@chris fullmer said:
Yeah, I kind of preferred the old way as well. I think the major improvement is just that you no longer need Google Earth installed to make it work.
Something you get, something you loose. Good thing is that 'Add Location' window can be stretched...
@chris fullmer said:
Its the one that is completely drive from within SU. Press the icon for "add location". That brings up the window with a map. Navigate to where you want. Then set the pins and click grab or whatever it says. Thing is, you can do that over and over and over. So zoom in so that you get high quality images, and then tile them together by importing multiple zoomed in pieces.
True. In SU8 this can be done from within SU entirely.
I'm just accustomed to do it in SU7.
You open them as separate programs.
In SU 7 'Get Current View' is View/Google/Get Current View.
In SU 8 I think that 'Add Location' has the same function as 'Get Current View' but I'm not totally sure since at the moment I don't have Google Earth to try that.
It always worked for me. Just turn off everything you can from Google Earth. You don't need those image icons, right? 
I don't know for the tutorials.
A quick tip:
Open an SU file, open Google Earth. Zoom over the area you need in Google Earth but not in the way that you encompass everything you need, just one part of it.
Press 'Get Current View' in SU and you'll have your first image.
Back to Google Earth, move about and find new view. Make sure that one pert overlaps with the previous one.
Press 'Get Current View' in SU and you'll have the second image.
Repeat those steps until you have all the area in SU.
You'll see several photos piled up in correct position to each other.
Then you can use them for whatever you want.
Solo, haven't you tried to import several views from Google Earth?
You can import them (GET CURRENT VIEW) from Google Earth views which are zoomed in enough in order to avoid excess pixelization (this depends on the area of the world, sometimes nothing helps though I find the US 'scanned' pretty well)
Sketchup will all place them in correct position and you'll be able to overlay them over the mesh. You don't have to think about overlapping of the images, just stick to the same zoom in Google Earth window if you want consequent level of pixelization.
P.S. But even with different zooming in Google Earth back to SU individual images are positioned well.
Gerrit said: "Plugins are a great way to level up SketchUp."
They are. But I feel there is more sense in pressing the SU developers to better the bare SU body in terms of efficiency, functionality, stability and overall performance than sitting and expecting people to spend their own time in making great plugins. After all, it's their program.
One more word about plugins. I remember that once (in one day precisely) I downloaded I huge bunch of free plugins. As Jean pointed very well, that's the situation when the SU interface does look like CATIA (if most of them are visible of course). But no matter how many plugins you have it seems to me that SU always starts much faster than those monster programs with million functions and several GB in size.
After trying them I deleted the most since I realized there are some that repeat some functions of other plugins and some other perform the same function with more reliability and speed. At the moment there are, I think, several plugins with 'make roof' function. Over the same base (face) some of them need one second to produce a desired roof and some of them ask several seconds for the same action and result.
I guess it all has to do with the algorithm applied. And you were totally right when you mentioned knowledge needed for this kind of work. And bright mind, I'd add. 
It was a pleasure having you here again, Gerrit. Come around any time. 
Hi, Dereeei.
I see you have a single-core processor, the same like I had up to 2 months ago when I purchased the dual core. I'm afraid 'Not Respondings' will happen to you and continue to annoy you till the moment you pass on some multi-core.
Now, why do I say that when we know SU doesn't utilize multi-core capacities?
Do you know what's good in SU inability to use more than one core? The fact that you can open another window and do some other work, like preparing some component that will be used in the main model.
A file processed at 100% rate will be unresponsive until the termination of the undertaken operation but you'll save your nerves and time while doing some parallel work in other SU window(s). In my experience there is always something to do while you wait Mr Unresponsive to call you back.
The same thing can be said for saving a file.
Autosave seems to be much slower than normal Save so I keep it at one-hour interval (not more frequently) and save the document myself at the moment best fitting to my work. One thing that is really frustrating here is that SU is so unstable that you must press 'Ctrl+S' before every important step, literally. Not only that some plugins cause the crashing (this can be forgiven) but even some native SU commands do it too. The notorious 'Drape' tool is the champion. 
Like many others I consider there is a great appeal of Sketchup and I like it and use it but I don't know any other program apart from those GNU ones that crash so often from such a huge variety of reasons. If you ask me this is rather unprofessional.
@wo3dan said:
@aureus said:
Thank you, Jean.
......since the real length of that line is 2.59 m and not 258.95 m. ....Hi Aureus,
Actually the edge length is 2.589500m with precision set to max.I know about, and have used the height symbol that described earlier on. Also this one that Jean presented. But whatever symbol you use, as long as you get the message accross.
