I have been using sketchup 2022 with oob terrain to create large area terrains (i.e. 25km x 40km) but the geo location option is being removed from that very soon.
Sketchup 2024 has very tight limitations on height above ground, area size that can be created and, it creates vast amounts of polys no matter how low you specify (I work on real-time and VR projects).
Does anyone know of a way to extract large area terrain and texture from Google earth?
I have been in communication with the sketchup team and they have suggested I ask here, as they cannot help.
have you tried CAD mapper https://cadmapper.com/ there are paid and free options depending of the sizes you need and you can get your files in SKP ready formats.
You were answered in the other identical post. Did you try the method provided? Have you searched and watched tutorials on YouTube?
Not really.
You can retopologize the terrain to whatever density you want (low ploy) and bake detailed texture onto it.
More than 40 km wide, mid poly mesh (can be made low poly, it’s quad) and one texture
Ive tried 2024 again today (its changed since I last used it?). Max height now is 300 metres but you still cant grab big areas with 5km ish being the biggest with 12 textures and over 162,000 polys so of no use at all?
Certainly can see no way of grabbing a 40km, 1 texture in one hit and low polys.
Sorry if I’m being obtuse but any tips ofr hints welcome as to how to do this.
I have looked at tutorials and spoken to sketchup people and they agreed it couldnt do what I wanted.
Yes you can link many areas but its just a vast amount of polys that are of no use in real-time which is what I’m doing.
Until recently we got round this by using sketchup 2022 and oobterrain, but in their wisdom 2022 onwards dont now work properly having got rid of location in January and no later ones work.
Be aware that this would violate Google’s terms of use, which is why SketchUp no longer uses GE data for geolocation .
I’ve been trying to pull larger areas f(while still stuck at 300m altitude) but get constant crashes, so gradually trying smaller areas. It still creates vast numbers of textures and for a 10km x 10km area over 2 million polygons so think I’ll have to give up using sketchup.
If someone knows a way to do this, please let me know.
Add Location high poly mesh (over 25 Km large) to low poly mesh (under 1k) with one texture - basic SketchUp and native tools, with one exception - mcAlignEnds extension to conform the 2D mesh over the 3D terrain.
Hi
Sorry I’m unclear as what that means?
What version of sketchup, how do you define over 25km and one texture and low polys? What is regarded as low by yourself?
Thanks for any help.
Martin
Did you watch the video?
over 25 km
one texture - min 10:19
low poly - min 10:06
400 tris - low poly
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What do you mean by this please? I can import a 700m high range no problem using add location:
For the large area imports (with larger polygons and lower resolution textures), I don’t see any technical reason Add Location cannot do this, if you create a request in the feature request category and it gets a large number of votes, the product team might consider it…
When getting terrain in 2024, when trying to import site context it wont let you go above 200m viewing height, not actual terrain height (small box bottom left corner, which is quite obviously higher than 200 metres) so you cant see the whole area you want to select and have to just keep pulling the box blindly outwards bit by bit to encapsulate the full area you want.
If you do keep pulling the box to get a big area and set it as 3d, low mesh density, low resolution, then import, it will the create way too many textures and way too many polys for real-time (i.e. a test area just done which is just 4.5km x 4.2km contained 35 incorrectly sized texture patterns and 745,000 3 vertice polygons which is of no use at all. If you try to create a bigger area than that it generally crashes.
The texture patterns are all also 1026 x 2050, 2050 x 2050 etc instead of what they need to be i.e. 1024 x 4096 4096 x 4096 etc???
I have been trying to use sketchup 2025 but we cannot get it to load no matter what we do. Is it a windows 11 product?
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Ofcourse it is compatible with Windows 11.
Even SketchUp 2017 works flawless on Windows 11.
Have you installed SketchUp correctly? That means right clicking on the installer file and choose “run as administrator”.
If you haven’t, you can do it now and choose “repair” when presented without uninstalling first..
SketchUp 2025 works also with Windows 10. It is not supported on older versions of Windows (8, 7, XP…)
I know that many people do not bother with their forum profile, but this might be the issue for Martin:
Sorry, what I meant was I’m using windows 10 so my question should have been does it work with windows 10.
I had done the administrator setup (and just done it again) and repair but all I ever get is this below?
https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/system-requirements
According to the system requirements page SketchUp 2025 is compatible with Windows 11 and 10.
actually, a subscription to placemaker allows you to legally grab some google earth data now.
haven’t tried it, nor have I read the fine prints
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I’m hoping to try placemaker today but there was no way of buying a license Friday and they are resolving that. Fingers crossed, though I have also been told Sketchup 25 can do it by a user, but again, license wont work.
Bring back sketchup 22 and oob terrain which worked so well!