You may try to open the component (double click, or right click menu), select geometry, close component and paste.
Or do you mean something more specific?

Maybe the file could be too large for this...
For minimising filesize, make components, components, components (if the exporter to the renderer supports components). But this won't reduce the geometry that has to be displayed or rendered.

You can do much with the level of detail. Small objects do not always need to be to detailed, the same goes for far-off things. So for example for Google Earth, a dome made from a circle with 24 or 48 edges is ok, but for a small column or smaller things, I use only 6 or 5 edges. Often this would need some remodeling and is too much time-consuming. For faster results, you can try the polygon reducer plugin in the plugin section of this forum.

If nothing can be done anymore, the last step I do is deleting everything that will not be rendered (so keep only the frontsides of a building, this way, I only had to render 20000 roof tiles instead of 40000).

I know it from Gaieus and I directly tried it out, but it only imported the skp with monotone mesh. Is there a way to import textures?

Blender can import .obj and .dae (of course...), but did anyone get it to work with Sketchup's .dae?
For me, it always says it couldn't open the file. After some search in forums, I found that Sketchup produces "bad" collada files. Especially I need to import textured models and not only monotone...

I really like the intuitive way of drawing in Sketchup. Microsoft tries to copy it for their own program, but I haven't ever found something similar for linux. There seems to be no way to do 3d on linux (assumed that I do not want/not have the time to learn blender).

My following thought might be absurd or insane: What if Sketchup would have always been open source? How would we feel in modeling or suggesting new ideas or reporting bugs to be fixed? Graphic cards to be supported and so on...
Currently, Google does not put much resources into developing SU, which forces us to include everything with slow/sluggish plugins (for additional features, plugins are ok, but not for missing basic functions). There are not much progresses for the main application, it is intended that Sketchup is extended by the community.

I'm myself very skeptical about this and don't know if it would be really preferable, but maybe one time, they will clean up there profile (SU is no web app)...

Ok, I thought it would be "face camera" circle components. But maybe it would be worth a try to replace the spheres by other geometry. The plugin has really great possibilities!

I could imagine that it will have great realism, when you apply a radial png texture to the round faces.
Just like this one:

Das hab ich auch schon probiert. Dein Modell hat aber in SU noch keine Texturkoordinaten erhalten (weil die Flächen monoton sind). Da das Modell in Kerkythea trianguliert wird und Kerkythea die Texturkoordinaten nicht so gut automatisch generiert, sieht man die Dreiecksflächen. Am besten, du wendest schon in Sketchup irgendwelche Texturen (evt mit geringer Auflösung) an, für bessere Leistung kann man ja auf monotone Ansicht umschalten.

Übrigens: hier ist eine gute Steintextur:
http://rapidshare.com/files/256255718/Mauer3.jpg.html

Currently this topic came up in the Sketchup group. I really recommend to participate the discussion. All who want/need SU on linux, please speak out your wish!
Happy Sketching!

I made a large model of Moscow's city center, containing over 8 cathedrals, 6 palaces and 20 towers.

I hope you like it:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=ad1985b8966f2941b3b0172871bf10c2

I think one interesting question for us to discuss is:
Will there be a version of Sketchup on Chrome?

Because that would mean we had a real Sketchup for linux. Yes Sketchup works/ is supposed to work (sometimes) on linux in wine... but not yet for me

I worry that they won't do it. Google Chrome OS and Chrome browser a made for web applications. Therefore the browser can run web applications without displaying the menus etc, for example Google docs looks like a Microsoft Word window.

Hallo!
ich habe es notwendig gefunden, Google über den meiner Meinung nach nationalsozialistischen Benutzer Reichsarzt-SS zu informieren. War nicht gerade aussichtsreich, ist aber auch schade, dass Google dieses Thema nicht ernst nimmt.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?uq=05000088009971272368

I think some architects would have really liked it if Sketchup was invented earlier, for example the designer of this hotel in Μάλια, on the Greek island of Crete.

Except of image compression and geometry compression, I also noticed that 3d-layer models are very different from kmz (via download link in 3dwh), or maybe they are no kmz at all.

When you load a very large model as kmz-file, the complete geometry appears first, and then step after step, the complete textures are loaded.
When viewing a 3d-layer model, geometry and textures load simultaneously from low detail to high detail. This is similar to progressive file compression as it is available in some graphics programs for jpg, png.
Also, there seems to be something like mip-mapping, textures of different resolution are displayed according to the distance of the viewer.

Something that made me wonder is that a complex model loads faster from 3d-layer than kmz, but has less performance than the kmz model when orbiting around it. I experienced this for http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=4dbc22f87450a7b96f8be2f10eeff72d

Thanks for this trick. I always used 8x8 tiled components and for the borders single tiles. But this is much more precise and easier. But how do section planes behave when exporting to Kerky for rendering?

By the way, the model had 43000 tiles, so I'm really keen on Thea Render and displacement mapping.

I was looking in google books for data for a new model. I searched and found...

I already clicked this button, but it links to the top side of the same page...
I used the english version of the page and I don't see anything where I can report it.

I think the link does not work. As I found in the source code, there should be the following javascript executed "showAppealDialog()"

hello!
I got a model rejection without a reason given and I really don't see what to do better. I would be really thankfully if someone could do a quick test.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=e56424cec51ade88493f40263bc1934b

There is a web exporter by google that creates this swivel feature, that you can include to your blog with an <iframe>

http://dl.google.com/sketchup/gsu6/plugins/sketchup6webexporterwen.exe

Before I knew about it, I had extracted the swivel feature on Googles site and got it to work how I want it. You ca insert selfmade images or screenshots. Its best, if you make scenes (4 scenes and a proper animation are enough) and go to file -> export animation, choose jpeg and the number of frames per second. This way you can make scenes how you like and control the angle, zoom and the number of images.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/download/file.php?id=26958

this allows also not circular paths like this: http://aerilius-de.blogspot.com/2009/03/trifels-castle.html

I finished my recent project, a canal bridge. This bridge does not carry a road or something, but it carries water. Before this 107-million-euro project was started, ships on the midland canal (which connects all major rivers in Central Europe) had to make a detour of 12 km.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=e56424cec51ade88493f40263bc1934b

Many thanks to Gaieus who helped me solving the display bug!