Improve Pencil (Sketch) Rendering

[Taproot]

Hand drawn architectural drawings typically look better when the endpoints of lines are heavier than the midpoint of the line.  It gives the eye a terminus to shapes and the varying line width adds an artistic element to the drawing.  Sketchup has figured this out and implemented it in their standard rendering, but for some reason the implementation in Vectorworks is different. I'm referring to the "pencil" and "pen" options in the Artistic Renderworks settings.  Lines seems to randomly migrate between thick and thin (based upon an algorithm?) rather than follow the geometry of the shapes. I think lines with heavier end points and lighter mid-line weights would be a substantial improvement over what is available now.

 

Here's an example from Sketchup and another from Vectorworks:

 

 

 

 

[Markvl]

Hi @Taproot

What about this.  There are others.  I assume you've looked through all the others available.  Maybe you're looking for more control options?

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Edited November 23, 2016 by Markvl

[Taproot]

Yes, your example is slightly better than the one I posted, but it is still hindered by the way in which VW renders lines.  The example pane in the dialog box shows the issue well.  Lines seem to either taper from one end to the other, or be thin on the ends and thick in the middle. 

 

Heavier endpoints and thinner mid-lines tend to look better. One of my classmates from college had a beautiful hand using this technique.

While I don't have time to track down nuanced examples, here's a few that illustrate the character of this technique.

 

 

[zoomer]

Where can I buy that pen ?

[Andy Broomell]

I always get excited about the thought of using artistic edges, but then I try them, and for the reasons stated above tend to shy away. They're cool but also just... off...

[PVA - Admin]

Requests submitted VE-97164

 

We now use C4Ds Sketch and Toon engine to control most of our sketch renderings (I am not sure about Hidden Line, I think it gets special attention and tweaks) so I would encourage taking a look at what C4D has available in this area as a source of possible future inclusion in Renderworks.

[Tom Klaber]

There seems to be good depth and edge detection.