Maybe you can get TIG's plugin "Add height above datum" working for you (maybe after donating to himp.s. I don't use that many plugins (only basic ones like 'Weld'), since I basically only explain basic SketchUp tools and solutions to other users when questions arise. That's my main use of SketchUp, for answering questions. (which may sound strange
)
I know, I just noticed that the separator is after "8" and not after number "2" which gives 100 times bigger value. But as I said, it's not that important since we saw at least one symbol and got accustomed with system used in Canada.
As for your attitude towards plugins...I think I understand you quite well, Gerrit.
Very often mastering native SU tools can bring you more benefit than trying to figure out how certain plugin work and why you don't get a desired result.
I like to change methods in order to see what's the fastest one in a certain situation. And for example, I'd suggest everyone who has a lot of groups or components (like houses) placed on a terrain and need to edit them quite often to set up new keyboard shortcuts (in my case 3 adjoining keys) for 'previous view', 'zoom extents' and 'zoom window' and use them in order to shorten time of navigation and selecting. Not to mention that it helps a lot when you end up 'nowhere' (in the space between lines in wireframe mode).
On the other hand I don't know what I'd do if there wasn't 'Vector Push Pull' tool and his 'friends' - Joint and Normal Push Pull. In my case that's one of the most essential and used plugins.
Cheers.
Thank you, Jean.
That's exactly what I had on my mind.
An interesting symbol, I guess you typed those values manually since the real length of that line is 2.59 m and not 258.95 m. But it doesn't matter, thank you again.
At least one thing I've learned from your post - the metric system is used in Canada and you use comma as decimal separator.
From this perspective, when I look at Canada I can conclude: so close to the US - yet so different.
Anyway, one thing that Jean said came under my attention.
He said in Canada they use another symbol for this kind of annotation.
I'm keen to see it.
And not only that. I'd gladly see what kind of symbols and measures different professions from different regions use for their work.
So I was thinking to transform this topic a bit and turn it into something more fun and more educational. I hope that it can still fit into the range of topics allowed on this forum so the mods would agree and people are willing to take part.
My idea is: let's show those symbols accompanied with measures that different professions from different regions use for their work.
A small jpg or png image or pdf file (especially if drawn in SU or LO) would be absolutely desirable. A short text of explanation (like we use it here [where exactly] for that and that) would be required too.
Will we play this game for the sake of fun and education? 
P.S. CatchUP no. 17 has just arrived. Let's have a look... 
Probably you're 100 per cent right, Csaba.
This time let's drop mentioning those ones who don't have LO. Still this imposes a bit of headache to a user who considers some other program for editing and documentation-preparing superior to LO or he/she is better accustomed to. Especially if we know that dimensioning is, if I may say so, one of the weak spots of SU. Even better example than mine is lack of angular dimensions but this has already been discussed elsewhere. (See the link http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sketchup/oCRCdqPzE5A)
Funny thing: John Bachus said "I'm not surprised that people find dimensioning important, but I am surprised that it made the top ten list". Well, I'm surprised that he's surprised. 
Hi, Gerrit.
Thank you for you post. I see you're a practical man.
Let's be practical then.
The purpose of these symbols which include certain numbers is indication of altitude (relative and absolute) of different levels in a building (floors, landings etc) and its surrounding. They are given on section drawings as opposed to similar symbols with same function used on site and floor plans. I think that the sketchy image I posted above gives an idea how they look like and what they serve to.
For now I'm sure they're used by architects in Balkan Peninsula region. I cannot say more than this about their usage by professions and regions. What I can say is that I haven't had any design during my architectural studies done without them. They are...a part of documentation, tiny but necessary.
How can we make them in SketchUp now?
We can draw few lines (which resemble the symbol) accompanied with text (say +5,70 [a comma used here is a decimal separator unlike some other countries]). Saved as a component the same symbol can be used on different places on section drawings (done by 'Create Group from Slice' function + 'make faces' plugin). The text itself differs from altitude to altitude so we need to make every particular component unique in order to change it - manually. The height value can be given by applying one of those TIG's plugins.
Or, we can use the method suggested by Jean.
Or, we can invent something more elegant. But no matter how inventive and imaginative we are it's for sure that one part of entire work must be done manually. We don't do that when we use the command for ordinary dimensional work. We just select the 'Dimension' tool, pick our reference points and - voilà! Later the entity info gives us possibility to change text position, font style, choose different endpoints and alike.
Move on to the next step: how to introduce more dimensionning options? Theoretically we can make some branches to the existing tool or we can make some new tool. A quick review of SU tools shows us that SU uses 'one tool - one command' principle. What I mean by this is that if you choose 'Push/Pull' tool for instance, you won't see any other sub-command. The other thing is that you're able to repeat the same pushing to different faces by simple double clicking on them or you can make an array by using the 'Move' tool.
So I doubt that SU developers would place any new command inside an existing one.
