GE to Sketchup to GE problem

mirjman

Billy - it seems like there are two problems

the terrain that gets imported into sketchup is a simplified version of the GE terrain. It gets less and less accurate as the area that is imported gets larger
GE seems to work in a spherical coordinate system, you might be getting placements/rotations that are slightly off in the conversion.

the way i've gotten around this problem is to import the terrain into sketchup, explode the terrain, replace the gray image with a color image of the exact same view (that was exported out of GE), then raise the whole thing high enough to avoid intersecting with the actual GE terrain when you export it back. You will have a very small gap between your import and the GE terrain but it is very hard to get to that level in GE and it will be hard to notice

twharvey

Hi Billy,

There are a couple of other issues around the terrain from GE: the Snapshot is a more accurate picture of the area looking straight down, but the elevations is flat with the average elevation of the terrain. The two immages intersect at the center of the image in GE. So, half of the Snapshot is above the Terrain and half below.

You can always build a "platform" in the Sandbox a little above the terrain and place your building on this. At the same time that you download the current image from GE to SU, save the view in GE as a JPG file then import his onto your Sanpshot image. If you texture the platform from the colored Snapshot, it should blend in the the terrain and show up well in GE.

Tom

Gaieus

Hi Billy,

There are a couple of notes here (sorry but on this "craputer" at work in the office I cannot even get the current snapshot to be imported to SU so I cannot check every word now).

Google used to "encourage" users to hide all edges in the model before uploading. Now AFAIK in the latest SU version it is automated so your imported CAD lineworkwill never show up.

The snapshot and terrain images are never diplayed in GE so whatever you drape on them will not be displayed either (you can use Tom's workaround however).

It seems to me that you are only working with the snapshot and not the (elevated) terrain. Notice that there are two extra layers in SU after importing the snapshot;

the flat GE Snapshot which is the one you should start working on (and from your decription that is inded the case in your workflow) and which is turned on by default
AND the GE Terrain which has the topography features (which you seem to be missing) and which is turned off by default.
You should also adjust your model to the terrain (with different techniques since it is never 100% accurate).
You can turn on this layer by clicking the checkbox right to it OR by using the "Toggle Terrain" button in the GE Toolbar.