You might love or hate CAD files, but if you find .dwg files circling through your workflow, we suggest you check out the latest Campus Track: 3 Ways to boost your CAD to 3D Workflow
The process is broken down into 3 methods, which also apply to how you might receive .dwg files. If you create the files yourself, check out our suggestions for how to optimize the files before importing them into SketchUp.
If you are given the files and just need to make the best of them inside SketchUp, we’ve got you covered there as well with 2 different approaches with suggestions for using the native tools or some extensions.
It was a beneficial track of classes. Only thing that I might suggest is explain more as doing things, such as deleting/hiding layers in track one. That went by really fast and I had to watch that step several times. I get both cad files and PDFs and they each have their challenges in getting into SU. Thanks for doing these!
Howdy!
Interesting & useful track. I’m not interested in using CAD, but plan to convert PDFs to DXF files and then trace over those. I thought the tips in method 3 would be useful, but, being a novice, I’m trying to figure out how the gray color is applied to the lines, rectangles etc. your drawing over the base layer. Is the color applied to a certain layer? Sorry if the answer’s already in the lesson and I missed it
Maybe there’s a separate tutorial for that?
Thanks!
I think there are 2 ways you could approach this, Styles or Color by layer. (Or a combination of the two)
Color by Layer (Tags):
Group all the CAD linework together, then put that group on a new layer. (Layers- now Tags in 2020) Toggle ‘Color by Layer’ on and that is what makes the CAD linework layer appear in one color. Change the default layer color to something different, and now as you draw, that will appear in a different color.
Styles
Create a unique style and in the linework, toggle edge color ‘by Material’. This will let you color edges differently. Apply a color to the linework group and all those edges should inherit that color.
Create a new group for the linework you are drawing on top of the original and color that group with a different color. -You may want to create a new surface color as well.
In both cases, it’s a good idea to lock the underlying group so it can’t be modified, and Eric also creates some scenes that toggle the original group on and off by hiding it’s layer (Tag)
I didn’t see any information here about working with imported contour lines from CAD files. It would be great to know optimal workflow for simplifying contours and creating terrain mesh when importing CAD files from a civil engineer. Do you have a recommendation of where I could learn more about that? Thanks!
Methods likely vary depending on site/complexity. For example, are your CAD contours flat or do they have elevation values applied?
Did you have a file you wanted to share to review together? The cleanup parts of the course are the still relevant here - ie, Isolating contour linework, reducing layer count, purging, saving as clean file/wBlock.
Thanks for the reply. The contour lines have elevations applied. Attached is the dwg I got from the civil engineers. I brought it into Sketchup and it is obviously way too big for what I need for Lot 13. What would be your recommended workflow for extracting only what I need? Also, the contour lines are made up of several small line segments. Should I simplify the contours or use the weld plugin to connect them together? or both? Should I use TopoShaper to create the mesh or From Contours? Also, If I am wanting to
upload the model to google earth to analyze views, what do I need to consider in terms of the axis location and the elevation I need to import my building model into? Thank you for your help!
So for this file, I’d agree with you that reducing both the overall area of the contours to convert to a mesh and simplifying the contours will help speed things up.
In CAD, I drew an area around lot 13 with plenty of extra room on all sides to help guide me later in SU for what I need to keep and discard. This could be done first in CAD but if the lines are all joined, then you’d have to trim or break them so I figured it’d be easier to do in SU. Either way is fine.
Here is a comparison of mesh made with just Sandbox Tools (Toposhaper works with point clouds, etc but since you have clean contours, Sandbox works just fine). Note that there are over 65,000 edges for just contour linework in this new reduced lot 13 area. After using Simplify Contours extension, the number drops to 3,200. The Sandbox meshes look nearly identical.
Edit: for Google Earth, just use the ‘Add Location’ feature in SketchUp and move your mesh to align with it’s real-world position. Then turn off any layers you don’t want to show in Google Earth and export as KMZ format. Tip: sometimes the Google Earth terrain and SketchUp mesh overlap each other so I tend to ‘fake’ it a bit and move my mesh up about a meter or so so that it ‘floats’ just above the Google terrain.
I am confused on what to do with the extensions once downloaded? The Face Creator extension worked well and was instantly available in Sketchup. However, all of the others referenced, I can see are downloaded but maybe I need to drag to a library somewhere to be accessible via Sketchup? I am new to extensions. Where can I learn more about how to work with extensions?
You might have already successfully installed them. Some work immediately, for others you need to quit SketchUp then open it up again. Try restarting SketchUp and look for them in the menus.
There’s more than one way of installing them:
From inside SketchUp: Window->Extension Warehouse
From inside SketchUp: Window->Extension Manager. Click ‘Install Extension’ then locate a .rbz file that you’ve downloaded earlier.
Older (or simpler) plugins can be installed by copying the files into your Plugins folder here: ~/Library/Application Support/Sketchup 2020/Sketchup/Plugins
With the Sketchucation store extension for those that are hosted there.
The directory depends on which version of SketchUp you have. Your profile says 2010. Is that SketchUp 8?
Cleanup3 and Edge Tools require a library TT_Lib2 which you need to install too. You just install it like any other extension. Joint Push Pull is on SketchUcation and I’d recommend getting their extension store which makes installing and updating other extensions from there much easier:
Hi
Going through your guide to improve dwg import process
Are you still available for questions?
Comment - the delete process was very quick and did not see rationale. Like another I am rerunning to try and understand and there could be a danger you delete something which is on wrong layer.
In Outliner have ended up with some very long refrerences which I recollect seeing similar when I used AutoCAD. Any thoughts, going to redo process to see if I did something wrong
Got to the end of this series created by Eric - EXCELLENT. May not need what was explained but following the process was quite educational in itself and the process of developing ways of working. Picked up info on various tools and extensions in process as a bonus. As with most systems there are often more than one way in doing in anything and you some times get used to doing things just one way and not realising the other ways. Very well explained …but… when I got to the end…no questions found so status remains as incomplete and it starts back at the beginning… AAH …I am trapped in a time loop. Hope you manage more like this, much appreciated.
PS Tables in meeting rooms are not sitting on floor in final skp file - oops
Thanks @tede20 for following back up and sharing your feedback. We’re trying are best to create engaging course material with full knowledge that there are many different ways people can and do use SketchUp!
Frankly, I resort to last method and draw over the top…in 90% of the dwgs received… even though I have Autocad (well Draftsight)…
You got a pretty clean CAD file to start, most of mine have 500+ layers, 50% of the entities in the wrong layer, exploded blocks, clipped viewports, world coordinates in the millions of units, manufacturers blocks with crazy levels of detail… I am sure most of us suffer the mess of Autocad…
Liked you use of scenes and line colour to get a bit of visual control of the underlay and model on top and your quick organisation of components using the “make unique” command to rewrite thier original definition… that will save some time…
To echo previous posts, the delete/hide layers tutorial part was way too fast. The tutorials in Campus are all excellent and thank you very much for making them, but if you are making these videos to teach the community to use the product better, then why barrel though the lessons at lighting speed? You just end up with a group of confused users.
