Hello,
i've just finished a setdesign for a movie and now director/DOP/props etc... are waiting to see the model. they've all downloaded SUviewer so that everyone has the full information on the model. only question is this: how can i protect my model from being stripped apart by other users and the components (that i've worked so hard to assemble, or bought to integrate) in this model. i know that with SUviewer one can not edit the model. but it really isn't hard to get the model to someone with the SU full version and there goes my hard work in to public areas. is there a way to prevend this from happening? With documents it is easy, you make a pdf-file, but what about su-models?
any advice is greatly appreciated.

Export selected views rather than giving them the model?

Thread moved.
Don't forget about free Google SketchUp (not SU viewer, not SU pro).
Once your model is handed out it is subject to all kinds of misuse and abuse.
One way to protect your rights may be a written consensus (of not abusing the model),
another way is making a walkthrough video out of the model and hand it in...
but probably it won't do the job?

Hi MAF,

You could try;

http://www.hypercosm.com/download/teleporter/sketchup/index.html

or

http://www.renderplus.com/pdf/pdf_product.htm .

The first exports to an interactive webpage. From the website "When you export a model using Hypercosm Teleporter, the model data is encrypted into the Hypercosm applet thereby making it impossible for the user to be able to take your model data and use it for other purposes. This allows you to use Hypercosm to share interactive 3D views of your models while still keeping your model data private."

The Second exports to a Pdf. "Clients cannot give the SketchUp version of your model to competitors. "

I hope this helps.

Homer .

'Locking' the model can not (yet) be done. It has been discussed a lot on the Google SU-Forum. Using the 3D functions of Acrobat could help solve your problem.
I have encountered a 'model theft' by a client. So your apprehensions are legitimate.

Sigue:

Did you confront this client? Where you finally compensated for this, or did they at least cease using the model? I'm curious how a situation like that would resolve itself.

Although I've never [to know knowledge] had a client do this, there are certain clients I've been suspicious of.

MAF:

I think that this is a concern that we all [or at least should] share. I think you're correct in pointing out that there has been a distinct change from a few years ago where the client would only have access to a .pdf.

Since we are responsible not for any built product but only for a design implying a built product -- intellectual property, as has been discussed many times already -- we need to be very aware of the technology we use and in what way we give clients access to privileged information.

The only solution I know to this problem is more software!

Deep Publish by Right Hemisphere (http://www.righthemisphere.com/) allows you to create a 3D model that can be viewed (including preset camera positions, materials and so on) through Internet Explorer without downloading any plugins or anything. It doesn't seem to work with Firefox yet however.

You could export the model to VRML at least then the use of it is much more difficult and infact almost unusable. It will also allow you to export your camera views as well and your client can view with explorer after installation of a reader such as cortina.

I had some good experience with the sketchup plugin cubicpanoout.rb in combinatin with Gocubic software. The ouput is a mov file than can be opened with quicktime.

I´ve using it now with Kerkythea for a even better result, just use the create pages option in cubicpano and inside kerkytea change the focal lenght of the camera to 0.5. I know than you can use hotspots in the VR file to create a walkthough betwen panoramic files but I don´t know how.
Hope it help.