if they entirely cover the area where the face is behind. Note that there seem to be glitches in the communication between SU and GE in the current releases so sometimes the images do not appear correctly But what you wrote about your problem seems not to be related to this. If this is not the problem, please, attach at least an image (though a "simplified" version of an skp file would be even better).

I haven't modelled anything for GE for a long while so I cannot tell. I might give it another shot one of these days as I have plans to use it for certain purposes though.

Yes but it's still better than removing geometry (or being unable to navigate) IMO. Hopefully by the time GE gets really populated, both computers and bandwidth (for streaming) wil be better.

I found a way to import patches of terraing using a pregenerated grid in google earth, and have prepared a script to create this grid http://a4chitect.webng.com/ further info> http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=753 you will however still get 'unclean' stitches - but this is impossible to avoid since the imported terrain/imagery from ge isn't always rectangular.

I thought of something like that, but the options tab is greyed out when I select kmz as the file type.

As far as I investigated, using components in SU does not affect the size of the resulting KMZ file that much. In fact, I have just made a test and exported a SU file (with lots of components) into kmz. The one using components came out bigger than the one that I exported after exploding the components( and purging the components from the browser). See attatched file. I'm not too much in scripting but to my understanding, xml format (simple text files) cannot support components at all (Tomasz could confirm this - or anyone who regularly export into Kerkythea). Rename your kmz file to zip (that actually it is) and you will see a kml file in there. That's the geolocation info only. Now there's also a folder in there called Model or what (I'm too lazy to check) inside which there's a collada file (with dae extension) and the images if you used any. Both files (the dae and the kml) can be opened in a plain text editor and you will notice that in the collada file there's no info about components or anything. So as a final "verdict" - with excessive geometry instead of photos you cannot keep the size of a kmz file smaller when it comes to a certain level of details and complexity. I made some Gothic churches with ribbed vaults and window tracery and ended up with GE almost being unnavigatable when playing around with placing them. When a model loads, first the geometry loads and then the images (sometimes one by one). So you are already able to see things and navigate around while it is still loading. If you use excessive geometry, this will not be the case. A colonnade however should really be modelled for instance - you cannot substitute all detailing with images. You need to find a healthy balance between them. I hope I haven't been too exhaustive doric_coloumn.zip

Hi Mirza, this is a problem with multiple trips from SketchUp to Google Earth, where Google Earth continues to reference a previous texture in cache (temporary memory). You can fix this easily by going to Google Earth and selecting the Tools menu > Options... and then clicking on the Cache tab in the Google Earth Options dialog. Once you are in the Cache tab, click the "Clear memory cache" and "Clear disk cache" buttons and then click the "OK" button. Now re-Place Model and you will see the textures lined up correctly! I hope this isn't too inconvenient for you, we are working on a fix. Cheers, - CraigD