pbacot, I like the squared look to your contours. I usually end up with a lot of triangulation after using sketchup's built in contour creator. Are you using an extension to make your contours look square?

Just discovered that ctrl+shift+V pastes in place. Didn't know that for 3 versions. I've made messes out of contour maps by being millimeters off.

It really is a bummer. I hate showing my boss a model I've obviously put a lot of time into, which works great in every way... until I need to get a ground floor view (through a window, for example).

Fixing the clipping plane is obviously a hard coded fact-of-life. But I wish I could temporarily disable it when standing still...

I'm hoping to add this extension to my toolset, but I'm having some issues (see attached image). It's very strange.

If I open up Sketchup2014 first, then click File > Open and find my model, it works just fine.
If I open the file directly from my windows explorer (locating sketchup\models\model.skp and double clicking it), I get the error shown.
For some reason, opening the file directly causes problems.

I found a way around it, though: if I open up Sketchup2014, then IMPORT my model.skp, it works fine. I can save it as model-2.skp, close sketchhup, then open model-2.skp directly, and it continues to work just fine. Very strange. This is SORT of a workaround, but if I try to open any of my other dozens of sketchup files directly, I get the error message. I've tried deleting the files from my Roaming folder, then reinstalling. No luck. Any advise?

Also as a secondary question, I'll have multiple people using this extension (if I can get it working). We'll be accessing the file from a shared server. If person A adds a Layers Panel group to the model, then saves and quits, can person B open up the model and find that group? Is Layers Panel adding metadata to the model or something?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to achieve, but if you want to view only a part of a model in i.e. a circular shape, then you can do it using a Clipping Masks...

Frederik, that worked perfectly. I guess I missed it while searching Google's tutorial list. Problem was, I was having a heck of a time finding what their definition of a View (or xref-ed inserted window thingy) was (never did find it), so searching was near impossible. I sometimes saw it referenced as the Model, but that's not right. My model is an .skp file, and kept in a seperate folder. What is the typical name of this viewy window thing?

That indeed does not only look like antialiasing problem (which could be easily fixed by using vector or hybrid rendering mode). It must be something in your SU file.

That... that fixed it. I don't understand why. From what I understand, antialiasing is the process by which lines are smoothed out for rendering/display purposes. I had no giant line besecting my model at a weird angle. Even if I had it on an invisible layer, it still wouldn't be visible in layout. I don't understand what this giant antialiased line is created from. Why would sketchup / layout do that?

Thank you for the solutions, they solved everything 100%. I just wish I understood the WHY of it...

Hey guys, long time sketchup user, complete layout newb.

I've been massing out a project in sketchup, but got stuck at the point where I wanted to print out a plan view at the appropriate scale. The alignment of the buildings puts it at a 45 degree angle, so it doesn't fit optimally onto an 11x17 sheet. I've put it into layout, which works great. I can rotate the view, set the appropriate scale, and hit print. Excellent.

Problem is, I get these weird jagged triangles across my image (see pic 2). I'm guessing here, but they seem to correspond to how the page would be split up if it were printed on 8.5x11s. After rotation. Or something.

Second issue is, how do I determine the shape of the view window in layout? A rectangle would be optimal, but what if I wanted, say, a circular view window?

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

I wrote this a few days ago :

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

@arail1 said:

1. Ability to zoom in to detail without clipping plane problems

I find it annoying too, but I believe it's a technical problem, inherent to the OpenGL technology, not SU itself. Plus, if it disappears, we wouldn't be able to zoom through geometry.

Yah, I saw this comment. Honestly, I was hoping there were perhaps some other discussions on this board, using different terminology that I'd missed while searching. Or perhaps there was a weird work-around that would work in this unique situation. I'm.. not feeling too hopeful about it.

In fact, my workaround for now is making a panoramic image, and applying it to a cylinder mass. That should reduce the 1000m model length to something considerably smaller.

Hey guys, I'm working on a project in the mountains. I've made a copy of the file with a bunch of pieces of google maps inserted, so I can figure out the views from the buildings. Problem is, the project bounding box is about a kilometer long. When I try to look out the windows of the house, it gets clipped pretty badly. This forum has had some good tips. I've turned the FOV down from 65 all the way to 10 degrees. It helps a bit, but not to a functional point yet. Are there any fixes to this problem yet? Any sneaky ruby scripts? Or are models with long extents doomed to always have camera clipping issues?

Secondary question - does this belong in the Newbies forum?

