Hi, I just logged into Sketchup Free after a few years, and made a flower bed. I have some jpegs on my hard drive for materials, but found I’m not able to upload them to make a materials library without upgrading. What subscription will I need for this? Hopefully only the first paid option! Where is the full list of things I can do with each upgrade? I’m using a PC for everything, no ipad. Thanks, Justin
In order to create a local collection of textures for SketchUp you’ll need to be using the desktop version. The current one is SketchUp 2023. In SketchUp for Web you could create a SketchUp file with your imported image, or images, as textures and save that to yourTrimble Connect storage. Then when you want to use the texture, import that SketchUp file into your model so that the texture is in the In Model materials collection. I made a sample using some of my pine woodgrain materials. After importing it into the table model the materials are now available to use.
Presumably you are a hobbyist SketchUp user and so SketchUp Free will work fine and you can do what I described.
Thank you Dave R, I also found this useful advice by Googling convert jpg to skm: “Import the JPG file into SketchUp either through File>Import or through the Materials window** . Then save the texture into a collection. My preferred method is to draw a rectangle the size of the thing the texture represents.” So I drew a 300 x 300mm square and dragged my jpeg onto it - it gave 2 options “Image” or “Material”, so I picked Material, thinking it would add it to the materials pallette. It has filled the area with the jpeg but I can’t find it in the materials pallette. So I did another and clicked “Image” this time. It brought the image in but that is the only place it appears. I can’t eyedropper these to my model or scale them, but they are here at least
Oh I notice they have been created as materials in In Model - I was in Browse where the other materials are!!
Something seems to be working for now - thanks. I am sure I will hit a wall before long and have to upgrade but I’ll bring a few materials in and try saving and moving things from model to model. In fact it is very easy to drag a jpeg in and create a material, so I could potentially do this for every future model from scratch
Thanks
That works for the desktop version, not for the web versions, though.
There is no eye dropper in the web version but once you have the material in the SketchUp model you can select it in the Materials window and add it to the model.
The free web version does not allow you to edit materials for size or color. You would at least need SketchUp Go for that. In SketchUp Free make sure you create the texture at the right size in the first place.
Thanks very much for helping me. I’d like to make some gardens with plants that have photos I’ve taken from my local area, so they look realistic to the garden’s owners. I need to model it quickly and for the leaves to be to roughly the correct scale, and I could do with importing dwg plans, so I will upgrade to the first paid option to see how far I can get with that. No doubt I’ll be back on here asking questions again soon! Thanks for your help xx
SketchUp Go will give you the option to import .dwg files. As for handling materials, it’ll be basically the same as I described for SketchUp Free although you do have some editing options available in SketchUp Go.
I presume this is not just a hobby for you. Is that correct?
I’ve now upgraded to Sketchup Go but everything seems identical. When I drag a jpeg from my hard drive onto a rectangle I can scale it as I do it, so it looks fine there. But when I draw the next rectangle and drag from In Model the scale is massive and when I click on Edit Material there is the same message telling me to upgrade. Maybe it hasn’t activated the upgrade yet. I can’t find About or version, though in personal details it shows my new subscription.
At the moment I’m a hobbyist, I’ve changed jobs from architecture to gardener, now I hope to offer creative ideas and garden designs using sketchup, so eventually it will be paid work I hope
Proabably you need to sign out and sign back in. Clear browser caches to make sure, too. You’ll know you’re working in SketchUp Go by the lack of the watermark logo in the top right and when you click on the edit button in the Materials panel it won’t try to get you to update to SketchUp Go.
Thanks, I have restarted my PC and tried again. Although my paid Go plan appears and shows as “active” in Plan Settings, only Sketchup Free appears in My Products
Maybe it’s time to call it a day and log in tomorrow 
Did you use the same e-mail address and password that you used when you purchased the subscription?
It’s the same email address but the password in my notebook didn’t work, i didn’t receive a reset password request so I deleted some spam and waited, nothing came in, so I tried again, now I have a new password but it’s the same old account and email address. I also deleted the cache which you suggested earlier
I’ve got a feeling when I log in tomorrow it will be active
Hopefully it will be. If you used a different password than you used originally, though, you might need some official assistance. Maybe @colin can advise when he gets to work tomorrow.
Fantastic, thanks very much for all your help today. I’ve made a cad plan that I’d like to make 3D tomorrow. Need to find some trees which we have in this part of England, and learn how to make my own cutouts etc. for bushes, shrubs, small trees etc.
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