PolyCam + SketchUp Go 4 iPad = Landscaping?

SketchUp
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Hey guys, new here obviously. Just wanting to get straight to the point so if anyone can help me out by pointing me in the right direction or working through this for me, that would be great.

To start, I know basically nothing about SketchUp except that I’ve tried to use it for landscape design a few times and have always just caved to the more “set up directly for landscape architecture” stuff instead of take the time to learn this program, but I always end up back here.

Currently i use PolyCam to 3D scan spaces (front / back yards) for my landscape clients. I would like to be able to import these into SketchUp and work off them.

So I guess i need to know the best way to be able to do that, and then I also need some help finding good free (for now at least while i learn) resources for materials or models to use while landscaping. For things like lights, plants, accessories (patio, pergola, hot tub, pools, etc).

Anything at all that can help jumpstart my learning of SketchUp for iPad. Im willing to subscribe to more expensive plans even once I’m able to learn, or if there is a clearly defined route to landscaping with SketchUp that was only available from a more costly version. I just need help lining it all out.

Currently i use Realtime Landscape Architect 2020 the full pro version but its rapidly becoming an outdated husk of a program and more and more items are becoming unsupported.

So i currently 3D scan, and then from a top down look, take a flat measurement for scaling, then screenshot it and move it to Morpholio Trace which i have the year paid version for 20$, then i can scribble around and do estimates super super easy. But once it gets into actual paid for 3D Designs, or even trying to design a bit more in detail, its another program I’m lost in without watching a bunch of tutorials in.

All in all it seems all of these can be powerful, but the wealth of info about them seems to be locked up haha. Help me!

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Trimble Scan Essentials is part of the SketchUp Studio subscription and lets you bring point cloud data into SketchUp Pro. There is also another commercial extension that performs more or less the same function - the name escapes me now. None of these, unfortunately, work in the iPad version or other online versions.

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Darn. I watched a youtube video of a guy importing a shoe. Ive been able to download PolyCam as a DAE file, but when i import it, it doesnt put all the imagery on it. But it does when the guy in the video does. hmm.

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Hi, I don’t know if this is still of interest to you, but I have had recent success importing PolyCam lidar scans into Sketchup. Here’s the process:

  1. Open PolyCam on my desktop
  2. Open up the scan/model i want
  3. Select ‘Download’ using the GLTF format.
  4. Open a new SketchUp model
  5. Select File>Import>then navigate to the folder where the .gltf file was downloaded and choose it
  6. Voila…!

The model then shows up in SketchUp with full photo imaging, but with jigsaw-puzzle-like lines. I go to Styles, and turn off Profiles… now it looks just like the real-life model.
Be aware, the surfaces on the imported scan are of course very ‘organic’ and ‘lumpy’ compared to something you’d make in Sketchup. I find it useful as a sort of base image, but any hardscaping or further modelling you do needs to stay disconnected from the Polycam import, or else your alignment and squaring gets really goofy.

Cheers,

Reuben

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