Hey everyone, very basic question here. I’m an end-user building a lakehouse; would like to upload my topo survey and plans to SketchUp so i can design the house further. Is this a possibility with SketchUp? I am glad to subscribe to whichever product is needed for this. Thanks so much!
It is possible to do it. In what format do you have the survey? Is it just a drawing on paper, a PDF, or maybe you have a CAD drawing? The available file type will have an impact on what version you will need to be able to use it.
Awesome - thanks so much Dave. I have the survey in .dwg format, (which I think is for CAD?)
As far as the house plans, I only have those in PDF, but could request in whatever other format would be needed to upload.
OK. To import the .dwg file you need either SketchUp Pro or SketchUp Shop. SketchUp Pro would be my choice because then you have the Sandbox Tools which will make it easier to manipulate the terrain for things like creating a flat bottomed hole for the foundation of the house and other details.
As for the house plan, depending on the quality of the CAD file, you might find it easier to work from the PDF and do the modeling in SketchUp from scratch. Some users will also import the CAD file of the floor plan and trace over it to create clean geometry for going 3D. Lots of options in any case and you’ll get there in the end.
If you need to create any sort of documentation for permits or to show to contractors, LayOut, which is included with Sketchup Pro, can be very useful.
OK, thank you so much Dave. Do you know there SketchUp offers any hourly rate or has sub’s that offer this to do the upload for me?
SketchUp doesn’t have anything like that. You could make a post in the Commercial and Collaboration category to see if you can hire someone to do this for you. Depending on what you need, you might find it’s less expensive to buy the subscription.
There is a 30-day trial period for SketchUp Pro. You could use that to do the importing yourself. Again, depending on your needs, you may still need to have Pro or at least Shop after you get the .dwg files imported. The import is really the simple part. Dealing with them after the import is the more involved part.
Dave - thanks so much for your help. I ordered pro, and uploaded my topo survey and house plans in .dwg. Unfortunately, I’m lost about how to manipulate them once they are loaded, so I will try posting on the Commercial site for some help, as you suggested. Thanks again for all the help so far!
You might also what to spend some time learning the fundamentals starting here:
https://learn.sketchup.com/
Thanks Dave. I am working my way through them!
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