Okay, I’m still fairly new to Sketchup but I’m trying to setup a large panoramic backdrop that surrounds my (architectural) model. I’ve got a lovely high-resolution 360degree panoramic image (Here - Dropbox - Error ) and I want to map that on the inner surface of a sphere. (Actually a sphere with top&bottom cutoff - I believe the vertical field-of-view should be about 50degrees).
And now I’m stuck. I’m accustomed to 3D packages where this sort of thing would be a no-brainer so I’m realizing that Sketchup just thinks very differently than I’m used to. Anybody out there want to help a noob out and talk me through this?
You need to do a spherical projection.
Ah, that’s useful! After much experimentation with it I’ve stumbled on (seriously - I doubt I could repeat it 
) something that sort of looks like what I want. Main issue is I can’t seem to figure out how to better adjust the mapping on the surface (i.e. fine-tuning things so the right edge of the texture meets up exactly with the left edge). Any hints?
I’m surprised at how little info there is on the web for this - there’s the video for doing a cylindrical projection that another poster mentions but cylindrical projection isn’t technically correct for this scenario. I guess if I get to where I can understand it well enough to repeat it I’ll have to throw one up myself. Or, if someone else is feeling generous, I’d sure love to WATCH such a video!
Alternatively, it wouldn’t suck if there was a downloadable model out there that comes pre-textured and instructions on how to easily sub in a different texture.
Hope I’m not sounding like a complainer - just trying to figure it all out!
The script is indeed very basic (you cannot easily adjust texture orientation except by rotating the textured object). If you are dealing with half a sphere (a dome), ‘dumb’ spherical projection does not give the desired result.
There are more powerful extensions:
Or you take an existing model and swap the texture. There are two (three) ways to do this in SketchUp:
• When you take the paint bucket to apply a different material, it will override/destroy the texture mapping.
• Instead select the faces, open Entity Info and click the shown material thumbnail to select a different one. This preserves the texture mapping.
(•) Or you edit the existing material in the Materials Browser to swap the texture against a different file (and set the same texture width/height).)
This is great. Next time I’m in Germany I’m buying you a beer!
I was able to successfully map my new texture onto a well-textured sphere I grabbed from 3D Warehouse (here, if you’re interested Dropbox - Error) but unfortunately that texture is on the OUTSIDE of the sphere and when I naively go to reverse faces… individual UV coordinates aren’t flopped at the same time. So the texture turns into a jigsaw puzzle. Bummer.
So next questions then:
Can you reverse faces and also reverse UV mapping on each face?
Does sketchup support double-sided rendering so the interior face is the same as the exterior?
Do you know of a nice texture-mapped sphere model where the texture’s applied to the interior instead of the interior? (I searched the warehouse but no luck… there’s some domes but I actually need something that extends below the horizon since this is from up in the air a bit… I guess I could split the texture map in half horizontally, make two different domes, etc., etc. but the lazybastard in me would prefer not to :-))
There is also this extension by the SketchUp Team:
http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/photo-textures
Yes faces have two sides: front and back. Each side can have a material applied. Each side’s material can have a separate transparency. Each material can have a different texture file applied, or the same.
Sorry, may I can continuing this thread?
now I wanted to make the 360 photo images become texture
but the plugins are not in there anymore
Ay suggestions?
