Importing ellipses and circles from AutoCAD has always been a problem for me; as you probably know, SketchUp changes them into chords with a default of 24, too rough for my use. Generally I set centers in the DWG and then re-draw them when I'm in SketchUp but that's a lot of work. Recently I put some effort into finding a better solution and I'd thought I'd share it here. Important to note, this solution doesn't make the SketchUp geometry into a true circle or ellipse, it just gives you more control over the number of chords.

Circles are not really a problem - select the circle, open the Entity Info panel and increase the Segments #.

Ellipses (ovals) are not so obvious. SketchUp doesn't recognize them as a geometrical shape so you're more or less stuck with what you get when you Import. Here's the solution:

Draw the ellipse in AutoCAD and then offset it an arbitrary amount. The offset geometry will not be an ellipse - it'll be a spline. Then offset the spline back in the direction of the ellipse the same amount you offset the ellipse and you'll have a spline that matches the ellipse. SketchUp will make every control point on the spline a line length. You can increase the number of control points on the AutoCAD side of the equation by selecting the spline and typing in splinedit, then choose Refine, then Elevate. Increase the default # from 4 to 6 and you'll have an ellipse shape when you Import into SketchUp with enough line lengths to be usable.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

I think I've figured this out.

A big and growing field is 3D scanning. Architects, crime scene technicians, studios, etc. are all moving towards 3D scanning as a way to generate 'as built' information. You might have seen a program on the History Channel about scanning the inside of a Gothic cathedral in 3D to reveal structural problems (fascinating show).

Trimble is a big player in this field.

Doing a brief search of 3D scanning companies reveals a problem - in what format are you delivering the generated information to your client? What kind of software does your client have to have to receive and process this information? Most of the 3D scanning software comes with some kind of 3D modeling functions but they're all pretty lame. The assumption is that the client is going to port the information into their own software - Revit or whatever. But Revit or AutoCAD are expensive solutions and not appropriate in all fields.

I think the aim here is to have a full 3D scanning solution that includes software (SketchUp) that can assemble all the point cloud data in a usable manner for the client without the client having to have specialized software on their end.

I don't know to what extent this scenario would help us or hurt us but I think that's what's happening here.

This takes me back to the time when Google bought SketchUp and the forum members were speculating about which company 'should' have bought SketchUp. My response then, as now, was: Why does someone else have to own SketchUp? Why can't SketchUp own Sketchup? Doesn't the $500 pro licenses generate enough money to pay the developers salaries?

Google bought SketchUp during the initial phase of the Internet stock market boom when giants were competing with one another to see who could buy the most small companies. It was assumed that this was a natural and inevitable phase of software history but I think it had more to do with testosterone than any natural arc of software development. How did it benefit SketchUp? The optimistic response at the time was that Google could bring it's extraordinary wealth to allow SketchUp to really grow compared to it's pre-Google days. But it didn't. There were changes and improvements but not at a speed or depth greater than when it was privately owned by At Last.

No matter how you look at this development, it means that SketchUp is no longer a company that is first and foremost answerable to it's users. It's answerable to Trimble shareholders. True, after being bought by Google, SketchUp was answerable to Google shareholders but it was such minor part of the whole Google business enterprise that we could at least hope it wasn't noticed too much. Not now. Now it will be, for better or worse, a function of a relatively small companies balance sheet and that is what will dictate all decisions concerning the software.

I say we put out a world wide call for the users of SketchUp to buy it away from Trimble. How much would you pay to be a part owner? $10? $100? If there are 3 million users and one third of them pitched in, how much would it take?

@arcad-uk said:

Interesting looking product which apparently owes a lot to SU. Shame they didn't learn from SU's marketing. I'm always suspicious of a company offering a product that doesn't publish it's prices, this usually results in regional rip offs and I won't touch software on a time limited licence which stops working at the end of the licence period; been there done that and lost a lot of valuable data because of it. As a consequence I won't even bother with the demo.

Agreed.
The first thing I do when I hear about a new software that might be useful to me is to go to the sales page to find out what it's price point is. If I'm expected to contact a reseller for a 'quote' I back out of the site and don't return. Too shady for me.

I work in AutoCAD and import into SketchUp. I have a procedure that works well and I go back and forth between the two applications with ease. Except for circles.
Question - is there any way to control the number of facets that SketchUp breaks a circle into? Generally I put a center cross at all circle centers in AutoCAD and then redraw them in SketchUp at a higher number of facets than SketchUp's default which is 24. Is there a control to tell SketchUp to import all circles at 48 rather than 24?

