Newbie alert. Just downloaded Sketchup Make (free) - 25 days left on trial edition. First post.
Am I in the right place to ask a “how to” question?
I appreciate the awesome drawing capabilities of Sketchup, having watched several tutorials already. However, can I create a simple text file containing (x,y,z) coordinates of a house, and then import those coordinates into Sketchup Make? I can format the file to suit what’s required. After import, can I then enhance by making walls thicker, add windows etc.
It depends on the format of your coordinates (as you said you can format it) and on as what you want the coordinates to be interpreted. Coordinates are either stand-alone points or positions or vertices of some geometry that you do not specify.
There are several plugins that can import text files (e.g. csv) with coordinates and generate “construction points” as helpers for modeling. They don’t produce walls that you can make thinner or thicker but you can draw faces for walls or push-pull existing walls to snap them to a construction point.
SketchUp does not natively provide a way to import a text file with <x,y,z> coordinate data, However, as mentioned above, there are numerous plugins that you might be able to use. If you’re not familiar with plugins, most are written in Ruby and can be added to SketchUp for fee or free. With <x,y,z> data only representing a point, the “pointcloud” plugins mentioned can import a text file if properly formatted, but the result will only be some points … you will need to connect the dots to create any geometry.
Once you’ve used the points to create a wall, there are many ways to modify it. Yes, you can make it bigger or smaller or thicker or thinner. You can add windows and doors and floors and furniture and more.
