Retaining tool setup in skp file when sending to others

apple85

Hello all,

The title I chose above doesn't explain very well what I need help to do so bear with me. The members with experience in the product/item design industry or even interior design/architecture whom regularly communicate with clients may be able to help or have an idea for an workaround.

I want to be able design items/products (such as furniture, lighting design) for potential buyers to view (and make limited edits to in terms of materials).
I did think about the sketchup viewer as an option but it doesn't have quite enough options (I want clients to have access to tools like 'pan', 'rotate' and 'zoom' functions like in the sketchup viewers but also have access to my customised paint bucket/textures window in terms of editing functions - but not editing functions such as 'resize' or 'draw'....................... aka keep the toolbar very basic) - basically "sketchup viewer deluxe version" if you will.

For example if I was designing a chair i would what people to be able to experiment with the custom materials I have put in sketchup such as different variety of woods and material patterns (but not brick for example) -I would like my chosen preset tools to load for them (not their ones) when they open up my file on their computer.

(sorry I'm having some problems explaining what I am trying to do so I may need to edit this post once I think of a better way to explain this - I am trying to achieve in sketchup what they do in these 'build your own bag/chair, etc' websites - where color and material can be experimented with but not the actual item itself if you get what I mean)

Sorry that is so vague - i will try and think of a better way to explain things but any help with this would be much appreciated

(By the way I am using sketchup 8 on the mac)

Many Thanks

TIG

If you give someone else your SKP you cannot limit what they do to it.
It cannot be 'locked' or 'limited' in any way.
Even if you expect them to only have the 'viewer' then they can readily open it in a 'free' version of SketchUp anyway...

If you want to give others your SKP data but stop them changing it in ways useful to them and in infringement of your copyright... then there are ways to send it out preprocessed as 3dPDF, SketchFabbed etc... which remove the direct SKP linkage... these have been discussed elsewhere on the forums quite recently... But these options might again preclude some of the 'SketchUp' options you would like to include. There's no such thing as a free lunch...

JQL

TIG is right of course but With Dynamic Components you can do almost everything you want to do.

Try opening the Dynamic Components toolbar, (view > toolbars > dynamic components) select the hand (interact tool) and click on the guy that shows up when you open Sketchup 2013 (Derrick).

Then go activate view > hidden geometry and click with the interact tool again and see what happens.

Insert some more Dynamic Components from the component browser. Insert some more DC's from the Google Warehouse. Search about DC's here or at Sketchup website.

Try a lot, fail a lot and you'll succeed!

Best regards,

JQL