Hey everyone,
I’m using some drone data to try and create a model in sketchup. Theres no problem importing the dxf and making the terrain. I’m then using a jpg (I’ve tried pdf too) and trying to overlay it over the terrain. When I do that it drapes but comes out scattered. I’ve watched a bunch of videos and am not having any luck. Any tips?
Much appreciated
Apply the image as a material to a large rectangle positioned above the terrain. Right click on the texture and choose Projected. Then get the Paint Bucket tool, Hold Command to sample the texture from the rectangle and apply it to the terrain surface.
Thanks for the input. I’ve gotten to that point in the process but then everything goes awry. Could it be because my model isn’t square and the jpg is?
That shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Is the terrain geometry grouped?
The terrain is exploded. I also separated the layers with the contours from the terrain.
The relationship of the projected image and the projected upon surface is important, the one must be behind the other, but their collective attitude relative to the axis nor the shape of the two surfaces do not matter. How exactly does this go “awry”?
Can you post your terrain file so we can see what you have going on. In order for the projected texture to be applied you must be able to select the entire terrain together. If your terrain is separated by layers but exploded then you have raw geometry assigned to a layer which is incorrect. Only groups and components should be assigned to a layer/tag. Let’s take a look at your file.
This is how I’ve been setting it up and pretty much as far as I’ve been able to get.o
asdfersr.skp (2.0 MB)
Part of the problem you’re having is that the image you’re trying to drape is smaller than the surface you’re trying to drape it too.
I scaled up your image, however this is not super accurate. You need to measure between 2 points on that image in your drone processing software and when you bring the image into SU measure between those 2 same points and scale as needed.
You are getting there. Select the upper surface and make sure texture is projected. Then open the terrain for editing select surface and sample/apply.
Once you have this projection process working you can work on the scale issues you may have. It looks like you attempted to scale the photo by eye looking down from above, unfortunatly you did this with the camera set to perspective, so the closer objects (the photo) are larger than those further away, so it may have looked correct but was not. If you want to set by eye this way change the camera to parallel projection. Or measure to be more precise.
As I suspected you have some raw geometry assigned to a layer here, and the active layer set to something other than layer 0. Best practice is to leave layer 0 active at all times (do not move the pencil), and only assign layers to groups and components, not loose geometry.
You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for your help I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it 
