@trodlermichal said: ...and SketchUp is important for my and my job daily. Your profile says you are using SketchUp 2017 Make. You can count on that version not officially supporting newer Mac OS versions. FWIW, since you are using SketchUp for your work you should not be using SketchUp Make, anyway. That's a violation of the EULA. You need to be using SketchUp Pro. As slbaumgartner wrote, many users have reported the current version of SketchUp Pro works. I would expect the next release will officially support Monterey.

What about installing SU Make (2016) on a new PC? IO want to build a new PC sometime in the next 6 months (assuming I can find the necessary parts) and my use of SU 2016 is essential to my hobby. Will a new install pass muster w/ Trimble?

Which Macbook Pro do you have? If it's one of the older models you will be able to mirror & replace the drive, which would be the ideal scenario. Here's a bit of info: https://www.howtogeek.com/348398/can-you-upgrade-the-hard-drive-or-ssd-in-your-mac/

finally got it - so for ecample IcoFX (the last free version) does a pretty good job for all types and sizes of icons.https://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-icon-editor-and-replacer.htm

You can store your model in cloud storage provided by Trimble Connect or you can save it to your computer locally or you can do both. I do both when I use the web-based version.

applemango, I can understand your being somewhat perplexed by this. I also understand a lot of peoples reluctance to post what they charge on a forum like this. Will say there are many variables that can effect what a person feels is a reasonable but proper fee for their work. Feel free to PM me and I would be more than willing to go into greater detail of my own situation.

Considered Form-Z, Blender, Rhino. Not AutoCAD or BrisCAD. VectorWorks as an over-all solution, but for me these days, I think making piecemeal changes to toolbox is best. That's why possibly using SketchUp with Blender looks interesting.

As far as the second post processing part, I wouldn't know how well that would go but probably can be done with some brute force. The first part would be making a successful import of the photo in Sketchup and aligning the vanishing points, getting it in scale etc. Then I would begin drawing lines from a reference corner of the wall, paving etc. to draw in the space and locate the position of the new building. Then I would position the model on those lines. People do use this for modeling additions or new buildings on a site. The process is the same. You model less of the existing buildings--you are just modeling surfaces and reference lines to get to correct position of your new building. Those who are into photo realistic rendering probably find it doesn't meet their standards. Those who are doing NPR probably find it hard to blend in an attractive manner. Here is an example without using renderer but with SU and some PS work. The original existing photo and one example of a new entry design modeled in SU. [image: 4Std_SRFPorches1.png] [image: 0mW0_SRFPorches3.png]

Doh, I found my answer from the sketchup forum [image: t4pN_answer.png]

@solo said: What is Sketchup ready materials? any image is Sketchup ready or do you work exclusively with .skm's? Probably meaning that they are seamless and equalized / toned.

I found that the easiest way to deal with this is to just bring the CAD file into Sketchup, go to top view, change the camera to parallel projection, export 2D graphic, pick dwg or dxf, then bring that file back into Sketchup, perfectly flat but you do loose your layering. cad model coming flat.skp

Another thing you can do is the rename the .style to .zip and poke around to see the stroke styles. Best way to deconstruct is to load a style into StyleBuilder to see what setting were used where.

The problem, if it is a problem, may lie with CAD and not Sketchup. I no longer use CAD but have suffered, along with the OP and many others, the frustration of trying to use CAD dwgs in SU. In SU a line drawn over another line results in just one line (although the resultant line will be broken if the underlying line was a different length). In CAD the reverse is true and where there appears to be a single line there could be any number of separate lines all occupying the same location. Therefore when a dwg is imported into SU a conflict occurs when SU has to accommodate multiple instances of geometry all in the one place. In applemango85's original post it appears that the brick arch is the problem. At certain zoom levels some of the lines seem to be thicker. If the CAD dwg was constructed using an array of just two bricks (top & bottom course) then there will be multiple instances of lines in the same place. This is just my take on the situation of course!

im pretty sure I purged all the unused (could of missed something though) - I did the model info purge and also used thom Thoms plugin to ease a little more out texture wise I used those preloaded on sketchup and a few from https://www.sketchuptextureclub.com (I did rotate a few textures as they looked a little odd in their current position - I don't know if that of made a difference) I don't know what the average persons model size is - I never thought that a 16mb sketchup file was considered to be large but obviously I'm very wrong (though I would of thought that the mobile viewer would of been able to handle at least 20mb models well - I hope Trimble will release a version in the future that will be able to do so. Thank you Dave, that is terribly kind of you - did you private message me details ? - I'll check now

Happy boss....? oxymoron if you ask me...and I am my boss so I should know.

Try the demo of both and see which you prefer. Which to choose depends on many things. Cost, workflow your knowledge level of rendering, time to learn, setup times, etc.