Thanks for your reply Gaieus.

But, I couldn't read the file, it came over as pages of random text.

I have another question, I tried working out how the attached model was textured.
I extracted the texture and tried reapplying it every way I know how but the texturing came out mangled, unprojected on individual faces.

Or it gets smeared on the more vertical surfaces.

How is it textured ?

It is not my work, respect to the author.

Regards

Smiley

skydome

I looked into displaying a SketchUp model on a website, but got completely lost in the world of codecs, plugins and file wrappers.

I would follow nizamuddin approach and go for the simple solution without any additional plugins or user intervention. Ease of use is key.
Anything that takes more than 5 seconds to display will annoy a user and they will give up. So I abandoned the 3D interactive route and went for an animated video.

One of the simplest user interfaces is YouTube.
I exported a SketchUp model animation and uploaded it to Youtube.
Moving a reasonably sized model around in real time via a website is likely to be cumbersome.

But. I was disappointed.
The quality has dropped significantly, to an unacceptable degree.

There is a trade off, the file I uploaded was 96.5 MB, YouTube processed this file to 824 KB ( !!! ) for display. So for instant display there is a quality drop.

I tried getting a higher playback quality but without success.
Does anyone know a way to improve quality ?
Or a site similar to YouTube that does not drop the quality so much ?

Gaieus's input was comprehensive, as usual, I didn't know .pdf files could display 3d models, shame there is no Mac version.

Regards

Smiley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELApvRSVhI0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF3EdwJR1TY

This would be the minimum quality I would like.
http://www.coleg.me.uk/pics/dunster_movie_3.avi

I see now. Thanks.

I split up the .jpg file and what a difference in quality.
I 'saved for web' from Photoshop, striping out exif data, and the textures displayed on both PC and iMac.

I created a panorama with 6 .jpg files (1000 x 1023).
Getting the images to tile seamlessly was a challenge, there is still a minor join visible, is this the best that can be achieved ?
See attached.

Smiley

Panorama

Thanks for that.

I noticed some of the textures that do display on my PC do have embedded Exif properties. Curiouser and curiouser.

Incidentally,

I have noticed writing the file from PhotoShop using "File> save for web" stripes out most of the embedded data including exif data.

The file size has dopped from 3.7 meg to 400 k which is worth having.

Smiley

I have noticed the resolution of imported .jpg images is degraded.

I have imported large .jpg files for a panarama view and noticed the image quality has dropped, I am seeing jaggies that weren't there in the PhotoShop image.

On closer inspection of smaller .jpg images used for buildings I am seeing a lower quality in SU.

Am I missing something ? I have imported them every way possible with no success.

Smiley.

Great tut, clear, well annotated and nicely paced.

It is possible to change all the layer colours to textures.

So, using 'colour by layer' option in styles it is possible to retexture the whole model without touching a single polygon.

Taking it further, coincidental groups and components (with different textures) can be swapped in and out using layers and scenes.

This technique allows a quick comparison of appropriate textures.

Smiley

Thanks Assi,

The .skm file format is, according to the manual, platform independent, in theory.
The annoying part of this problem is - some prepared textures disappear, some don't.

I tried a few work arounds, copying textured polygons from .skp files that didn't lose their textures when transfered to a PC into the .skp that did lose their textures.
The results were mixed, sometimes textures disappeared sometimes they didn't.

so , I just started from scratch, returned all polygons to default texture and defined every texture again -- it worked but so tedious.

What may have caused the problems was dragging textures from the User Palette in the The Color Picker Dialog Box into the texture window.
I need to clear this palette out.

Does anyone know if there is a viewer that will display .skm files as thumbnails ?

Smiley

I have got myself a bit screwed up with textures.

When transferring sketchUp files to a PC from a iMac (white PowerPC) the textures are lost.

But

It doesn't happen all the time.

The lost textures are ones I have produced in Photoshop, on the PC they have the right names but they are flat colours, they reference the original .jpg file.

I have created textured models on the PC and transferred then to my iMac they seem to transfer OK in that direction.

According to the manual the textures are stored in the .skp file but I am finding this not to be the case.

I have gone through the procedure of creating texture .skm files from .jpg sources.

The manual tells me they should appear in

~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp/Materials/<libraryname>.skm

But they appear in

~/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 6/SketchUp/Materials/<new list name folder>/<libraryname>.skm

Could this have any bearing on my problems ?

One other question ( among many ). - How can I clear textures out of the User Palette. Does any one know where these texture references are stored ?
See graphic attached.
I have version 6

Many thanks in advance.

Smiley

This might help.

When I download

Versio 2.2(current)

from

viewtopic.php?f=153&t=6912

I get file.php which I was throwing away because I couldn't do anything with it,

until,

I opened it in TextEdit ( I am a Mac ) and discovered it was a text file, I renamed it to skin.rb. I copied it to the plugins folder.

Downloading the icons I get file.php which is a folder with icons and skin.rb which I throw. I load the folder 'skin' into plugins.

After a little time I got it to work, looking good, thanks.

But, how do I know for sure which version I have ?

Is there any documentation ?

Is there anyway to put a comment in the header of the skin.rb file so I would know for sure ?

Are there any basic guidelines as to how folders and files should appear in the plugins folder ?

Many thanks.

C S