You are both right, but I didn't mean the overall main building, if there was one, but the main body of the Oppio wing. I arrived at the same conclusions as Elysium, and here is the result. The back line of the building is pretty certain, because there is another house of Nero's era across the street.
As for the rotating room, it has been placed everywhere, and I am not yet sure that what they found was the real one. It's an impressive find, but it's difficult to decide what it really is. What they say was proof of the existence of ball bearings is rubbish ...

Thanks, Csaba. The hint on the lines was very useful. For the other thing, I found that there is a free SU viewer, that is exactly what I was looking for. Very user friendly browser that doesn't allow the user to access or alter the model.
I attach my experiment in architectural imagination. Opinions are welcome and sought for. The two forward branches are real, or at least the french of the academy thought so, there are some evidences from the excavations too. And the large pond at the back of the basis villae is real too. All the rest, the main building, is an invention, no evidences exist. For the round towers I took some ideas from Krause's reconstruction of Villa Jovis, in Capri ...

I've thought about that, but it's tricky. I think I'll end up by making several projects, and some animations, mixing SU and Poser, maybe Bryce or Kerkithea, inserting some photo and movie scenes of the real thing and excavations etc.
I attach my first try at a sequence, it will get much more complex as it goes. Any advice welcome.
One thing. Is there a way to color lines, or that's possible only for faces?
And is there a way to freeze the project, so that who looks at it can change scenes, zoom pan and rotate, but not modify or edit the objects?
Thanks again

scene.skp

Tried my hand at Trajan's termae. Not quite satisfactory, but for the time being that's it.
The problem I am facing is that, after speaking with a german researcher, he convinced me that what I posted as the Oppio wing of the Domus Aurea, is just the basis villae, and that the main building was on top and back, having being completely razed by Trajan when he built his termae. So I'll have to try my hand at a work of pure imagination, since practically no evidence exists of what this main building looked like ...

traiano_p.skp

This was the first Meta Sudans, the fountain that was destroyed by the fire of aD 64, about 6 meters below present floor level. A good amount of it was found during the excavations. The small templet at its side is a compitum. Only the base was found, so its elevation is a matter of speculation

Hi Sawduster,
I'll try to go on with the thread, and thanks to Csaba's advice I am getting a bit more comfortable with SU.
Don't think the romans where that whimsy. Their keyword was "renovatio", renewal. For an emperor, or any other important person, the renovation of a building of the past was much more important than building a new one. It connected him to a great name of the past, gave him status. So even if the old building was a shack, and the new one a marble palace, he would still claim he had renovated the old historical building. Buildings lasted centuries, with minor changes. The period from 64 aD and 80 aD was the great exception. In 64 the fire destroyed most of Rome. Nero rebuilt it anew, with new urban planning rules. With the rubble from the fire he elevated the ground in what is now the Coliseum square for about 4,5 meters, and created a lake at the center with its bottom at about the previous ground level. Then the Flavians came and tried to erase the memory of Nero, built the Coliseum and the rest. But even the Flavians kept most of Nero's architectures, renaming them and changing them here and there. And again what they built lasted for centuries, a lot of it is still there.

Been working on the flavian situation of the Vigna Barberini. It has been much more messy than I thought. Working on two different axes is hell ...

Hi Elysium,
I visited Monumental Heart of Rome and I am impressed. Could have spared some work had I seen it before. Are you going on with it? Are you an archeologist too? And where from?

Hi, the image you post is from two bright young fellows, coordinated by prof. Viscogliosi, with whom we did some things a couple of years ago. They are good with interiors, and did a great job with the Claudianus, but the general view is not up to standard. The acqueduct jutting from the Domus Aurea is out of place, for instance.
We are trying to get our hands on the plans of the round room, I don't have them yet. As for textures, I am thinking about that, but what I have in mind is mainly the sequence, the evolution of the area through time: one scene with the situation before the fire of 64 aD, second scene Nero, third scene Flavians and so on, so that you can see how things change through time. And I think that with a dinamic vision like that a neutral color works better, not sure though ...

Thanks, I'll look at it. Here goes a version with components, at least for the front columns ...

oppio.skp

Thanks, Csaba.
I've been using the plug ins for backfaces and mirroring that you gave me, and they are very useful. Of course I built only half and then mirrored. I am still trying to figure out exactly how components and groups work, I promise I'll take my time and go through the tutorials again ...

Ok, this is what I got now. I took in account most of the archaeological evidence I found ...

oppio_a.skp

Ok, I started playing with the wing of the Domus Aurea on the Oppio hill ... I'll need to think it over, it's not easy ... The plan is known, more or less, there might be other bits and pieces.

On the other hand I reopened the file, and it's ok, I am a bit confused ...

da_2pp.skp

You are right, these were the starting measures. Somewhere along the line I must have done something wrong, and the scale went askew ...

@adamb said:

Hey, good start. Hope we can see it as it progresses.

One thing you might want to do is rescale the whole model to actual size. Believe me, it will avoid hassle later.

Its current 46 kilometres long which I think even the Romans would struggle building.

FYI. You can use the tape measure tool by measuring an edge in your model, and then typing in the length you want that edge and SketchUp will prompt you as to whether you wish the whole model scaled.

Thanks, but as a matter of fact the models are in scale, only that it's centimeters ...

Thanks again, Csaba. I did as you said and, miracle! The size dropped to 300 k.
Yes, you told me you are an archaeologist. Our contact in Pannonia is Tamas Besetzky, with whom we are frequently in touch and who comes to Rome from time to time, suppose you know him. Well, if you do come to Rome sometime you now have a contact too.

Well, I am definitely a newbie. I have opened a thread on "Build Rome", and have been exchanging notes with Gaieus, who has been enormously helpful and patient with me. But I suppose it's good manners to introduce myself. I am italian, almost 70 years old. I like elephants and have a collection of them.
James quote: ‎"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines" Frank Lloyd Wright
hit me badly, and gave me an occasion.
You see, I have a degree in architecture, but never worked in that area, my activities are in the area of regional planning and GIS (and a quirky instance in history of Paraguay, I am an expert in that, and this year I'll be giving a round of conferences, for the 200th anniversary of Paraguay's independence).
My professor, in Venice, was Carlo Scarpa, a great architect and admirer (maybe more than admirer, an adorator) of FLW. Well, he convinced me that I was not up to the profession, by citing what I now see was his variation of that quote: "if a butcher cuts his beef clumsily, it won't ruin the taste, and it will disappear after eaten, but an architect's work remains for years for everybody to see ...".
He convinced me, and I never worked as an architect. Now it's too late, but I think I was wrong in following that advice. First thing, Scarpa was dead drunk when he yelled at me (he had just arrived from Toronto, he was terribly scared of flying, and solved the problem by getting drunk), and I have seen the work of several of my colleagues who have been working as architects for all this time, and I think I could do better ...
Well, thanks for all the very useful hints I find in the site, and see you around ...

Hi, I've had a peek at Solo's site, and it's fantastic. The ship though is a roman ship, not viking ...

I don't quite understand what happens with file size. I eliminated the heavy elements I had used for rendering, and file size when saved remained at about 6 Mb. I tried several things, in the end I exported to dxf and imported back, and it went down to 500 kb. Then I inverted a couple of faces and some colors, and it jumped back to 1 Mb. ?????

dom_au.skp