Fellow SketchUp Users,

I have been working with GIS for a few years and have been working with SketchUp for a few months now. I have been able to follow the processes posted here as well as a few online and get building footprints and point shapefiles into SketchUp with success. I have however encountered a few problems and have some questions.

I did a project for Fat City in Jefferson Parish LA in which I easily imported the building footprint and then extruded the buildings to their correct height based on the Height in the attribute table. Was impressed with how much detail and the imaging abilities in SketchUp but my problem came when I tried to import the model into google earth. The entire model was placed within the correct region, but was orientated nearly 80 degrees clockwise from its true location. I messed with a few projections and tried to manipulate the model but still haven't been able to place the model completely accurate with the google earth image. Any thoughts about Google Earth Projections, Model Placement or potential error?

My second problem that I have encountered is with elevation. The project is in the Galisteo Basin just south of Santa Fe NM. The area is fairly extensive and has a considerable amount of deviation in topography. What is the best way to drape the buildings onto the correct elevation. In google earth, some of the buildings are embedded into the terrain, while some are hanging above the terrain. I worked to try and create a field in the attributes that gave the building base height with little success. I also tried to import a tin along with the building footprint but the tin was drawn several hundred feet above the buildings.

Any thoughts on where an am going wrong with this project would be greatly appreciated!