Creating Terrain from Scratch

In SketchUp, importing preexisting terrain is your easiest route to creating terrain. However, the tools for creating terrain from scratch are useful in the following scenarios:

  • You have contour lines that you either imported or traced and now need to transform into a Tin (triangulated irregular network).
  • Reality would only interfere with your creative vision. That is, y'all desire to shape the terrain yourself, starting from a fairly flat surface or yous want to model something other than terrain. This approach is a peachy starting point if, for example, you lot're creating a model of a golf course full of ponds, sand traps, and other obstacles or a model sprung wholly from your imagination.

Tip: If you lot're working with imported contour lines, simplify them earlier yous create a TIN.

Tabular array of Contents
  1. Simplifying contour lines with a script
  2. Creating a Can from profile lines
  3. Creating a flat rectangular TIN

Simplifying contour lines with a script

To optimize SketchUp'due south performance, include the minimum number of contour lines needed to create your Tin. Beyond erasing bodily lines, you lot can simplify the lines themselves by reducing the number of segments in each line. Of grade, do this only if the contours' complexity isn't necessary for your overall model.

Note: For a refresher on how curve and polyline entities are made of segments, meet Drawing Freehand Shapes.

If your hands feel cramped just thinking about all that mousing, you'll exist happy to know that an extension tin can simplify contour lines for you. Developers create SketchUp extensions, which are Cherry scripts designed to practice special jobs. The Simplify Contours Tool script is specifically designed to reduce the number of segments in curves and polylines then that a Can created from your contours has the to the lowest degree geometry necessary.

To install the script, follow these steps:

  1. Select Window > Extension Warehouse.
  2. Sign in with your Google account user proper name and password.
  3. Search for Simplify Contours Tool.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions to download and install the extension. The Knowledge Center's Extension Warehouse section explains all the ins and outs of SketchUp Extensions.

Subsequently you install the script, hither's how to make information technology evaluate and simplify contour line segments:

  1. Select all the contour lines you want to simplify.
  2. From the menu bar, select Extensions > Simplify Contours.
  3. In the Simplify Bending dialog box that appears, enter the angle at which you want to merge 2 segments into i. For example, say you employ the default of ten degrees. If whatsoever pair of segments forms an angle of less than 10 degrees, the script merges the pair into one segment.
  4. Click OK and the contours are simplified.

Creating a Tin from profile lines

After y'all import or describe profile lines and and then simplify them, follow these steps to transform contours into a TIN:

  1. Place each contour line at the appropriate height relative to the ground plane, as shown in the following figure. Your get-go contour might be on the ground plane, the 2d line 2 feet above the footing plane, the third line 4 feet in a higher place the ground aeroplane, and so on. Utilize the Move tool () to raise or lower each profile along the blue axis.

  2. With the Select tool (), select all the contour lines.
  3. Click the Sandbox From Contours tool () on the Sandbox toolbar or select Draw > Sandbox > From Contours on the menu bar. Either way, the contour lines instantly become a TIN, as shown in the following figure. SketchUp automatically organizes all the Tin can geometry into a group, so y'all have to open up the grouping context to edit the TIN.

Tip: Sometimes, the Sandbox From Contours tool creates flat spots or plateaus that don't belong in your Tin can. You lot can retriangulate the plateaus (to create a slope) using the Flip Border tool. Editing and Fine-Tuning Terrain explains how to flip edges and make other mutual edits.

Creating a flat rectangular TIN

If you adopt to to start modeling terrain from a flat, rectangular TIN, you lot describe the shape with the Sandbox From Scratch tool:

  1. Select the Sandbox From Scratch tool () on the Sandbox toolbar, or select Draw > Sandbox > From Scratch from the carte du jour bar.
  2. Click to set the TIN'southward starting bespeak.
  3. Ready the Tin can'due south length by moving the mouse cursor in any direction and clicking to ready the desired length. As y'all move the cursor, you encounter inferences that help you marshal the length to your desired drawing centrality or in relation to existing geometry. Instead of using the mouse, you tin can type a value and press Enter (Microsoft Windows) or Return (Mac OS 10) to set a precise distance in the Measurements box. If you type but a number, SketchUp uses the units that your template specifies. But yous can also apply a different unit by typing it after the value. For example, if your template is set to inches, typing 48 sets a length of 48 inches merely typing 104cm or 6' sets a length of 104 centimeters or 6 feet, respectively.
  4. Set the Tin'south width by moving the mouse cursor and clicking or typing a precise value. In the post-obit figure, the inference engine is indicating that the width is parallel with the green axis, and the Measurements box, which updates dynamically as you motility the cursor, indicates that clicking at this indicate would set the width at 51 feet, eight 5/16 inches.

  5. (Optional) Blazon a value in the Measurements box and printing Enter (Microsoft Windows) or Render (Mac Bone 10) to change the Tin can's default grid spacing from 10 feet to another value. In the post-obit figure, you encounter the newly created TIN and the Measurements box set to accept a Grid Spacing value.

Tip: When y'all create a Can with the Sandbox From Contours or Sandbox From Scratch tool, the TIN geometry is contained within a grouping. This ways you lot need to open the group'south context in club to sculpt or edit your TIN. Grouping Geometry explains how SketchUp groups work, and Editing and Fine-Tuning Terrain walks you through common edits to terrain.