I am very new person to all of this hence my asking for help.
I have contracted a professional scanning company to come and create a STL file of my house. I have done a couple of days training to learn Google sketchup pro 2016.
The scanning process used will creat an STL 3D file. Can an STL file be imported directly into or through another program into Google Sketchup Pro? I want to explore potential modifications to my house in 3D.
Any advice or anyswers will be much appreciated
First, it isn’t Google SketchUp. Google hasn’t had anything to do with SketchUp for nearly a decade.
Why are you using SketchUp 2016? The current version of SketchUp is 2021. It can natively import and export .stl files. Versions prior to SketchUp 2018 require an extension to import .stl files.
Keep in mind that .stl files, by their nature, can be very heavy as far as geometry is considered. Your computer will need to be up to the task, especially the graphics adapter.
Thank you DaveR for the reply. I can easily upgrade the software and have a couple of options of what to use. My teacher refeerred to it as Google Sketchup Pro hence my mistake HA! thanks for the correction.
I use Apple Macs on a 27 inch screen Imac (3-4 years old) and a Mack Book Pro (motherboard dates from 2009).
I currently use Windows 7 or shortly Windows 10 on the Boot Camp directory side of the Mac Book Pro’s hard drive for the 2016 software version. I see that there exists Sketch Up 2021 for Apple and some extra version called Studio avaliable. Essentially I need to import an STL file into Sketch Up and adapt this file for some building work I intend for my home. I would appreciate suggestions as to what is the optimum direction to pursue. Is there any short term training courses you could recomend?
How can I discern more about my graphics adapter?
Thanks for the advice it is much appreciated.
Makes sense.
You’ll want to check the operating system to make sure it is supported by SketchUp. Windows 10 is supported but older Mac OS versions are not.
Studio is a suite of tools which includes SketchUp 2021 including Sefaira which allows you to do building energy analysis and related things. You may or may not need those extra features.
In your case you might want to try the .stl extension with the version of SketchUp you have and see if your computer can handle the geometry from the file. As I wrote before, .stl files tend to have large numbers of edges and that can bog down your computer.
As for finding out about the graphics adapter, I believe if you click on the apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen you should be able to choose to display information about your Mac.
Hello again DaveR thanks for the reply.
My graphics are AMD Radeon R9 M395X:
Chipset Model: AMD Radeon R9 M395X
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 4 GB
Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6920
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-C905AA-799
VBIOS Version: 113-C905A0-007
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.799
Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily2 v1
Displays:
iMac:
Display Type: Built-In Retina LCD
Resolution: 5120x2880 Retina
Framebuffer Depth: 30-Bit Colour (ARGB2101010)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Automatically Adjust Brightness: No
My IMac actually dates from 2015 and runs Mojave OS.
Can you suggest resources for learning more about Sketch Up?
Thanks