Like I said, SketchUp's camera would need several curves, three for the camera position (x,y,z)and three for the focus points position.
For flythroughs it would be much easier with a "one node" camera which only has one position and rotation. A 2 node and a 1 node camera is what all the big 3d apps like Maya and 3ds Max have.

Here is a quick mock up (basicly from Maya) of how a spline animation editor might look like for those who dont know.

And here is a link to a java web example:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/exploratories/freeSoftware/repository/edu/brown/cs/exploratories/applets/bezierSplines/bezier_splines_java_browser.html

Drag P1, P2, P3 and P4 to see that a editable splinecurve can be done in a web window/web dialog.

@kwistenbiebel said:

But can it also do smoother camera motion and control the path?

Rick W's flightpath can do that in a limited way IMHO. Its not easily editable.
It would be better with editable spline curves that you can move around in the scene to change the path.
Maybe with a editor similar to my idea you could even add new spline knots (points) when new keys were created at the location specified in the position input boxes.

Just thinking loud here...

I disagree.
Not that I don't want the functionality in SketchUp, but doing a animation editor in just a small panel is bad in several ways. First that would mean it would have to be coded by Google when ever they deside to do it. Secondly it would be impractical with such a small panel for lets say a animation between 15-20 scenes or more. The sliders would be on top of each other.

I've simplified the image I previously posted a link to just to explain if someone didn't understand what I meant with it.

The timeline would be extended dynamicly when changing the animation lenght value.
This means you will always have enough space to see all the keys even if they are on each frame.

The black rectangles would be the same as the sliders in the post by Plot-Paris.
Draggable to the left and right to change the timing between scenes/keyframes.
The red rectangle shows the key you are currently editing. Adding new keys would be as simple as ctrl+clicking (Or something like that.)

Doing a animation control with Ruby and a web dialog means the community could start making it NOW instead of waiting for whenever Google desides they would like to do it. It would also mean it could be extended with new features so it could start simple and be enhanced with perhaps a spline curve to control speed. I believe also that is doable with a web dialog through java.

My two cents...

I'm certainly no expert but I wrote a MentalRay shader for Maya once that uses the transformation Matrix to position scale and rotate a texture. If you really want to learn it there is an exellent book called Complete Maya Programming volume 2 that explains in detail every thing about matrices and more. Not just for Maya.

I'll try to make a very short explanation if I can remember it right.

1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 1

The 1's is the x, y, z scale.

1 0 0
0 cos(rx) sin(rx)
0 -sin(rx cos(rx)

X axis rotation.

cos(ry) 0 -sin(ry)
0 1 0
sin(ry) 0 cos(ry)

Y axis rotation.

cos(rz sin(rz) 0
-sin(rz) cos(rz) 0
0 0 1

Z axis rotation.

Feel free to have a look at the source code for my JS_Place3dTexture shader at my site: http://www.pixero.com.
Mental Ray section.

@whaat said:

@unknownuser said:

you can smooth the timing of transitions over an entire animation sequence;

Can you clarify this? Does this allow 'ease-in' and 'ease-out' of scene tabs?

I was thinking about writing such a plugin last night. However, I'm too busy right now.

SketchUp have linear interpolation which means the camera have the same speed leaving last scene/keyframe as it has coming to the next. Ease in ease out is slowing in and accelerating and would give the user much more control over camera speed. Lets say you want to give the viewer time to watch some detail you could slow in when the camera came close to it.

@unknownuser said:

The thing that bothers me the most in the default transitions in SU, is that sometimes the camera will move under the ground plane, or fly through geometry...
I don't know if there's a way to overcome this by setting options...

Another thing would be having a solution for the 'hickups' between the transitions.
A Sketchup animation is not smooth. You can see the different transitions as the animation produces a sudden shock when a new one starts. So some 'global' settings could fix that.
Actually that would be similar to what Solo mentioned.

SketchUps camera is a "two node camera" meaning it has a position for the actual camera and another position for the focus point. While this can be good at some occations it makes it harder to animate a flythrough. A "one node camera" has position and rotation which makes it easier to animate since it doesnt fly away out of course so easily like you describe.

I've posted an idea for a script before that I belive would help making better animations.
I'm not able to make this myself since it would need some webdialogs programming that is beyond my knowledge. The other stuff is not so hard to make I think.
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=8547&p=51051&hilit=pixero#p51051
I've made a script called js_CameraControl.rb (Here: http://www.pixero.com) for positioning the camera more like a one node camera as a small start for this.

I really, really would love to see someone (Whaat maybe) take a look at this.

Whaat, here is a link that might be of interest to you.
http://ozviz.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/texture_colour/spheremap/

That was funny.

@kwistenbiebel said:

I don't really care what SU 7 will look like anymore (kidding) . We have Whaat.
Solo's idea of renaming Sketchup to Whaats'up is far from silly.

Fabulous.

He hee!

I've heard a "saying" a long time ago that went something like this:

"However good you become there will always be a twelve year old chinese that will be a lot better."

We will just need to realise that some people have a incredible talent that make the rest of us look like newbies.

Yes, yes, yeees!

Wow!
Thats the old Alias Sketchbook Pro in a new version. I thought Autodesk had buried it forever.
I love this software. It´s IMHO THE best software for simulating pencil sketching on a computer. I've tried every program I've found but Sketchbook Pro has the best feel to it.
Now I have to find out whats new ...

Thanks, I know I'll have great use of it.

Steorn - Informasi Teknologi Terkini dan Terbaru

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Steorn - Informasi Teknologi Terkini dan Terbaru (www.steorn.com)

Lets just wait until the scientists have made their report.

I think the link you posted to the orion project looks a lot less convincing than this Irish company called Steorn that is currently letting scientists examine their free energy system called Orbo. Its based on micromagnetism and was discovered pretty much by accident.
I've been following this for a year and a half and as far as I can tell it seems pretty convincing.
http://www.steorn.com

I've made a script called JS_CameraTool that can rotate the camera the way you want. It also can move the camera numericly. Its at my site: http://www.pixero.com

@remus said:

Open the group (containing the proxy and subsurf), triple click the proxy, right click->entity info->layer.

Thats how i do it, anyway.

Thanks. Works great.

Thanks for this great script!

...when you say "me too" at every single post in this thread...

@jorgensen said:

Just found out that the proxy can quite easy manuel be moved to a specific layer.

Would you mind telling the rest of us how to do it?