I might as well tack my inquiries to this thread as I am about to try to do what mgianzero is/was doing a few months ago. I'm about to remodel a kitchen and adjoining utility (laundry) room/garage access. Some months ago I tape-measured and created a SU model of the utility room, but only of it's inside-facing surfaces (walls without thickness) and the project went no further. Now I've found our house plans and I'm thinking (as mgian--Marc did) that raising the house from those would be easier than measuring it out manually.

So Gaieus has suggested to import a raster file (.tif? .jpg? .gif?) and to scale it. Is there a video or tutorial for that? Does it come in as a lot of pieces of a group that you stretch together to a hand-entered length? My experience with SU is limited--I have one previous thread here, where I was creating an underground geological "landscape". You folks were great help to me finishing that project. Sadly, I have not had the time or need to do anything else with SU until now.

Gealagie, also a Mark

Thank you, Bep and Gaieus. I hope my brother-in-law will adopt sketchup for his business. It would be a great design and sales tool for him. We shall see.

Some day I may have a go at creating some geology-realistic rocks. When I do I'll put them out here for anyone to use.

Hi all. I would like to point my brother-in-law toward using SU for his landscaping business. He designs and builds koi ponds, decorative waterfalls, and such. Do any of you remember a forum that discussed modeling stuff like this? A search I just tried did not turn anything up. I also did not see a wide assortment of landscape rocks available in/at the Google 3D Warehouse. Anyone know where he might find some ready-modeled ones to get started?

I could have used additional help on organizing elements within a complex project. Slowly, the suggestions by regular contributors have begun to sink in and now I think I could do a better job of organizing than my initial (and largest) project to date. Specifically--

1. Demonstrate the recommended workflow of creating geometry on layer 0, grouping or componenting that geometry and moving it to a defined layer.

2. Stressing that elements of a group or component can exist on different layers. I have no idea why someone would want this to happen (is there an instance where this would be advantageous?). Show how to best "fix" things should you inadvertently get a group spread across different layers.

3. Stressing the workflow championed by Solo--creating pieces of the total and saving those components out to their own .skp file and importing them into a master composition file. This approach makes a lot of sense to me now for reasons of organizational and library-building.

I agree the Intro to Rubies tut would be a good thing. Another idea would be to preview a number of the most useful rubies to show just what they do and how they work, and perhaps discuss differences between rubies that do similar things.

Just to conclude this thread or my contribution to it, my problem appeared to be related somehow to using SU through a Linux machine that is remotely controlling a Windows PC where the instance of SU is installed and running. Not sure I said that right, but you probably understand. The system we use to provide Windows on a Linux desktop is Citrix, which I understand is not really a Windows emulator but actually a remote control of the distant Windows pc. However I also understand the same sort of problems with exporting animations happens with the Windows emulator Wine (I think it's an emulator), as reported in the link a few posts above.

If this thread would fit better somewhere other than Newbie, then feel free to refile it.

FYI, the suits were impressed--enough to purchase the Pro if we needed it. Funny though, I have now tested this by comparison and I was using the cut-down free version all the time (well, except for the first 8 trial days). I never noticed anything go away after the first 8 days so I assumed I was just living with Pro on borrowed time--that's a newbie for you! Anyway I'm concluding at this stage of our use that we can get along fine with the freebie version and wait to pick up Pro at a later date. Thank you all again for the help you gave me getting through this. We are taking the exported animation to a trade show next week, where I suspect it may draw some attention.

Our moderator remus has helped me considerably today and I wish to thank him for all his trouble and his insights. Just another of the many fine people I've come into contact with at this forum site. You guys make learning SU fun. Well, it's fun to learn anyway, but you guys make it even better!

Thanks for your time. It's working for you--I wonder about the person who posted it as a bug at the link I included above?

I just created a new little test model, created scenes and tried the export again with the same results. Yes I am sitting in front of a Linux machine, but SU is running on a Windows PC somewhere else and coming to me over a network via a "Citrix" emulator/server (beyond that description I will have to bring in the IT guys). I don't know what you mean by a "PM". Do you think if I sent you a small .skp file you might have a different result?

Thanks I looked all over....

I hate to trouble anyone out there, but does anyone have a sec to test whether their SU ver 7 will export an .avi file properly?