How to set up Trimble Connect for libraries

Continuing the discussion from How to import Trimble Connect models into my Sketchup work?:

Trimble Connect is not the average cloud service. It is designed to manage your Projects. While mainly used for 3D models in an actual running project , you can also use it to sync all your libraries for yourself, or share them with others.

Heres how to set this up

You will need a Trimble ID, if you think you don’t have one already, just go to the 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com and look if you are signed in. If you are signed in, it would mean you have one, if not you can create one.

Now that you have a Trimble ID, you can use it to sign in here:

connect.trimble.com

sign in on the upper left, this will get you to the Project page.

Note: everyone with a (Free) Trimble ID get’s 10gb Storage, one Project and 5 team members. If you have a subscription, you’ll get unlimited of all three (Gb’s, Projects and team member)

Covid 19

Due to COVID 19, al Free Trimble ID’s get an Xtra 4 Projects and unlimited storage!
https://connect.trimble.com/stay-connected

Create Project

This is how I have set up my libraries on my computer:

Documents/SketchUp Resources

  • Components
  • Materials
  • Styles

So, I will name my Project: SketchUp Resources

I will not cover all the details for creating a Project, you can always change these in the Settings on the left. We we just need a project, click ‘New’ and name it.

Since we already have the folder structure on the computer, we will leave it for now.

Trimble Connect Sync

Next, we are gonna download the Sync tool. This is an App that will sync between the cloud based projects and the one's on your computer. To download it, go to the upper right in the Trimble Connect tab, click on the apps-icon:

This will open this page:

Choose the App (Trimble Connect Sync) and the right OS (Windows 32, Windows 64 and MacOs)

Install the App and once installed, log in with your credentials:

Your Projects will show, Don’t push the sync now button, yet, this will automatically sync all you projects and download them on your computer, location:
Users/username/Trimble Connect Sync /Trimble ID/Projects

Instead, we go to the ‘Advanced’ tab:

We are not cover the whole App, Trimble Connect Sync uses schedules that can be set to sync on different timing, down or upload only, but also locations of your folders on the computer.

Now, change the Computer folder that directs to the Trimble Connect Sync folder automatically. (remember, we are editing the schedule that was automatically created)

Click Done and then the Sync button behind the right schedule, a preview appears:

Notice that it will upload only, since we have nothing in our Project on the Server, yet.

Clicking Sync Now will do this.
Once done and success full, you can configure the schedule and decide if you want to do this on a regular base. this is all depending of your situation, of course.

Open or refresh the Tab in the browser and notice the changes:

Nice way of looking at your components:

And in SketchUp?

Well, you cannot drag or download components directly from the servers of Trimble Connect into your SketchUp Model. This is by design. You can, however, open local collections in SketchUp where to look for your resources.

First, set up the locations in [menu]File->Preferences->Files on Windows and [menu]SketchUp->Preferences->Files on Mac.
Direct them to the proper locations, click on the pencil icon beyond them:


Then we need to open the Component Panel and click on the little blue ‘details’ button to open that same folder and add them to our favorites.

The Preference location will direct you to the folder that get’s synced with Trimble Connect Sync whenever you want to save a Component, Style or Material in your model (Save As)

You can install Trimble Connect Sync also on your other devices. In Trimble Connect, you can add members to your team, so everybody can use the same libraries.

Happy Syncing!

Note:

I do noticed some caveats on Mac with materials, but hè, what’s new :slight_smile: :frowning_face:
Might be related to the lists instead of folder structure.

7 Likes

Thx for posting this workflow in such detail @MikeWayzovski!

Here is a quick video of that same process: https://youtu.be/8ok0UDkX4ig

Make sure you also check the rest of the tips for remote collaboration using Trimble Connect from the SketchUp team in this blog post: https://blog.sketchup.com/home/7-tips-for-remote-collaboration

2 Likes

Thanks, Jack!
Very detailed explanation. (just a bit of a shame that TC doesn’t support something similar to “Google Drive File Stream” (with live “streaming” of data directly from server, without synchronisation. Google done it quite well with File Stream.)

Aris, you got a “.” at the end of the URL, invalidating it.

Thx Dmitry!

I think this is by ‘design’, you wouldn’t want things go bad because the engineer had shut down the lid of his laptop while uploading the latest change in the calculations.
Also, the team ‘out there’ might not have the same internet capacity or devices (think: contractor with iPad, rebar guy with phone)
If the sync is done at night, everybody’s on the same page, that day.

Possibly just different models. Fully agree on field-work scenario. Although it makes things a bit more difficult for office/home working with a good connection. Especially with current pace of living (sorry, “good-old pre-covid pace”), when you expect changes to happen immediately, and people may be working together on parts of the same project.

Well, this is just me thinking aloud about how to use this mechanism for company-wide roll-out and sharing of personal and “company standard” SU assets. :slight_smile: (and saving some disk space for people with small’ish SSD’s)

Update for Trimble Connect Sync on Catalina!

https://community.trimble.com/docs/DOC-35412#comments

downloaded and installed: I have set to manually and was working on a scrapbook for RAL:

Updated my SketchUp resources. Anyone interested in these resources? PM me your Trimble ID and I will add you to my resources project!

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