Sketchup - textures on domed surface

Hi, ive been using sketchup for some while now to create home drawings for my garden and interiors. I’ve followed all the guides to apply textures to curved surfaces and have Thrupaint via Fredo Tools installed but still can’t seem to get an overall (unstretched) texture applied. I run a mac with Monterey OS so it may be that Thrupaint is written. Is there a solution to create a natural overall texture?

It would help us to help you if you’d share your model so we can see what you are working with. What version of SketchUp are you using? Please complete your forum profile.

This is our inglenook - with beehive canopy original to the cottage; This is the surface I want to have brick texture on. Alert! There may be some ugly geometry!
Inglenook+stove.skp (3.6 MB)

The texture on the dome is projected which accounts for the distortion on the sides of the dome.

In this case you don’t want a projected texture.

It doesn’t help that you have the faces reversed–there should be no exposed blue back faces.


Nor does it help that you’ve painted the group containers, too.

I think the bulk of the problem is some “ugly geometry”. Thru Paint even complains about it. A few moments and I’ll see if I can clean it up.

Maybe this looks better?
Screenshot - 1_24_2022 , 9_07_25 AM

I reworked some of the dome geometry although I think the entire dome should really be rebuilt with cleaner, more regular geometry. Then I was able to use ThruPaint to apply the not projected brick texture.

FWIW I removed back face materials but did not correct face orientations in the model. I’ll leave that for you. I fixed incorrect tag usage (ALL edges and faces should be created and remain untagged) and I purged unused stuff from the model.
Inglenook+stove dr.skp (2.8 MB)

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Thanks Dave but unfortunately I’m using Sketchup free version and couldnt open the skp file. What I don’t know - is an awful lot! I’m not sure what you mean by the “exposed blue back faces” unless in my language it’s inside the drawing? Untagged? tag usage? all a bit of a mystery I’m afraid. But many thanks for the advice and work. Just sad I can’t download it on my version of SU?

I didn’t know that which is why I asked you in my reply to your original post what version you’re using and to complete your forum profile.

Here is the file saved for SketchUp 2017.
Inglenook+stove dr.skp (3.4 MB)

Faces in SketchUp have fronts and backs. By default the fronts are white and the backs are blue. Here, in your model with Face Style set to Monochrome which suppresses the materials, you can see a lot of blue faces. There shouldn’t be any visible back faces once your model is 3D.


You can fix the face orientation by right clicking on the blue faces and choosing Reverse Faces.

In SketchUp 2017 it would be Layers instead of tags. Something I would have known to differentiate if I’d known you were using SketchUp 2017 Make. In that version all edges and faces should be created and left with Layer 0 assigned to them. Only object (groups and components) are given layers.

Also important to know that if you explode a group or component that has been given a layer, the contents inherit the object’s layer. So if you do explode a component or group to raw geometry the very next step while the geometry is still selected should be to change the layer association to Layer 0 in Entity Info.

You are a star! Thank you so much. I’ve got a lot to learn still but I’ts great fun trying - even if I’m not that clued in! :slight_smile:

Hi Dave, how would you go about remodelling the beehive - given that I only have access to a few plugins for my version now? My original creation was a half dome and then resizing it to fit the base legs. I then chose to remake the legs by extruding the surface under the resized dome but in our fireplace, the legs face squarely parallel to the edge of the hearth, where mine have had to slant to accommodate the curved surface above? Still fun!