Cartesion Coordinate assigning for construction and layouts

ltrain5000 · 31 Dec 2018, 19:24

I work in Civil Infrastructure Construction and often draw the 2D plans we get from government entities and or owners in Sketchup for obvious reasons.

The plans we are issued for construction oftentimes come with control points used for construction staking in State Plane Format (more information regarding State Plane below).

The State Plane Coordinate System: Background information on this coordinate systems and instructions how to use it in Hydromagic.

Eye4Software Hydromagic is an excellent hydrographic survey software package running on Windows. Use it to map areas with a RTK receiver together with a single beam dual frequency echo sounder.

Eye4Software (www.eye4software.com)

Cartesian state plane is the format most widely used for construction surveying.

I'm trying to either find or develop a plug-in that will allow me to reset the 0,0,0 location in Sketchup to a desired coordinate point that is already provided in the plans we are issued. The setting of a second control point will give the N,S,E,W orientation and thus any subsequent point drawn on the plans will then generate its own coordinate, but be accurate according to the other control points-- Just like it is done in AutoCad based Survey Point generation software.

This is all doable with a spreadsheet using a simple arithmetic, but id like to be able to do it within Sketchup using a plugin.

Is anyone aware of such a plug in? It seems this would be a common desire to do considering the wide range use of Sketchup for architecture, etc.

Dave R · 31 Dec 2018, 19:34

There are a number of extensions that can create a point cloud from a list of coordinates. Perhaps one of them would do the job.

If you are using SketchUp 2015 Make as indicated in your profile, you need to update to SketchUp Pro.

ltrain5000 · 31 Dec 2018, 23:23

My bad on my profile. I hadnt updated it since I joined a few yeas ago and I never post. - I updated it to show I use 2018 Pro. Ive tried multiple extensions, but Ive not found one that does what I describe. Can you share the ones you have in mind?

Dave R · 31 Dec 2018, 23:52

There's Didier Bur's Cloud which is available in the PluginStore here on SCF (click on PluginStore at the top) and numerous ones in the Extension Warehouse. If those don't work for you, you might need to hire a developer to create one for you.

I expect whatever you do, you'll need to convert your State Plane coordinates to something that makes sense to SketchUp. You would also need to decide which of the coordinates in your list should correspond to 0,0,0 in SketchUp because you'll want to keep the model close to the origin. I would think that it would be easy enough to create a spreadsheet template that can make the adjustment automatically, though.

From my reading of the State Plane Coordinate system, it's got issues that can cause troubles especially if your site straddles zone boundaries.

ltrain5000 · 5 Jan 2019, 18:46

Thanks for the reply. Any recommendations on a developer?

Dave R · 5 Jan 2019, 18:57

I'd just put a request in the Develops forum.