Hi Perk, the way you can move and arrange components and groups is through the outliner. On a PC, go to Window>Outliner and it will open your outliner dialogue box. It should be pretty straightforward to just drag and drop the group wherever you want it to go. if you have lots of groups and they are all named "group" or whatever the default is, it can get a bit confusing so you might take the time to go through and rename all the groups to something more meaningful. Hope that helps,

Chris

ok, I found a message about this in an old archive of posts. This was originally posted by Lewis Wadsworth after I told someone it was not possible:

@unknownuser said:

Actually, you can grab the buildings, along with the terrain that appears in Google Earth. It's a little tricky, but nothing requiring rocket science. This particular technique only works, as far as I know, with a PC, and you will need the applications GLIntercept and OGLE:

http://glintercept.nutty.org/download.html
http://ogle.eyebeamresearch.org/download

What you do with these programs is literally to intercept the OpenGL instructions to your video card from Google Earth, and then convert them to a standard mesh. Obviously, for this to work you have to have Google Earth running in OpenGL mode, not DirectX. Also, as noted in the OGLE instructions:

"Some applications do not seem to want to function (i.e. they crash!) with GLIntercept if the real OpenGL32.dll is in the system location. If you are having wierd problems, try the following:

1. Copy the sytem dll (most likely C:\WINDOWS\system32\opengl32.dll) to your app's directory (name it opengl32.orig.dll or some such)
2. Set GLSystemLib = "opengl32.orig.dll"; in your gliConfig.ini file."

Google Earth is one of the applications that require that procedure; if you don't copy the system dll into the GE directory, GE will simply not work at all (if you have placed the GLIntercept files in the GE directory). Follow this and the other directions with GLintercept and OGLE very carefully. The end result will be an .obj file that includes what was visible in your screen in GE, along with some odd artifacts. To get this file into SketchUp, you'll have to translate the .obj into something SU opens. Some modelers seem to have difficulty with .obj files created by OGLE, notably 3DS Max. But I have been able to open them just fine with Rhino (and re-export them as .dwg files to SU), and you might try any of the various free translators floating around on the web.

Several things to consider: first, when you intercept OpenGL from GE, you should be looking straight down onto the GE location you want, otherwise your resultant model will not be aligned to the real z-axis. Also, the intercepted model will not have any scale related to real world distances. The way I get around this is to place in Google Earth, prior to using OGLE, a cube of known dimensions (like 100' x 100' x 100') somewhere close to the area I want to capture. When I finally get my captured mesh file into SketchUp, I use that cube to reset the model's scale to reality.

I've attached a .jpg of Boston from GE (note my red 100' cube in the foreground), and a rendering of the cleaned-up SketchUp model of the same area I made using Google Earth and OGLE (and Rhino, to translate the .obj file). The texture on the harbor is a copy of the texture SketchUp imported directly from the same Google Earth location.

I have seen quite a few digital models of Manhattan that were obviously extracted from Google Earth using just this technique. It is probably worth considering Google Earth's licensing restrictions and Google & friends' copyrights before you use a model of a city pulled from Google Earth for any professional purposes.

Lewis

This is another post by Paul Zee:

@unknownuser said:

Junk software:

The OpenGl Extractor, in conjunction with the "Eyebeam" solution, is one of those 'half-ass' programs that barely/rarely work, and require a relatively distracting set-up and maintainance.

Don't bother writing Eyebeam either, if they even bother to respond, you'll be treated like a fool if you ask them why it barely works. (Shoot the messenger/duck the issue type attitude.)

It's a sloppy compile, barely works, and only on about 10% of the systems we tried it on. (We're being generous!)

It also has a very suspicious function... more on this when we know (or care) more.

There's much better "real" software out there for ripping Google Earth... and more coming very soon. Seek and you shall find.

3D Ripper DX works much better for this, and they actually answer support questions and Emails without a condescending "We're smarter than you idiots" tone, or "you must be a moron if you can't get this to work... it works great for us!"

Blender can also do this... (the process is much more straightforward) and again their support is also professional and in depth.

Additionally, I'm aware of at least two programs in the pipeline which will make this junk software a non-issue.

Eyebeam/OGLE: Should stick to feverishly making their little "Dungeons and dragons" nerd figure toys, and leave the real development to someone who knows how to actually write an app that works as advertised every time, for everyone, not just 3% and "everyone else must be a moron".

(What reality/reliability do you expect from the "foam sword and dragon" crowd??! haha)

I'd love to be able to start a whole blog just to pat myself on the back, for doing 3% work!!! Must be nice!

Peace

There is a method using a 3d capture utility. There should be some old posts on the process here. I'll see if I can find it.

Chris

Sorry I don't have time to make a model showing you what I'm thinking, but I'd suggest using contours.

First I'd group the ground plane and then move copies of it straight upward and place a copy at the base of each step.

Then I tihnk it might be nice if those copies were all semi transparent so you could see through them.

Then start drawing the contour lines with the freehand tool on each plane. You would draw from the base of the step to the ending point of the contour.

After drawing the op contour, delete the grouped plane you drew it on. That will leave a nice floating contour.