What is left for me is to hope that one day I'll see a specific tool for getting an altitude value.
And will proximity of pubs be taken into account?
The next thing is in what way that tool would work?
You choose it, pick a vertex or line and here you go - you get a symbol and value. Then you can have more options to customise it to your liking, like in the case of 'Dimension' tool.
If you don't preset your refference point yourself the SU origin is chosen automatically [+-0,00]. The height itself follows the blue-axis.
This is a terrain of subtle discussion. Adding new things don't make anything more complex by itself.
Just consider one case. In SketchUp you're able to type some text. At the moment there are tens or even hundreds (I'm not sure) font types integrated in SketchUp. Adding some new font types (especially if required by users) won't make the application more complex or complicated but more complete.
The same goes for those symbols. If simplicity is really an ultimate goal - then SketchUp has already overdone. One type of dimensions (say arrow endpoints) is perfectly enough to make you know the size of things you're modeling. Then why slash endpoints? Obviously to architects' liking and use. You got my point?
Few more things can be said about simplicity and appeal of any application. I think that good formula can be "SIMPLE ON THE SURFACE, COMPLEX IN THE DEPTH". You can create a simple and user-friendly interface with default tool bars consisting of basic tools and most of users in most cases may be happy. But sooner or later one will wish something more advanced and it's good if a program has it already even hidden. I remember, for instance, it wasn't before one year of using SketchUp when I found out that "xn" or "/n" makes SIMPLE "move" tool more powerful. That day I was like this: 
Simple on the surface, complex in the depth.
"Really? A whole year? I wonder why it took so long for you to find that."
Dave, you missed my point. It took so much perhaps I was a typical user happy to be able to quickly model something by using a free program. Maybe I didn't investigate so much. Or because then I didn't have the Internet at home and Sketchup Help always leads there.
I was trying to explain that things on the surface can be simple while in the depth can contain something more. And I did so because it seems to me that whenever someone says: "I'd like if SketchUp would have ability to..." you can be sure there will be a guy screaming: "Noooo, that will make SketchUp more complicated!"
And if regional differences are not important then...then I don't know what to say about this argument. We can be happy that SU works both in metric and imperial system... In the US both are used but here almost no one knows how much is tall someone who claims his height is 5'10''.
Salut, Jean.
Thank you for the answer.
I don't feel I can completely agree with you on this matter. Before I elaborate this, just one point to make things clear: I didn't say it's impossible to do in SketchUp and Layout what I need; it's perfectly possible though not very handy.
Now, let's move on.
I deliberately said "in my part of the world", indicating that I'm aware elsewhere can be completely different. Hardly, I think introduction of this kind of annotation (and even all of them from different regions of the world) would make SU and LO big, complex and pricey application. In the terms of size (I'm not a programmer) perhaps few KB? As for the price, the developers must do something between two releases in order to sell the same program again, right?
So it seems to me that fixing a few bugs and introducing a couple of tools doesn't necessarily lead to a new, bigger price.
Respect
Good question!
As for Google Earth, I wouldn't lean much on it if you need an accurate terrain. I know an example of the river going upstream - something screwed the algorithm. Let's stay a bit more on rivers. One would expect a usual, steep riverbanks, right? Not with Google Earth, just a slight approximation. We mustn't forget Google Earth models the entire planet and surely the issue of complexity had been taken into account. Imagine what a wonderful thing that would be: a high-poly accurate model of the Earth.
One day, maybe, but not now.
Modeling terrain using photo-match? I've tried it.
The one who successfully makes an accurate model of any terrain by using photo-match during a reasonable period of time should be awarded the prize as a genius. Unfortunately, perspective has its own rules and our eyes are easily tricked.
When you watch at the building you can swear that the angle you're looking at has 90 degrees. But measurement tools show 87 or 92 or something like that. This is for instance very often case with old, simple stone medieval churches that had to be adjusted to its terrain or adjoining buildings.
Yet buildings are normally still 'obedient' in most cases with photo-match.
But what to do when you have a photo of some meadow, with grass, few trees and a grazing cow? Nothing to refer to, nothing to start with...
@unknownuser said:
@aureus said:
@unknownuser said:
Yes, that is exactly what I do. Works really well.
And may I ask you what do you do when you need to put height dimensions of this sort (attached)?
So far I haven't found them in SketchUp nor in LayOut.In layout, use the stock scrapbooks or create your own.
OK, thanks, Nick.
I knew that. I was just curious if I missed some other way, more automatic like in the case of usual dimensional work. In this way you need to type height values yourself.
Luckily, there's not much of manual work here since usual construction documentation doesn't require so many of those symbols or at least requires much less than typical dimensions.
Greets
P.S. Your videos on YouTube are fantastic and I have just found out on other topic that you got even better working machine.