IMO the best free application to handle AutoCad files if you don't have AutoCad is the free DWG TrueView from Autodesk. It can open, view and print every DWG or DXF variety, and it can convert them down to older formats, even to version 10 (late 1980s), if I remember right.
Anssi
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=6703438&DCMP=ILC-DWG-PUV
Adding grass as geometry will necessarily boost the model's face/edge count. Using a components instead of raw geometry will make the file size smaller, but it has no effect (or even an adverse effect) on model performance. The customary way to add areas of grass is to use a material/texture. Making a lawn of individual blades of grass will grind SU to a standstill.
Anssi
@honoluludesktop said:
@unknownuser said:
......Pretty much every country that's abolished capital punishment, doesn't circumvent the Geneva Conventions, doesn't illegally abduct foreign nationals, doesn't torture, etc....
I get the ideals, but which countries?
It's no longer an ideal, it's in practice in at least (random order):
Sweden. Norway. Finland. Denmark. Iceland. The Netherlands. Belgium. Germany. Luxembourg. Austria. Switzerland. France. Spain. Portugal. Italy. Greece. Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. Poland. Czech republic. Hungary. Slovakia. Slovenia. Croatia. Malta. Great Britain. Ireland.
This is not to say that there is a country with no human rights problems at all, but my in my list they are the smallest.
I confess to being something like an EU patriot...
Anssi
I wasn't sad to hear him dead. Looking at the jubilating crowd made me.
Anssi
You could load the SU 8 Pro trial - you would have 8 hours to import the models. DWG or DXF is the way to go in this case. The 3D Studio Max format is so highly proprietary that it can only be opened or imported by the 3DS Max product family - I don't know of any converters, either free or commercial.
Anssi
What file format are you importing through? DWG? Check your import and export unit - if you are importing mm instead of meters, for an extreme instance, you would get a way smaller model than you meant and you would have a lot of missing faces as they would have become too small for SU to handle. I have tried this once without any problems, but my building was rather simple. It still had small round things like faucets that came out quite OK.
Anssi
@ledisnomad said:
Alan, I always get an error when I try to bring in components with TIFFs. Are there particular TIFF formats that work and some that don't?
Also note that SU doesn't like files that use the CMYK colour space, it only supports RGB for colour images.
Anssi
In my computer (Windows 7) the templates reside in C:\ProgramData\Google\Google SketchUp 8\LayOut\Templates. If you need to delete a template, just navigate there and delete it just as you would delete any file. The ProgramData folder is invisible in the Windows explorer unless you make it visible from Organize menu>Folder and Search options>View pane.
Anssi
It seems to be the same with all 3D applications: PDF exports tend to be huge. For me the "Reduce file size" command in Adobe Acrobat (in Standard an Professional versions) has often proved very useful. I just tried for an example: I exported a 9-page Layout file that gave a 15-megabyte PDF, and Acrobat reduced that into 980K with no visible deterioration in quality. Archicad and Revit exports seem reduce even more.
Anssi
John,Otis,
The file I posted was exported directly from LayOut. For some reason Otis has difficulties opening it - it opens OK in my Adobe Acrobat 9. File>Properties says that it is a version 7 file, so it seems that LO export into that. What version of Adobe Viewer are you using?
Anssi
You had a4 specified as the document size. I corrected that and exported it to PDF. The layout suffered a little, I am afraid, we seem to have different font specifications.
You could have created the whole poster in LayOut, IMO it has nothing that would have required the use of SketchUp. (Perhaps some 2D illustration/page layout app might have done as well or better)
Congrats on the design and the render. I think the planners were right - it looks better without the dormer that would have distracted from the delightful simplicity of it all. Nice to see as-built photos here.
Anssi
The Franck stoneware is very durable. I have in daily use some bowls and rectangular serving dishes that, as far as I remember, were purchased by my parents around 1960, and others we bought ourselves in the late 1970s. I still find the simplicity pleasing, and our kind of food looks good in it.
Anssi
@mitcorb said:
Excuse me for being so analytical but, hopefully the internal diameter at the waist is sufficient for hand scrubbing the interior?
Yes it is (just). I have a red one (used usually as a flower vase). All of these are very familiar to me. The glass is the original where the material is very thin-none survived my childhood home. Thanks Marleus.
@nicolerouillard said:
Hey,
This is all very interesting. Having trouble navigating to system32. This is the screen I get:
You are not giving the system any commands. Typing directory names is not enough - as the error message you get shows.
So you should type, followed by Enter (not the explanations I italicized)
cd\ (this navigates to the root directory of the current drive)
cd "c:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8" (this navigates to the SU application folder, the quotes are compulsory here)
regsvr32 thumbsup.dll
Note that this doesn't work if you have a 64-bit operating system.
Anssi
To me this looks like the visual distortion that appears when the model is very far (miles/kilometers) from the SU model origin. It usually happens when modeling on a CAD import of a site plan or similar that uses a coordinate system from a digital map, and the "preserve original coordinates" option is checked in the Import Options.
Anssi
@ethip said:
Is there a way to convert Sketchup file to CAD files?
If by "CAD" is meant AutoCad, the only relevant 3D file formats that AutoCad can import are FBX, 3DS and AutoCad's own DWG and DXF formats. SketchUp Pro can export to all of these, but for the Free version you must find an intermediary application. It seems Blender might be the one (it's free) as according to their website it supports collada (the format exported by SU Free), FBX, 3DS and DXF.
Sorry about the alphabet soup... 
Anssi
If I am making a publication where I must combine many kinds of material and SketchUp appears only as renders, and the material is unlikely to change, then I use InDesign or Illustrator, but for a presentation of a SU design, especially if design changes are likely to happen, LayOut has proven very useful to me, as updating the model is a snap, compared to outputting every view as a separate image or drawing file, postprocessing these to fit the publication, and adjusting every page for the inevitable glitches appearing in the process.
Anssi
When printing from SU, using the "Use high-accuracy HLR" setting forces the print to use vectors instead of raster, so the same limitations apply as with PDF or DWG export: no textures, shadows or transparency.
Anssi
In SU transparency is, like shadows and textures, a raster effect that is lost in full-vector output. So printing using a PDF printer is the only option to get transparency from SU into PDF.
Anssi