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Equivalent of Sketchup's Geolocation...

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1,095
Now that they've taken Google out of Google Sketchup, I'm looking for something as simple as Sketchup's geo-location feature, which was the only reason I kept Sketchup. This would give me a photo of the area which I could transfer directly to GMAX to give accurately sized building footprints etc.
So any suggestions about something which can do this for me without driving me balmy? I've been doing without, just measuring in Google Earth, but it's not quite accurate enough for what I need.
 

=rk=

Resource contributor
Messages
4,450
Country
us-washington
There are 3rd party plugins that access map servers.
 
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1,095
Thanks, Rick, I did mean to mention this in my original post, but promptly forgot -- although I posted here in the SKU subforum, as it was vaguely relevant, I was one of those who were affected by the recent 'update', and I'm really looking for a non-Sketchup tool.
 
Messages
1,132
Country
us-texas
Just create a texture from Google Maps and place on a ground plane. It works better than the google placement tool anyway.

Good thing that google placement had was that it stored geolocation.....which was pretty useful later during mcx conversion.
 
Messages
118
Country
france
On my side, as I'm unable to use Blender or Gmax but Sketchup, I spend the week-end to find and validate the proper workflow.
  • I'm using FSEarthTile to create the HighRes bitmap over the area of interest,
  • MCX to convert Lat/Lon to FlatX/FlatY size in meters, using FSET log output
  • Sketchup to create the 2*FlatX/2*FlatY ground plane, then place the HighRes bitmap on it

Thanks to the WiKi!

Let's move to GP creation workflow now...
 
Messages
1,132
Country
us-texas
For a small area, you may actually find that a screengrab from google maps will yield a far better image than an LOD 18 high res image from FS Earth Tiles or Sbuilder.
 
Messages
118
Country
france
Actually I'm using "level 0" - 25 cm/pixel - resolution from FSET wich seems to be nice as a guide to create accurate GP.
Another problem of Sketchup direct "Geo-localisation" image is also the limited size of the grab which gives a too small area or too low resolution for proper work.
 
Messages
269
On my side, as I'm unable to use Blender or Gmax but Sketchup, I spend the week-end to find and validate the proper workflow.
  • I'm using FSEarthTile to create the HighRes bitmap over the area of interest,
  • MCX to convert Lat/Lon to FlatX/FlatY size in meters, using FSET log output
  • Sketchup to create the 2*FlatX/2*FlatY ground plane, then place the HighRes bitmap on it

Thanks to the WiKi!

Let's move to GP creation workflow now...
Thats what I do too, but it only gives you the correct size of the satellite image with no georeference, AFAIK.
 
Messages
118
Country
france
Correct, georeferencing must be done through MCX GP wizard.
Is there another path?
 
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