import from 3d warehouse

[ray isaacs]

does anybody have much experience importing components from sketchup's 3d warehouse?

i'm getting radically mixed results with 3d trees.

first, it appears that we can import geometry only, no color or texture. is that the case? it would be nice not to have to re-apply everything in vw...very time consuming.

second, some models import fine, others scrambled, others not at all. i assume it has to do with how they were made originally. or is it something in the vw translation?

input appreciated.

cheers,

ray

[Tom G.]

Textures get shed when imported and the polygons also seem to lose their fill. Ungrouping and going down, down, down, into the groups of the model, trying to fill and color/texture dozens to hundreds of polys, is impractical. Plus models vary wildly in how they transfer in depending on the author's habits.

I suggest, if the warehouse models are important enough to you, that you buy Sketchup Pro which allows export of the model as 3ds which keeps the textures intact and which Vwks can import.

At least that has worked for me in the past. Anyone else with better info?

Tom

[ray isaacs]

thanks, tom. that's what i was afraid of.

i do have sketchup pro. and the 3ds export/ import works great. however, the file size is gigantic, (my one experiment went from 300kb to 45mb) okay for one or to instances, but not practical for large site plan. any way to reduce the file size of the 3ds model?

ray

[Mitchell Brooks]

Check out this thread on the Board from 2012:

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=178170

You can get textures and certainly colour without having to dig down into all those polygons.

[Guest Wes Gardner]

You can also purchase additional 3D trees per species from VB Visual. They are not small (polygon count wise) but they do render nicely. Vectorworks ships with a a couple of examples