Haha... I emailed them, we'll see how long it takes them to reply...

Hi Andrew, Check this tutorial out! http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11222

Hi Stefan, Usually what Google demands (and "normally" people would / should do) is to model with Terrain on since if it is 3D,the terrain should also be 3D. However,with simpler models (one building at a time) when you suddenly turn terrain off in GE, the model should more or less "accurately" jump down or snap to the flat terrain. This cannot be achieved with a longer wall of even the smallest graveyard (especially knowing that these graveyards are actually often placed on hillsides or hilltops near the villages in the valleys in Europe). A solution could be to model smaller pieces of the wall separately and upload them one by one but this would be a ridiculous demand so I would go to ignore those not toggling terrain on when viewing 3D buildings. Of course there could be a solution; to prevent 3D building from being displayed when terrain is off in GE - or more exactly, turning on the 3D Layer would automatically trigger the terrain (and with exaggeration 1). Would make a good feature request

thanks remus--I will do that. D

Coen, if you don't mind, I'll add to your rant. I just ran the update for for GE and it did automatically added the Google Toolbar for IE. I tried to stop it, but then it stopped the GE update. I've had this problem with other Google updates. If I wanted the damn Google Toolbar, I'd install it. But I don't, so now I have to take the time to uninstall it.

Good idea (Tutorials section) and thanks to Boothy for creating the original tutorial

I think mine was about £30 but if you can afford a Leica Distometer (the cheapest ones are about £100) I I really would recommend it. The Ryobi one I have is not much use for measuring outdoor distances as it only uses the lazer to shine a dot on to the surface you want to measure to, but it actually measures the distance by using a sonic beep. This works fine indoors but outdoors there is often too much interference for it to work accurately. I have used the Leica distos and they actually measure with the lazer so they are supposed to be accurate up to about 100 metres. If you have around £300 - £1000 to spare, the Leica bluetooth models are excellent. They will beam dimensions straight to your laptop, pda or phone. If you use them in conjunction with bluetooth enabled cad software like Powercad Sitemaster, the software can actually draw elevations or floorplans semi-automatically while you measure. See link to "Give Me Power" who sell Powercad Sitemaster. Michael Axon, the guy that runs this firm demonstrated the system at my office and it really was impressive, but expensive. The Sitemaster trial will let you save though so it is worth downloading and having a play. http://www.powercad-sitemaster.co.uk/ edit: Its worth having a look on ebay too, just found this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LEICA-DISTO-LITE-D5-LASER-MEASURE-DISTANCEMETER-IN-CASE_W0QQitemZ350122746172QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Measuring_Tools_Levels?hash=item350122746172&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Tricky tip

