SMOOTH COPLANAR?

[bicameral2]

Lately, I am importing a lot of SU and 3DS (via OBJ -> blender), and i'm having to redraw everything because i can't use hidden line drawings with hundreds or thousands of triangles in them.

does anyone know of a way to "smooth coplanar" like in sketchup after a .3ds or .skp import?

mostly, it would be great to not have to redraw entire models just so they look right in hidden line. sometimes, all i'm asked for are elevations with dims, from a obj model that was used in concept renderings. clients wonder, and rightly so, why they're paying me to redraw something they already paid someone else to draw in the first place.

i found this in another thread , but i can't figure out how to use it globally, if that's even possible:

PROCEDURE ToStructuralObject;

VAR

selected : HANDLE;

PROCEDURE SetAsStructural(obj : HANDLE);

BEGIN

SetObjectVariableBoolean(obj, 702, TRUE);

END;

BEGIN

ForEachObject(SetAsStructural, SEL=TRUE & INSYMBOL & INOBJECT);

END;

Run(ToStructuralObject);

[PVA - Admin]

If they're coming in as Mesh objects, you can reduce this effect with File > Document Settings > Document Preferences > Mesh Smoothing.

You can improve it further in the Hidden Line render with View > Rendering > Line Render Options > Smoothing angle.

[bicameral2]

Thanks, jim. I forgot to add that i was playing with the mesh import for 3ds, and wasn't having luck. or, i guess, noticeable luck. are there any mesh settings i should be paying attention to?

[PVA - Admin]

Not currently that I am aware of. There are many changes coming to mesh smoothing that should make SKP and 3DS import a lot better/easier, but no ETAs yet.

[cberg]

What about Sketchup export? There's an intuitive ease of use about SKP, that Vectorworks really doesn't have.

It would be very helpful to quickly work back and forth between the two programs. Sketchup is much easier to design/communicate with. Vectorworks is better for documentation and figuring things out.

[PVA - Admin]

I haven't seen as much on the export side, most of our requests so far have been for improving the geometry that is brought into Vectorworks.

What specifically that has been giving you trouble?

[cberg]

Export from VW to Sketchup is neither quick nor easy. And while you can do it, there is a ton of time/cleanup work involved.

I start with a fairly easy VW model. Attachment 0.

1. I have to export via dwg since in the standard architect version of the program there is no easy way to export to SKP directly. (I haven't found any other way to export cleanly.)

As a rule, I do not export hatches or fills, and try to export as ACIS solids to keep the faces as coplanar, though this doesn't guarantee success. I turn off all classes that aren't necessary.

Here are the things that I've discovered.

1. You can only export one layer at a time. Otherwise you get a huge mess. See Attachment 1, export with multiple layers turned on...

2. Even when you export as ACIS solids and no fills or hatches, there can be inconsistent results which require a fair bit of cleanup. For whatever reason, on one floor of my building there is a lot of triangulated faces. I have to delete all the hidden geometry to my faces coplanar. Window glazing objects do not export as planar objects, but as faceted planes. See Attachment 2.

3. Hybrid types of objects do not export consistently. Slabs for example are tricky to export, and require a lot of fussing.

See Attachment 3. The complex slab shape for whatever reason, doesn't show up as a solid object.

All of the above results in a lot of time fussing with the export model.

Edited June 24, 2014 by cberg

[cberg]

I've discovered that exports to Sketchup work better when the VW files are exported as ACAD 12/13 instead of later versions... Not sure why this is the case, but thought I'd share.