Since Trimble has now found a new way to force their subscription down our throats by putting end dates on features they have decided they have to be paid for OR kiss them goodbye…features like Geolocation to name one and I think Extension Warehouse and 3D Warehouse as well. (as I recall, we get 2 or 3 years past the year of SketchUp we have)…I’m looking for an extension that can replace geolocation with the minimal ability to provide a means to enter longitude and latitude to geolocate the model. Don’t care about much else but having the ability to study sun and shadow to place and orient buildings properly relative to sunshine/shadows I’ve been working on a way to use Google Maps, a Smart Phone, GIS and SketchUp to place a building on a property pretty sucessfully. The only thing missing is how to geolocate within SU.
Please let me know if you know of anything.
If all you need is latitude and longitude for the site, you don’t need an extension at all. Just add that information in Model Info.
Do as Dave said, and if you need accurate shadows you can use the solar north plugin, you can download it from the extension warehouse website if your skp version isn’t supported anymore.
Thanks Dave and Fransico; perfect info. Added Long. and Lat. to Model Info>manual location and it worked perfectly. I have Solar North already, but that doesn’t take into account your position on the earth. Been using Curic Sun to study shadows, it’s fantastic once you figure out how to use it. Making sure the sun is on the pool!!!
If you also want to do something more than just adding coordinates, this plugin (9$ perpetual license) allows you to import maps even if you don’t have the Sketchup Geolocation webservice active anymore.
You will just need to manually add geolocation in model info as Dave already pointed out.
Thanks, I’ll check it out. Sounds like just what I need.
Does this provide topo info as well?
Not sure what do you mean with “topo info”…
The plugin allows you to import 3d and 2d Google maps data, usually with better resolution both for images and polygons compared to native digital globe geolocation services.
Moreover it doesn’t need a SketchUp subscription to work.
As long as you input a manual location in your model info window, it will work fine on old classic version.
You can ask more info at the website. The guy tend to be very responsive.
Thanks for your info. I’ll check it out. I been using GIS satillite data which you can get in pdf format for free or for a small fee in Dwg format.
The only issue I’ve had is on property with significant terrain the Acad file is super detailed, each contour on some is broken into seems like hundreds of tiny segments. Makes for a high degree of a accuracy, but also a very big file.
Funny thing is that once I got the Dwg open and imported it into SU and ran simplify contours on each contour things ran really well (way less line segments).
The Dwg was still 2d so I triple clicked on each of the contours, made it a polyline and moved it up to it’s proper elevation.
I think the Acad file was $60. It includes all property lines, streets, buildings, and of course contours and North orientation Also there is included satellite images.in color.
I’ll check out the other guy as well. Thanks again,
Chris
You could try cadmapper.com to get a quickstart for your (2D/3D) geolocation settings, surrounding buildings, roads, ‘waterways(?)’ and terrain.