@solo said:

The easiest way is to open in Vue and export as .3ds model or .obj, that way you can set the level of detail.

This file is 48MB I can reduce it much more if needed.

Thanks for testing it
Could you get it loaded into SU as well?
I have an old license of Vue 5 Infinite (not currently installed). Do you think that could handle such files as well?
When reducing size, what exactly does it do? Is it just like when scaling down a bitmap, that you lose a lot of detail, or is it more intelligent, and able to make a TIN with details only where needed?
I like the Polygon Cruncher from Mootools a lot. It does a very good job in most cases.

Like this terrain that was 560,000 faces, crunched down to 5900. Compared to the real topo/photo it's easy to see why terrain with lots of details isn't really that necessary most of the time - trees cover most of it anyway
This terrain was grabbed from this site: http://bengler.no/terrafab who is using the same source of DEMs to 3D print landscapes. It was in x3d, and very ugly "striped". It actually looked like a coarse model that had been subdivided without any smoothing.
That particular project will be composited with a low-altitude aerial photo, so it's just for testing the DEM..

But I really would like to be able to use that free source with DEMs instead of having to buy DXF files with contour lines and roof edges at pretty high prices. But they have to be manageable inside SU too. There has to be a convenient pipeline..

@solo said:

Can you share the dem file so I can see if I can convert it for you?
Most of those DEM files are ~45MB zipped (151 MB raw), but here is one with mostly water, which zipped to 1.6MB.
Looks like it is small enough for attachements

What programs would you use for converting?

Edit:
Here's how it renders in 3DEM:

Terrengdata_6404_2_UTM32_10m_DEM.zip

The Norwegian mapping authorities just released DEM data for free use of the entire country a few days ago. I wanted to try it in SU, but am having big problems.
SU crashes every time I try to import a DEM file.
Maybe not so strange, given the quite massive amount of data it contains. Each part/file covers 50x50km at 10m resolutionm which would be a 5000x5000 grid? I haven't really used any DEMs before, but I was thinking that the DEM import options in SU allows you to reduce the mesh to the number of points given in that dialog - but maybe not?

I can load those DEM files into Okino Nugraf, but i only have an old version which isn't that very stable on Win8.
I have also downloaded 3DEM, which loads/shows them, but doesn't really help much in getting them into SU.

Any tips about loading/using such DEM files in SU?

Edit: Guess I should've added that the DEM files are in UTM32 USGS DEM format, and could be found here: http://data.kartverket.no/download/content/geodataprodukter?korttype=3595&aktualitet=All&datastruktur=All&dataskema=All

SpaceClaim looks promising. Always suspicious when they have no prices on their pages, but I have sent a request for a quote..

Thanks Csaba
Guess it's time to delve into the mysterious realm of graphics cards again, to pick the right one
Is this site http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html worth looking at?
Looks like GTX670 would be a good choice?

Excuse my ignorance, but I couldn't really find any info on this:
Is this the new version of the Thea SketchUp plugin? Or is it a new independent product, which will be charged for? IOW, if I buy Thea + SU plugin now, will I have to pay again to get this new tool?
BTW, a pity that there is no Thea for LightWave..

Well, it's the same orientation as used by glued components, and also used a lot for follow-path animation.

@charly2008 said:

Autodesk Inventor Fusion 2013 (Free) can import skp-files directly.

Really?
I had to deliver skp files to some Inventor guys recently, and they asked for IGES or SAT. Apparently they were able to open the DWG files I sent them originally too.
I can read from IGES and SAT with NuGraf/PolyTrans, but not write
IIRC I used FreeCAD to write IGES.
They never told me they could've read the SKP files directly

Very nice job @gilles!
@wtrouser: If you think you can stop thinking in 3D modeling after you've made your Zippo you're completely wrong That's when it really starts!

No need to give up!
Why don't you show us what you've got so far?