Now repeat this for all subsequent stairs. You'll end up with all the contours you need to run the "from contours" tool. So select all the contours and then click on from contours and voi-la! you should have a great contoured terrain.

I hope that makes sense. I might be able to make a model showing what I mean later - I'm just pressed for time right now though.

Chris

Woller, I think you edited your original post with a new question so as to not "spam the forum". I'm afraid no one will notice this technique here though and your nexw question will go unanswered. You might as well just start a new thread so everyone can see it.

Chris

In edit mode you don't need to apply paint to each individual face. you can always hit ctrl-a and this will select all faces. Then apply paint. You'll need to apply it to the front and the back (beige and blue) faces.

Or holding down shift while painting also adds an ability to paint all faces of the same material with the material on the paintbrush. Something like that.

So anyhow, there are 2 fast was to paint faces instead of one by one.

Chris

I don't remember exactly how it works in v5 (I can check at home where I still have it installed later today if needed). But you should be able to change the path under preferences to the location of where you would like to save components by default. Then in the Component browser you should be able to add that location to the list of folders shown. It's just that easy in v6 and I thought it was about the same in version 5, though I could totally be wrong.

Chris

I think it might have to do with the glueing plane? i've never been very good at this part, but make sure your glueing plane is set correctly in the component. Maybe could you post an example here and we can look at it. Someone else might have a single definitive answer, but I don't so I'd need to play with the model for a little bit.

Chris

It also helps to use the physical cameras provided in the film and stage plugin. I would make a large circle that acts as the path for the camera to follow and make a point in the center of the model for the camera to point at. Then add one camera on the circle path and point it directly at the focal point. Then rotate/copy as many copies as you want around your circular path. now you have a bunch of cameras set up. go through and make a scene for each of them. and that should give you a pretty stable animation too.

Chris

Its also possible the object is glued to a certain plane. you can right-click on it and select "unglue" and then it will be free to move about on all axes.

Chris

I like dragging that line around making the windows sort of float around arbitrarily. That's my favorite part of the model. I've seen groups cut holes before, but I've never seen groups float around.

Chris

EDIT: I wonder if the floating has to do with the fact the the model is nowhere near the origin - probably!

EDIT AGAIN: Nope, I moved it all back to the origin and it still floats around.

This is straight out of the John Bacus interview in September. He's the member of the SU group who led the LayOut team:

@unknownuser said:

I think what you'll see in the future is that Google SketchUp will be broadly focused as "3D for everyone", and we'll try to build more specialized functionality into Google SketchUp Pro for a couple key user groups- like architects.

and even more exciting:

@unknownuser said:

We do have an opportunity, through collaboration with the rest of Google's Geo group, to bring unprecedented geographic context to any SketchUp model. You'll surely see more development along those lines in the future.

I'm hoping he's hinting that the geographic features are making their way in to version 7.

Chris

ps. here's the link to the interview. Its at the bottom of the catchup newsletter: (EDIT by Coen: Interview link added.)
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/catchup/2007/september/index.htm#interview

I think that you can copy and paste the text into a text document and print it that way. I thought I remember having dne that before.

Chris

Sorry for the merciless posting, but I keep finding more ane more info. here are some more posts that might help:

http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_thread/thread/9242c9429d3dc3a0/754c90c334e8b166?

maybe its just best to see his list of "recent" posts (almost all more than 1 year ago):

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=dBZQRC0AAADrKYJCy23l_B_tTNWoz9s8yGzHjBTZvc1iShxKUVKWXBAfoBIqgx7MfQ9lVhABEmo

again, hope it helps.

Chris

This is not the one I'm thinking of, but here is a thread I found:
http://groups.google.com/group/Ruby-API/browse_thread/thread/6dce0c657846ce5a/690d6aa54d43388e?lnk=gst&q=spreadsheet+google#690d6aa54d43388e

I know there is a better. someone really put a lot of time into developing something like this....
hmm, this is a post that barely hints at what it was:
http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_thread/thread/64db9d8e35ef91a4/602f6d2e572f0363?

but if you search the groups for anything posted by this IDEVFH person, I think you'll find his work. Perhaps TBD could be of some help here. I know he helped test the product a little bit.

Good luck tracking this one down,

Chris

I'm pretty sure that someone wrote a plugin that brought the google spreadsheet into SU for this type of stuff. I had no need for it, so I never really played with it. I'll see if I can find a reference to it for you though.

Chris

lol, yeah the poll only offers negative responses. I'd vote for somewhere less than "excellent idea" but probably higher than "a waste of my time".

Chris

I have some excessively long autosave times when using very detailed files and also when working on a slow network connection inside our office. Turning it off or down to 15 minutes has kept me sane Smile

Chris

Here you go Al, here's some rocks for you. I don't know if its exactly what you wantd, but it mgiht work. I didn't spenjd too much time on it so its not terribly detailed, but it might be enough.

Chris

rocks.skp

Any chance you were in shaded mode (versus shaded with textures mode)? If you wre in just shaded, it would appear as though it did not apply the texture correctly and it would only show a color. Just a thought,

Chris