Thanks for keeping up with the video suggestion, Pbacot. I ended up going back to it, and was really impressed with the way the guy showed real world applications of the tools (as opposed to a single tool tutorial). I'm not a fan of most sketchup tutorials. This was excellent.

I tried out Instant Roads, and found mixed success.
Now that I'm reading your comment again, Chris, I'm wondering if I could have sped up my process by using your suggestions. Ah, well. Picture linked below, showing my latest challenges. Hopefully you can lend a hand...

http://i.imgur.com/K4J9Y.jpg

As a side note, I officially hate photobucket. Reducing image size automatically? Really?

Nailed it. Thanks Dave. Didn't realize axis worked that way.

Man, this is working so much better now.

45 degrees? More like 60.

I'm having some troubles with sketchup, specifically the Views tool. The toolbar has a bunch of images of a house, from various angles. I use this a lot (well, their respective hotkeys anyway).
I'm accessing and building upon a model built by another modeller. The top view is misaligned. Where the green axis should go up and down, and the red axis should go left and right, the model currently is rotated 45 degrees counter clockwise from the top view. This is quite a pain.
The model still knows which way is north, and I can import CAD files with accurate orientation. But this view issue is becoming a problem when I want to print, with Parallel Projection, with proper orientation.

So, I cleaned up the sidewalks and island of grass. Took a while, but looks good. I used the follow me tool to trace a curb along the already modelled road (What a glitchy tool...), then just drew lines outwards from the top of the curb, to create the sidewalk. Intersected Face with Model to determine where to clean up the edges of the sidewalk (the existing buildings determined the cutoff), and that was enough. For the island, I installed that Soap Skin ruby, which saved me a lot of hassle.
I've got that Instant Road ruby installed now, will see how well it works tomorrow. It might help a lot tomorrow morning.

So, overall it took me a while. Does anyone know of any videos online, showing the workflow of accomplished sketchup modellers? I'd love to see some ways to speed things up. I like the sandbox tools, but not all the time. I often end up just making a mess.

Thanks for the tips. I was worried I'd be manually stitching it together. If that's how it's gotta be, I just need to get down to it.

this isn't the only part. For the near future, I'll be doing 3 times as much as this, with multiple road variations in the same model. Which simply means, I need to be organized.

In the further future, I have about 30 times this amount of roadway to get to. In that situation, it might be best for me to use the sandbox tools.

I'm modelling a very large site for an Urban Designer. I'm taking his AutoCAD drawings, and combining them with a 3D CAD survey file. The roads and land don't line up, of course. I cut the road shapes out of the terrain, leaving room to draw the roads exactly how I want them.
Now I'm wondering about the best way to handle stitching everything together. I'm fairly experienced with sketchup, but my grade modelling techniques are piss poor at best. Can anyone give me some tips, or (optimally) point me in the direction of some relevant tutorials? The ones I find online are always very simplistic (here's how this tool works! Moving on...)

Thanks Jo-ke. Either I've only seen bad uses of that filter, or this one happened to come out very very nicely.

Very nice renders! I was wondering about your sketchy sketchup style. All the styles I've seen so far do a terrible job of attempting a hand-sketched look. They typically look very machine made.

How'd ya do it?

Ah, right, the push/pull command!

I ended up drawing a simplified set of planes (like a bunch of playing cards glued together end to end, at different elevations) then push/pulling the road drawing through the ring of cards, and intersecting with model. Worked like a charm. I also downloaded Instant Roads. Going to try out the demo some time in the future.

Thanks for the help everyone

Hey guys, been a while since I've been on here. You've helped me out a lot, and I've learned a lot. Now I've moved on to bigger things.

My client has fully designed and developed drawings for a community. So far, the design includes 6 buildings, plazas, and surrounding roadways. My job is to take these drawings and turn them into a sketchup model (with client specified adjustments). My focus right now is on the contour map, and the roads.
I've already imported a contour map from autocad, created my landscape, trimmed it down for my own purposes, and imported a flat drawing of the roads. They (should) rise and dip with the slope of the land, including a traffic circle at one point. I plan on modeling up the road with correct elevations, then stamping it into the contour map.
I'm having some trouble making this road work correctly. I have the geodetic elevations for the road at (seemingly) random points, so I know how high it should be and where. I've tried breaking up the existing 2D road drawings into chunks, rotating them as I've needed, and sticking them together. It made a real mess. So I'm wondering, what's your recommended process for making roads?

Looks great. Lighting always look awesome on monolithic stone projects.

I've gotta know... where do you guys get these massive textures?