Just 5000 dollars for the software... is cheap

This is the response I got in the TopMod forums. Share it with you. Thanks for everything. @unknownuser said: Juan, TopMod does not have the ability to import non-manifold meshes, and Sketchup does not have the ability to export manifold meshes, so I'm afraid this conversion process is only one way. You can really only export from TopMod and import into Sketchup, but not the other way around. All of the meshes that TopMod generates are manifold , aka watertight. This means that there are no holes in the mesh. Here is that definition put another way: @unknownuser said: Quote: A Manifold mesh is a closed polygonal mesh where each vertex is surrounded by a 'fan' of triangles. This means there are no 'OPEN faces' or stray elements like edges or verticies. So if you were to fill a mesh generated by TopMod with water, no water would be able to escape, because there are no holes, or open faces. However, sketchup is a much more free form design tool, and it allows any kind of geometry, including dangling edges, holes in faces, multiple objects, etc... The "g mesh" command in the obj file from Sketchup is part of the OBJ specification for the file format, which allows OBJ files to have more than one mesh in them. TopMod only supports obj files with one manifold object in them. So in short, to get a mesh from Sketchup into TopMod, you will have to go through another more advanced program such as maya, which has some really great tools to convert non-manifold meshes into manifold meshes (fill the holes, fix dangling edges/vertices, etc...), and also to combine separate meshes. So if you have a file with 2 cubes in it in Sketchup, it may seem very simple to just export it as an OBJ file, and import it into TopMod, but you would really need to import that OBJ from Sketchup into Maya, combine the 2 meshes into one object (they still don't have to be touching eachother, but they need to be "combined", in the Polygons -> Combine menu in Maya), and then fix the non-manifold issues with the mesh (there is actually a great tutorial about this concept here: http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=157746). Then you can easily export the mesh from Maya as an OBJ and import it into TopMod. If you don't have access to Maya, there are some open source tools that can do the trick, but they are not as robust as Maya, and it may be more difficult. I suggest trying out Wings3D, it's a wonderful open source 3d modeling tool: http://www.wings3d.com/ here's a tutorial on fixing manifold issues: http://www.virtualritz.com/tutorials/us ... -topology/ Let me know if that makes sense. I can try explaining some of this in Spanish for you, but so many of the technical terms don't translate, I've always found it difficult to talk "3d" in Spanish. Anyways, please let me know if you need more help getting something to work, or if you want a mesh converted, send it to my email at dvmorris@gmail.com and I'll convert it in Maya for you and send it back... Dave Juan, TopMod does not have the ability to import non-manifold meshes, and Sketchup does not have the ability to export manifold meshes, so I'm afraid this conversion process is only one way. You can really only export from TopMod and import into Sketchup, but not the other way around. All of the meshes that TopMod generates are manifold , aka watertight. This means that there are no holes in the mesh. Here is that definition put another way: @unknownuser said: A Manifold mesh is a closed polygonal mesh where each vertex is surrounded by a 'fan' of triangles. This means there are no 'OPEN faces' or stray elements like edges or verticies. So if you were to fill a mesh generated by TopMod with water, no water would be able to escape, because there are no holes, or open faces. However, sketchup is a much more free form design tool, and it allows any kind of geometry, including dangling edges, holes in faces, multiple objects, etc... The "g mesh" command in the obj file from Sketchup is part of the OBJ specification for the file format, which allows OBJ files to have more than one mesh in them. TopMod only supports obj files with one manifold object in them. So in short, to get a mesh from Sketchup into TopMod, you will have to go through another more advanced program such as maya, which has some really great tools to convert non-manifold meshes into manifold meshes (fill the holes, fix dangling edges/vertices, etc...), and also to combine separate meshes. So if you have a file with 2 cubes in it in Sketchup, it may seem very simple to just export it as an OBJ file, and import it into TopMod, but you would really need to import that OBJ from Sketchup into Maya, combine the 2 meshes into one object (they still don't have to be touching eachother, but they need to be "combined", in the Polygons -> Combine menu in Maya), and then fix the non-manifold issues with the mesh (there is actually a great tutorial about this concept here: http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=157746). Then you can easily export the mesh from Maya as an OBJ and import it into TopMod. If you don't have access to Maya, there are some open source tools that can do the trick, but they are not as robust as Maya, and it may be more difficult. I suggest trying out Wings3D, it's a wonderful open source 3d modeling tool: http://www.wings3d.com/ here's a tutorial on fixing manifold issues: http://www.virtualritz.com/tutorials/using-wings3d-to-fix-topology/ Dave

Yes, it is true and it should work. Im not sure where youd be able to get a download though. Id guess your best bet would be here, or possibly the google groups forum. You might have to be careful about 'pirating' it though, as it was a commercial piece of software.

Hi James, There was a long thread about it a year or so ago. See here: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=46 Note that the render was made in 3D Studio and not by me but by a company; H2G2.hu (not a meaningful website because they are under construction but I shouldn't say a word either with mine ) Since these models are not current ones, they cannot get onto the 3D layer of GE. I think I have screwed up something with that mausoleum however because it seems to be out of scale yet they included it into the final, 3D Layer soo I now finally have a blue badge!

Ah yes, I've seen it (also posted in the CB about it). Tell me about a project like this; after all I'm an archaeologis (on top of all; specilised in Roman age). I have already digged up the contact details of the leader of the projet and will email him immediately (just trying to find my words after the shock)

Looks awesome from the Thumbnail. Can't download from sites like that on my work comp. Can you post it elsewhere?

@x3voodoo said: Hello there. Escuse my english, but i am romanian. I have two problems. Please help me. First one: Why, when i want to make a surface doesn't work, or is working but it's making just a half of the surface, like in this picture. And the second problem, how can i zoom to be very very near of the project (house), because i cannot approach to see if there is another line(bad one). ? Thank you very much and please help me. I think you are off square.

Hey Kona, Try opening windows, then go to preferences, then click openGL. Try clicking on fast feed back instead of hardware acceleration. And if it is already on fast feed back then click it off and click onto hardware acceleration. From my personal expierence I prefer fast feed back since my graphics card is crap and shows that error all the time. I hope that solves your problem. ~Rsdevour

@idraft said: http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_thread/thread/14168c7bbabd829/bd0617c15f78519d That thread also included an offer from Todd Burch, "I'm sure I can write this in Ruby... it's just a time thing right now." I suspect all such efforts were put aside when v5 (I think) introduced the PhotoMatch tool. However, PhotoMatch has its limitations. I'm pursuing this because I'm interested in getting 3D positions of points when you have several photos from different angles that contain the same points, but you have few or no perspective lines/edges at all. Thanks again, August

Ehaflett and Susan Thanks for the very quick reply. I now have what I want, the watermark on each scene. Now, I wonder why that was not in the help files. Anyway, thanks again Ken

Ive found the main difference to be the lack of a scroll wheel on the tablet. It means you have to always go back to the zoom tool every time you want to zoom, not really a big issue when you get used to it though. Apart from that i dont find their to be much difference, other than the inherent obstacle of getting used to using a different input method.

It appears that if you want to use guides you MUST have axes on. Turning off axes in 7.1 turns off the guides.