How do I create and maintain a server based component and material library

How do I create and maintain a server based component and material library for all users on the network?

Thanks,

Brad

[%sig%]

Brad,

To set a networked material library, place all of the desired textures into a model, then go to Window > Materials and to the In Model tab. Once you see all textures in that tab, click the arrow in the top right corner and choose Save As Library. Navigate to the desired location and have the .skm file saved there. Next, go to Window > Preferences > Files and set Materials to that mapped location. You only have to then map that location on all networked machines and they will see that library.

To define component libraries, go to the Window > Component browser, then click the top right corner and choose Add Favorite. Navigate to the desired folder for components to set that location. In the future, this mapped location will be in the drop down list. This again would need to be done on each client machine.

Hope that helps.

Best Regards,

Jody Gates

Technical Support

@Last Software

What I've done is create a batch file that a user runs just once, located on a mapped drive.

The batch file copies all network components, materials, libraries and scripts down to the users computer. It also installs a menu item 'update sketchup library' which then calls a batch file which utilizes robocopy from the windows resource cd, this only copies files which are new or have been changed.

It's slightly convoluted but we have several offices and just don't have a fast enough connection between everyone's computer for people to be accessing all the materials, components, etc over their network connection. Thus using a batch to copy files locally makes SU much faster and enables us to deploy custom scripts to all stations very easily...

The only problem with this approach of course is that it doesn't update itself. The user has to click Plugins / Update Sketchup Library before anything happens... You could of course just install the batch in the windows startup folder or something to force it to run, on my computer it takes just 2 seconds to verify all assets are synchronized so it's a really quick process to do the verification...

Chris Grant

HMC Architects