I would model each part separately, container + lid, the wick holder part with all lose, moving parts as on the original.
I would model most of the parts as single sheets, and then afterwards apply thickness with JPP plugin.
Other plugins you could look at are Curviloft, RoundCorner and ToolsOnSurface.
Curviloft might be very useful for the sheet metal cage around the wick.

I'm a big fan of the tgi3D tools, and would probably have used their curves and unique view locking tools to build the cage (and other parts?).

You might find ShapeBender plugin useful?
Like this little test.

Or model without thickness, and use Joint Push Pull to give it all thickness after bending and shaping?

Using only native tools, like Push/Pull, Intersect/booleans etc, would be possible too, but it would be a bit more work..

The only drawing tool I used was Circle, to crop/enclose the circular shape of the logo.
Next I pulled up the circle, and now had a thickness.
Next I selected the top face and used the Offset tool to make circles where the colors changed - blue->white->red->white->blue.
Then I made a vertical construction line in the center of the circle.
Next was to pull up the two white rings.
The text was made as 3D text on top of the red band, using a Helvetica/Swiss font.
FC BAYERN in one word, and MUNCHEN in the other (the triangle in the U was drawn with lines afterwards and extruded).
Inside each text group: Triple clicked each character and made it a group.
Moved all characters sideways so that they overlapped each other.
Explode the top text group.
Selected and rotated one character at a a time rotating around the center construction line/point.
When done, I just selected the red band and used the 'Intersect with model' command.
Hid the characters and extruded/pulled up the newly 'stamped' versions.
The central diamonds needs some special attention to pass the 'solid' test necessary for 3D printing.

It looks like the svg contains no vectors? At least FreeCad doesn't seem to find any, but only the image//bitmap?

Anyway, you can easily make this directly in SU without any vector imports at all.
You only need to draw one circle to cut it out, and you could easily make the text and those blue/white diamonds directly in SU.

It could easily be a lot more complicated than just tracing a contour and extrude it.

As I understood the OP this is to be a mono coloured 3D print of a logo - and we don't know what type of logo that is.
It could be QPR for instance?
First of all - it isn't a one-piece logo.
It would require a lot of extra modeling to even resemble the original one.
Even simpler logos, like Tottenham, ManU etc would require some 'internal' modelling.

BTW, FreeCAD is supposedly reading svg and exporting dxf.

I'm sure you would get a lot more help if you posted/uploaded something, like a bitmap of the logo, the svg/dxf version etc...

What does the logo look like?

It depends a lot on the logo, and what level of detail you want to include.
If you intend to 3D print the logo you probably would need a lot of detail and colors?

A good start would be to import a bitmap of the logo as image.
Make a copy of it and explode it.
Start drawing contours on the exploded copy, using lines, arcs, curves, contours etc as needed. Pull out parts as you go, and add more detail/relief as wanted.
If your 3D printer can print colours you may save/skip a lot of details?

@roger said:

It is an elephant not a fox.
Not sure if I understand what you mean by messed up texturing as more than one rendition has been posted. On the first post there were not enough photo samples from enough angles. This last piece was not the original app, it was the prodeuct of that app exported to SU. The only purose was to show how the trunk looped around and reconnected.
Don't blame me for the quality of the Thai sculpture.

Sorry about the confusion. It was the last render, where there were some dark grey bands with a hole it in, which made it look like it was wearing a Zorro mask (or racoon?). I wasn't blaming you for neither the texturing nor the sculpture. SU very easily loses UV mapping and scrambles everything.

Opera was started in 1994, with the first public version released in 96!
But it still is forgotten every now and then... ;-(
We have to support the locals, you know

Well, the pop-ups popped up, but there was nothing in the window, except for a small red X.
Some other popup windows asked permission to open, and then they opened an overlaid panoramic image at the top left of the screen (no window, just showed on top of the menus and icons etc).

I could see those nice videos now though, with the new direct links
Maybe the tour didn't like Opera?