Cool. Are you using sketchup pro? I use sketchup but didn't know you can import pictures like that.

Hi Stanley,

The free Sketchup will import pictures by selecting file, then import. The only thing I know for sure that the pro version will do that the free one won't is it will save the drawing into an Autocad compatible .DXF format. I must be honest here, getting those two pictures to line up 90 degrees with each other and be the right size was a bear for me. If you just want to import a picture and draw on it that much is easy (and fun!). What I do is draw a couple of right angle lines that come together where I want a corner of the picture to be such as the lower left then I import the picture and click on the corner where those two lines converge. Move the mouse away from the corner and click when you have the size you want. Google has videos available that teach various aspects and their technique is likely better than mine, I have watched a couple of them.

How do you use Sketchup?

Mike

I'm a self-unemployed engineer civil/structural - use SU if I can't visualise how something would look, say a guardrail or a roof, or if I want to show it to a client for approval. Some clients use SU, they revise the drawing and send it back. I'd like to be able to import a CAD file floor plan and use SU to make a 3D like you did here. Will try it. Tried drawing the Z carbs and float bowls but got sidetracked. SU has a lot of cool features. Wish I could afford the pro version, but probably don't really need it. If I wanted to put a (view of) SU drawing in a CAD sheet I could just make a PDF and import that to the CAD. It's a little too sketchy looking for 3D steel connection details though.

Thank you for sharing. I think it would be really neat to have a sketchup drawing of the Z carbs. I have a dream of grandeur where the drawing could be animated to show normal operation and faults with solutions. Sigh, my imagination for use of SU is better than my skill level I think. I imagine your floor plan idea will work. We have SU pro at work. I notice from using the pro version that it has a built in access to a 3D warehouse with a search function. We wanted to draw a bathroom remodel for a project and I found an existing bathroom I could use and modified it. I had to "explode" the download before I could edit it and accidentally discovered how grouping can have subgroups that can be further exploded for further editing. Once the whole bathroom was exploded the sink and other fixtures could then be exploded. Get me to talking about drawings and we will be here all day. heh heh.

Started the float bowl drawings to find how the front/rear bowls reacted to fluid level tilting on acceleration. Read that it was the reason for the ears on the front bowl being 2mm lower. But when I used an angle meter on the motor, checked the distance between nozzle and float bowl drain, and did the trig, saw that the 2mm is about right for the motor tilt. so gave up on the drawing. The accelaration may still have an effect.

The carb project sounds good - but might be easier with a 3D CAD due to dimensioning, even though SU is easier and faster. I use Solid edge 2D, they have a 3D I wish I could afford. Have Viacad3D but can't seem to do much with it.

SU would be the one to use so anyone could use or modify it without owning a 3D CAD.

I agree, Sketchup would allow more to make use of a drawing of an SU carb.

It would be easier to make a Sketchup drawing of an SU carb if one had a spare carb to make measurements off of.

I experimented with importing higher resolution pictures into SU. I think I read that if the pictures get large in size it impacts performance.