If you have the real world location you should be able to geo-locate you SKP and then import the land-form including a mesh.
Then you can model building on top of that...
You'll need to add trees etc too...
You'll need v8 Pro to do this effectively...
There are several good tutorials out there - as a simple Google search will show - e.g. http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=36241

Dave beat me to it!
BUT here it is anyway...
The 'z-fighting' when two materials 'twinkle' is caused when you have two coplanar [or near coplanar] faces .
So you seem to have some 'walls' with two [or more] faces
Check if you have coincident groups/instances giving you two faces overlaid...

Some windows are cutting faces OK BUT others are not!
Have you some groups/components and other groups/components or faces overlaying them?
Also it looks like you have applied windows onto faces that are inside groups/component... so although it might 'glue', it will NOT 'cut' a hole - therefore the window's 'glass' will z-fight with the wall face that is inside its group. If it is a gluing component, but it is not 'cutting type', then it will z-fight even if the face and component are in the same 'entities context'.
So, always apply a gluing+cutting-component onto the face that is in the same 'context' [i.e. edit the group/instance and then insert/glue the windows on faces inside it - the windows will then cut holes in the faces they are glued onto].Capture.PNG

Can you upload a .skp of the problem file? I think if it's below 4mb the forum will allow you to upload. Then we can test it to see if it's a corrupt file or that your PC is whacked.

@ecohomes said:

@dave r said:

As to the furniture flying off, I imagine it is like the car example you posted last week. The car looked like it was placed correctly from one angle but you hadn't actually placed the car on the driveway. It was floating in space. You need to get to grips with placing components properly. I would suggest that you spend some time working on learning to use the Move tool and Inferencing. Getting those skills nailed down will go a long way in helping you make your models look like you want them.

Thank you Dave - I have in the mean time ascertained that one must bring them into the model from the "Gluepot" for them to stick.
Thank you again for your courtesy and time.
Hans

I often use the VCB for moving my models vs the move tool. Say you have a model and you want to move to the origin pick the desire point with the move tool to start and the type [0,0,0] and that will move to there. If you want to keep the same y dim then type [x,,z]. Check manual I find this method very helpful

Hi Hans, hi folks.

The most important menu in SketchUp (SU) is the last one on the right, "Help".

The most important item in this menu is the second from the top "Help Center".

This is your access door to a lot of useful informations. Explore all of this and you shall get answers to probably more than 95% of your questions. For the remaining 5%, come back here, many people will help you in becoming a proficient user of SU.

Just ideas.

Hi Allan,
Yeh I started a week ago and I'm hooked on this program its brilliant.

I would like to show you what it looks like now, nothing startling but i am quite pleased with what I have learned - some real nice people on this forum. I'll attach only a jpeg - it's very basic. - Thank you all for the lessons - I'm sure this is only the beginning - I'm thinking of homes with furniture showing and photoreal renderings in the future.

Allan, If I were you I would move - how can you live where Everton and Liverpool are domiciled - Move to London near the emirates - I am a fanatical Gunners supporter.
Have a lovely weekend - off to watch Rugby now.
Hanshberg final complex.jpg
NB please do not be shy to critique - thats how I'll learn.

@tig said:

Out of all of the cars in the 3dWarehouse you have chosen one that is no ordinary component!
If you select any part of your model [except the car] and use Scale you get the yellow-box and several green-handles to use when scaling... so there's nothing wrong with your model or its setup, or your Sketchup [probably].
Now... if you select the car and use Scale you get the yellow-box and no green-handles 😕 😕 😕 ☀ this is because it's a 'Dynamic Component' - with Pro you can make special components that do things when you click on them or adjust several aspects of themselves when you change one parameter. The author of your imported car made the component to do things like swing the various doors open when you click on them, and show balloons [!] when you click the roof... [Activate the Dynamic Components toolbar option] With a dynamic component you can constrain how it scales by limiting it scalability in the three axes - here the author has prevented scaling in ALL axes - i.e. it's a non-scalable dynamic-component ❗ 😒
If you'd rather not get another car you can make this dc one 'ordinary' by simply exploding it [right-click context-menu] and then ***immediately use the still selected objects to form a new 'collection' - i.e. a group if you aren't going to need a component or a new component if you will use multiple copies of it etc... ***Note that the dc car contains some other dc sub-components that also have their scalability curtailed so you need to add a step here - after the 'explode' and while the exploded sub-components are still highlighted do another 'explode' on those, THEN make the still highlighted geometry into your 'collection'...[attachment=0:n9nmq4px]<!-- ia0 -->Capture.PNG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:n9nmq4px] Here's the result - scaled up to absurdity...

Hi Tig,
You have no idea how much I appreciate you devoting your precious time to assist a novice like me. I am not much of a theoretician, but rather a hands on doing sort of person - I learn more by doing than reading. again, much appreciated..
Kind regards
Hans

@unknownuser said:

You can export a view of your model to .jpg

There are plugins that also export to PDF, SimLab for example.

http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/3D-PDF-from-sketchup-main.aspx

Thank you. All works like a dream. Grateful.
Hans

@tig said:

First off the car does seem a little 'short' - you need to scale it up, or get a better model.

Next when you place a component like a car into the model you can use Move and pick a point on the car [e.g. bottom of a tyre] and then snap to something on the surface you want to place it onto - like the 'driveway' - and it then on that 'plane'. Subsequent moves can be constrained in any of the three axes using shift or arrow keys.
When you've placed the car you have done it in an obscure way, positioning it so that it looks right in that view but of course when you change camera positions it's wrong - in fact 'flying'! You are not taking cardboard cutouts of things an making a montage, rather these should be proper sized objects that are placed relative to each other in the right relationships.

BUT let's skip the car for a moment... 😒

So you understand this try this experiment...
Hold you hand out at arm's-length in front of you, palm away from your face.
Move it around until it obscures about half of something in the room - say the TV.
Now slowly move your hand nearer to your face so it obscures more and more of the TV.
When you hand is near your face you can't see the TV or other parts of the room near it.
That's what you did with the exceptionally small car, by moving it nearer the camera you hid more drive-way until it looked the right size BUT it wasn't changing its size just its location. You accept that your hand's location affects how much it obscures from your view AND it doesn't physically change the actual size of your hand!
I suggest that you edit the car component [double-click to go into edit mode] and use the Tapemeasure tool and pick the centres of two of the wheels' hub-caps on the same side and type in what the wheelbase is likely to be - for that kind of car perhaps '2.5m' ? This will rescale the car to be the right size. Exit the edit-mode.

axis when you only wanted to move it 100mm is easily fixed by typing 100mm after the ~1m move but before you pick any other tool...
When rotating an object the rotate-gizmo appears locked to the plane its on [or lock it by holding shift] and you pick two points to do the rotation by eye - the VCB shows the actual value OR as with Move you can type an actual angle so if you want the car rotating 5 degrees type in 5...

Hi Tig,
thank you very much for all your time in helping me- I'm geting there.
thank you
Hans

@gaieus said:

I use Jim's Custom Toolbar plugin and it has some extra buttons otherwise not available in the native SU toolbars. Some of these allow quick style changes and these style settings can be very useful when trying to fix a screwed up model (or trying to find endpoints to snap to).

Normally I do not use any fancy styles (and keeping it simple also helps with performance when the model is getting complex)

Thank you for your interest.
I have used Daves method and was absolutely delighted when I ended up with a nice clean edge drawing.
thank you
Hans