Xara/Sketchup

**Ross Macintosh** · 05 May 2006, 07:12 PM

I have been unable to copy anything from the pdf. I use PDF995 to create the PDF and adobe's free acrobat viewer to see it. I don't seem to be able to select anything in Acrobat.

Regards, Ross

**jamesmc** · 05 May 2006, 08:17 PM

What I did is use the Print dialog in Google Sketchup and the Print PDF995 option.

What that does is print a PDF of filename.pdf.

From there, it's a a matter of opening the PDF file, clicking on the edit menu, then copy file and paste into Xara. It will copy the whole file and not any particular object. At least I haven't really tried to copy a single object. As far as I know, copy file treats the page contents as a bitmap object and that's what you'll get.

Xara also allows it to be pasted as a WMF, which may not be helpful if the drawing is too complex or too large.

Like I said before, it may not even be as desirable as using the regular formats bmp, jpeg or w/e.

I imagine you will lose some resolution copying and pasting, but it is just an option to try, particular if you can import PDF into another application such as Adobe to manipulate it. From Adobe, there may be many more options, dunno. I don't have Adobe professional version.

Wonder why they gave us animation (Tour Guide) in Google Sketchup with no way to export it?

**jclements** · 05 May 2006, 09:59 PM

That is one of the justifications for buying the Pro Version.

If you had Camtasia or a similar program, you might be able to capture the slide show, however.

**toffeeman** · 05 May 2006, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by stratocast

I think the idea of a free Sketchup is great. I been using Sketchup for a time now and it's brilliantly conceived software IMO.

For instance, when my daughter and son-in-law decided to build a house, I translated the plans into a 3D view using Sketchup and tweaked the shading in Xtreme to help them visualise what it will look like.

Bob...

That is brilliant! I can see how you made the 'normal' drawing but how did you make the 'roofless internal' picture please?

Dave

**stratocast** · 06 May 2006, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by toffeeman

Bob...

That is brilliant! I can see how you made the 'normal' drawing but how did you make the 'roofless internal' picture please?

Thanks. I made the "roofless" view, by inserting a "Section Plane" (Tools>Section Plane) and positioning it as required. The Section Plane bounding box can then be hidden in the View menu. You can have as many "Sections" as you like.

Don't know if this feature is included in the free version, though.

**toffeeman** · 06 May 2006, 10:16 AM

Thanks Bob - it is included in the freebie too

Wonderful stuff!

Dave

**Ross Macintosh** · 06 May 2006, 10:38 AM

The section tool is included in the free GoogleSketchUp. It is just one technique to look inside your model. Another is to make all the roof-related faces a group -- you can then 'hide' that group whenever you want to look inside. Or that group could be put on a layer that you can make visible/invisible at will. Of course it needn't be a roof -- you can do these things with any part of your model.

Regarding the animation effect of SU's 'tourguide' technology: even without being able to export animations from the free version the feature is still very useful. Setting 'pages' and the animated transition between those pages is an important feature of the user interface and part of what makes SketchUp user friendly. If you have a page set as an overview and one set as a zoomed in view of a small detail, the animation effect keeps you oriented as you switch between pages - avoiding a sudden jump that could leave you confused about what you are looking at. Also stopping to use the slideshow feature while you work can let you see and think about your model - it is an important visualization tool while modelling.

Although I use the full version of SketchUp everyday I rarely export animations from SU. Instead I use Microsoft's free PhotoStory3 for Windows to produce 'movies' from a series of exported jpgs. Users of the free SketchUp can use PhotoStory3 too. Xara Xtreme comes in very useful when I'm making movies in PhotoStory3. I use it to make title slides for instance.

Regards, Ross

**stratocast** · 06 May 2006, 01:09 PM

Ross, now you've got me thinking. Did I use a section plane or was the roof grouped? Anyhoo, as you say, there's more than one way of doing it.

I've tried many 3D apps in my time, and although they have been extremely powerful programs, quite honestly, the terminology and convoluted workflow, goes straight over my head. What the h**l is "gourand shading applied to a non-uniform rational bezier curve zbuffer image"? I don't care.. I just want to draw stuff!

Enter Sketchup, which, though not as powerful as the top-end apps, really is 3D for the rest of us. It suits those who like a "hands-on" approach and in that respect has similarities to working in XaraX, and I'm happy to provide this "plug" for Sketchup.....