Hi, Zootsuit:
Your question about which image: yes the first image was where I saw what looked like spurious reflection. After clicking on the image and the enlarge function, I applied Control+Scroll to zoom in tighter. Obviously, the general observer would not necessarily look this close. I was just commenting in case it would concern you about that feature.
EDIT: Perhaps print out the image for proofing?

Sorry, just found Boo's tutorial , will have to try and work out how to use subdivide and smooth !

Thanks Solo, it works now. I also just found the same solution in this thread :

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=33676&p=296276&hilit=material+uneven+surface#p296276

Hi There

Following all the help I had on this (thanks again!) I've successfully modelled and completed the project. Ive posted the renderings in the gallery if anyones interested there's a link below

thanks again

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=39465

I don't think you need to examine a Viz book for that - this is quite common in many rendering apps. SU is a surface modeller which means that "solids" are represented by "hollows" surrounded by back faces while front faces are to represent the "real world surfaces" of real objects. Most of the rendering engines (as well as solid modellers) can't interpret back faces so we need to be very consistent with them.

Simplify contours works on contour lines before you make the mesh. Didier's plugin, Terrain reshaper works with already existing meshes.

Hey Thanks Pmiller!

I tried Make Faces agian and left it running yesterday evening. It worked , similar to yours with some flaws, but took 4 hours! Ive got a few more sections to do so will try the contours method. Ill post you my email now

Thanks!

Great Post!! Thank you.

Wanted to share in case someone else was experiencing this...

Environment:
SketchUp 7 (7.1.6859)
Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Problem:
Despite following the directions explicitly... could not manage to print a true 1:1 scale.
Ex: I drew a 100mm x 20mm rectangle... Printed at 1:1 scale... Measured... longer side was at 104mm. Went through this over and over again. Read and re-read the directions...forum postings, everything...Nothing helped.

Solution:
In the File->Page Setup (Remember this on a mac...may be different for PC) I HAD 'Format For' set to 'Canon MP620 Printer' and 'Paper Size' set to 'US Letter (borderless)'... Sounds reasonable right? Well guess not, because as a last ditch effort I decided set 'Format For' to 'Any Printer' and 'Paper Size' to a custom '8.5 x 11 Borderless' that I made via the 'Manage Custom Sizes' option in that same menu and BAM problem fixed!

If I set 'Format For' back to 'Canon MP620 Printer' and the 'Paper Size' back to 'US Letter (borderless)' problem returns again! So, I'm not sure what the scoop is but obviously something screwy with the Canon supplied profile.

So moral of the story? It's definitely worth giving this fix a try if nothing else is working... definitely did it for me.

-Mike

Hi,

While the gentlemen above are correct how lines can easily be hidden, you may rather be interested in softening those edges instead, if they are on a terrain.

To do this, right click on the terrain component and select soften edges. A dialogue will pop up where you cn check "soften coplanar edges" and use the slider to soften what you want.

You can also soften individual edges (in edit mode) using the Ctrl+Erases tool.

Softening a terrain would probably give you better visual results than only hiding edges because by hiding them the surface will stilll ermain "broken".

Hi Tomsdesk

Ive already remodelled the area but thanks for your suggestion, I'll remember it for next time!

@zootsuit said:

Hi there.

I'm working on a large scale residential estate for an architectural project. I have a PDF of the plan site which I want to use as a base to trace over in Sketchup.

I have converted the PDF to a jpeg in Photoshop then imported it and used it as a material on a base rectangle. The problem is that it needs to be scaled up so much that the image is very blurry and hard to trace accurately. Is there a better way I can do this ? Should I model on a much smaller scale , i.e the original size of the jpeg, then scale the model to size after? If I try to scale the Jpeg up in Photoshop the file size goes through the roof!

Many Thanks

Zootsuit

Is it a bitmap embedded within the PDF? Or is it vector graphics? If it's vector you can use Illustrator or similar to open it and then export the lines as DWG/DXF.

Excellent, I didnt know about the hidden geometry command. That makes things a lot easier! thanks for all your help!