Hi Cotty,

Thank you for your response! I tried the projected texture - I first selected the jpeg plane, clicked the "eye dropper" in the materials browser, sampled the jpeg plane, and then touched the landscape 3D beneath. It seems as though it painted the landscape with an average color of the jpeg above - it painted the whole landscape a muddy green - whereas the jpeg above (a landscape architectural rendering) was full of lots of colors....Any thoughts on what I did wrong?

I'll see if I can get dropbox up and running to share a link...

Best, Jeff

OK - I now know the the process. Here it is:

1. From web-based topographic server (MnTopo in my case), zoom in to subject area, download "Contours" (not DEM).
2. Zipped file e-mailed to you containing shapeless. Open in ArcGIS and back save to AutoCAD 2010 or earlier.
3. Open file in Auto CAD, create bounding box, and clean up stray contours. Save as a .dwg .
4. Open .dwg in SU and save as .skp
5. et voila!

Cheers, Jeff

Hello All,

I have a 3D terrain model with surface in SU v8 created from 1 meter contours. I have a 2D jpeg of an image pasted to a plane floating right above the 3D terrain model. The 2D image is positioned and scaled just about right; above the 3D landscape beneath. I want to lay this jpeg on the surface so it hugs the contours. I have found a few suggestions on how to do this but I can't make it work. Any thoughts would would be greatly appreciated. I could upload the SU model - but it's a bit big (28MB). Is that too large to try to upload here?

Thank you! Cheers, Jeff

Hello,

I have a trial version of SU Pro 2015, trying to import a .dem. The .dem file size is ~100MB. It starts to import, then bug splat. Is the file size likely the problem? At the start of import, I reduced the number of points and faces down quite low just as a test, but still no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks, Jeff

Hello,

I am trying to import a DEM into SU Pro 2015 (MacBook Pro, OS Yosemite) and am having difficulties. I downloaded elevation data from web-site (search for "Mntopo' web site) in the form of a DEM. The resulting files were of extensions .bil, .hdr, .xml,.....I had no luck importing. I tried downloading from the same web site in a different format , the extensions were different (and many). Still, I had no luck importing. Any suggestions? I am trying to create a 3D model of a wetland mitigation site. Thank you! Best, Jeff

Hello All,

I am using Sketchup Pro 2015 (MacBook Pro, OS Yosemite) and would like to import a DEM. I downloaded a DEM based on contours produced from LiDAR (from MNtopo website). First attempt download option was open-source and extensions were .bil, .xml, .hdr.......) I could not import. Second download attempt (same website) was an ESRI-based DEM with a bunch of different extensions. Still could not import. Any suggestions? I saw some advice that said to change the extension to .dem, but not sure which file I should apply this change to. Thank you in advance! Best, Jeff