A suggestion:

When you solve a problem, no matter how basic it might be, post your solution.
Someone searching the forums for 'glossy surface' would find your post but the second entry 'I got it' wouldn't help them at all.

Just a thought.

@jgb said:

Clipping as you get close is a perennial problem. I suffered it in spades when I started with SU years ago. I asked several times on the old SU BBS, and got no solutions.

Then I discovered SketchUcation, so I asked here, and Catamountain (whatever happened to her??) solved it.

As you start zooming in and get clipping, select some face, as a reference to where you are going.
Turn OFF Perspective.

The view will zoom out considerably.

Then zoom in to the selection, and keep going till you get close enough to whatever.

I have gotten close enough that a line fragment only .001 inch filled the screen. Note the cursor or tool will start getting jerky as you get in real close, and sometimes selecting an entity becomes a bit dicey.

When done with the closeup, zoom out before you turn back on the perspective.

That is a great tip. Thanks for that. I'm always plagued by the inability to get close to details in SketchUp so this will be a great help to me.

I use a program called Print2CAD that's pretty good. But there are no magic bullets out there - you still have to do some work. The converted document will have a lot of very screwy lines and the vector data won't be very accurate.

@unknownuser said:

Mapped in another app and exported to .skp with mapping preserved. SketchUp can't map but can open mapped models.

Short answer....

I'll have to try that. I assumed SketchUp couldn't read UV data so I only import geometry.
Thanks for the reply.

I can't imagine working in AutoCAD LT without Osnaps. The F3 key turns snapping on or off universally and the Osnaps panel lets you choose the particular snaps that are 'on'. My work flow all day long is a continual dialogue with the software as to what I want to snap to: INT (intersection) / MID (midpoint) / NEA (nearest), QUA (quadrant), etc.

It's one of the reasons why AutoCAD LT is my main application with SketchUp used for 3D work.

I was under the impression that SketchUp lacks UV mapping capability but I downloaded some models from the 3D Warehouse from someone called Reallusion iClone that have UV maps. The model I downloaded is a male figure and the clothes and the face show up as UV maps in the Material editor.

Can someone comment on this. Is there a SketchUp function that I'm not aware of?

This is one area where I geatly prefer AutoCAD's method. In AutoCAD you can keep selecting without de-selecting objects by accident. To de-select you hold down the Shift key. Much better than SketchUp.

The file came in as a DXF and has gone back and forth a few times.
I think it has something to do with how SketchUp handles PDFs.
There must be some built in limitation that I haven't been aware of before.
I opened the file on my big computer at home assuming that computer would just eat it's way through the problem but I got the same error message there.

So I ran a line through the pattern and made it into two files and then SketchUp was able to Export it. So there must be some kind of size limitation.

Flower Pattern Long Table.skp

I have a SketchUp file that is a 2D pattern of some flowers. I need to make some revisions in the pattern but when I select the pattern and choose Explode (it's a Group) I get an error message that reads:

Unable to create the error report.
Please verify that there is enough space in your TEMP folder.

Has anyone had experience with this problem before?
Where is the TEMP folder? What does it do?

I've closed SketchUp and reopened. I've shut the computer down and re-started. Same problem.
Any help is much appreciated.

@majid said:

off topic but maybe interesting: motiva colimo+ Thea render is almost a miracle, has anyone tested it? (Thea as a hybrid engine and motiva as a time saver!!)

---

I also like the relight system of Thea:[attachment=0:ofhpbqth]<!-- ia0 -->1-relight.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:ofhpbqth]

---

fymoro models are good for almost every render engine (maybe not good for hypershot that has a weak interior render result)

I'm curious about this. I couldn't find a page to download a demo from motiva colimo but I'd like to try it out.
Maybe you could post some more thoughts, insights about it's usefulness?

Edit: I just found the demo download link.

I would start by adjusting the Gamma setting - Color Mapping > Gamma

I have not yet begun to explore Outliner. Maybe this will be an opportunity for me to see it work.

That makes sense. I'll try that next. Thanks

Thanks for that. It's obvious now that I see it.
I was trying to select the object to be added after opening the component for editing but that, of course, deselects the component. Selecting the object first, then clicking Copy, then opening the component for editing and pasting does it.
Learn something new every day.

Is there a way to add material to a component?
For instance - I have a component made up of a table and three chairs. I can select Edit Component and delete the chairs but I can't see how to add 3 different chairs to the existing component. This is for a banquet hall and I have 60 such components so I'd like to not have to create a new component and reposition all 60 items but the client wants the chair changed.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.