Create solid-appearing 3d models of a subsurface
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Hi Gealagie (and welcome).
What I use for something similar visualization of (once) underground layers (just in archaeology - but the concept is the same) is Didier Bur's Cloud plugin which can import simple text files containing the x, y, z co-ordinates.
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Gealagie,
I encourage you to look into Gaieus's suggestion to use the Cloud_V6 plugin. It can take an x,y,z list (ASCII) of point coordinates, and import them into SketchUp, and 'skin' it with faces, as well.
I use it to import x,y,z data in the ".csv" spreadsheet file format, one of the formats the Cloud plugin recognizes.
I've used DEM and DXF in the past, for terrain surfaces, but now defer to Cloud (avoiding data file conversions.)
Taff
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Gealagie
Do you have a .dem file available for me to test, I cannot promise anything but I think I may have a crafty solution for you.
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Hello I'm back and wow thank you all for the suggestions (let me also say before I go on that I am astounded by the beautiful work you folks do!). Give me a while to poke around into these various solutions and I'll let you know how well each may fit for this use.
After I got away yesterday I began thinking that you guys would probably suggest some intermediate autocad step in the process. I had not mentioned I am trying to avoid that step as my company does not have any autocad-like app and no one would be trained on it. Plus I'm trying to demonstrate we can do this with a very small initial investment (like SU7Pro).
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Peter (Solo)-- I haven't really built a dem file of my actual data (surfaces) yet. I have only tried to play around with other, actual topographic dems just to see how they work and, importantly, whether I'll be able to reformat my own surface data into the dem format. I do have a columnar test text file I would be happy to show you (you will need to instruct me on how to send that to you).
Meanwhile I am trying to figure how to utilize this Cloud.rb app I have downloaded. All of this will take me awhile as I am like a novice hang-glider trying to pilot a jet fighter plane...
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Chris--Regarding the size of my TINs: they will probably be quite large if I were to directly convert the file outputs from my professional software (which would be regularly distributed points like a dem) into a dem format for import into SU. And I probably don't need nearly that many tessellations per surface to do the job. That will be one other thing to look into--an app that will allow me to convert the regularly-spaced surface data into coarser TINs. Or is that exactly what SU does when it imports a dem?
Not sure the modeling gods are with me today--I just returned to SU and found that my trial period of Pro has lapsed!
I fired it off again in what it said was the cut-down version, but this cut-down ver looks like it has all the functionality of Pro (at least all I have so-far explored). Now I'll have to detour to test that out... -
Gealagie,
Take a look at the free webvideo nr 48 and 49 from go-2-school: http://www.go-2-school.com/podcasts
Both deal with geological models with sketchup and also show how to import large amounts of spreadsheetsdata into sketchup using Didier Bur's "cloud'-ruby. I think it will be quite a revealing bit info for you.
If you dig a little bit into SketchUp you will find out that it has an unexpected depth (not geological spoken). SketchUp can be used in very many different ways, to express all kind of 3D-data in a very professional way. And that is anything but obvious looking at/using SketchUp for the first time. These SketchUcation Forums are the most professional place to find (and ask for) all kind of info. There is no other place where you can meet all those SU-pro's, exploring the deep borders of SketchUp, moving them further away bit by bit, sharing and discussing it with other pro's worldwide. There are many other websites and forums on SketchUp, but this is the one and only place to be, if you are looking for 'unusual' SU-solutions, as you are. -
Thank you, Ton. It is clear by the quality and diversity of graphics created with SU that it is indeed a powerful professional, and yet intuitively simple, tool.
To all, I've had some success today with the Cloud ruby (when do I learn why they are called "rubies"?). It greatly simplifies the loading from the output formats available to me. Many thanks for that tip. As Chris suggested, I may want to find an app that will re-triangulate/simplify the TIN surface into one with irregularly spaced nodes to more efficiently describe the surface. If anyone has ideas about that I would be most appreciative.
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@gealagie said:
...I may want to find an app that will re-triangulate/simplify the TIN surface into one with irregularly spaced nodes to more efficiently describe the surface. If anyone has ideas....
This summer, there was much discussion about simplifying/regularizing terrain TINs, eventually leading to a plugin (written in the "ruby" programming language, by the way.)
The discussions demonstrate the collaborative "think tank" environment we enjoy here in the Community Forums:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11164
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=11320(You can download the "terrain reshaper" plugin, in the first post of the second discussion - Thanks to Didier!)
Taff
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Fairly good explanation of DEM file format here:
http://www.ems-i.com/wmshelp/Files/File_Formats/DEM_Files.htm
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Thank you Taff. I just downloaded the terrain_reshaper and I'll look at it this morning.
Reading through the posts, it sounds like the script makes an irregular TIN surface more regular. My imports using Cloud have produced perfectly regular TINs (as the output from my source is an even grid of xyz points), with broad relatively planar areas that shouldn't require so many triangles to describe the geometry. I am looking for a program that will join the mesh into larger triangles in the planar areas and perhaps tighten the mesh in areas of high curvature. Does this ruby by Didier do that?
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Thank you mleptuk, but it looks like importing my xyz files with the Cloud script is the way I'll go. That was key, everyone. Thanks again for pointing to it--and for putting up with a noodlin' novice like me.
"I've looked at clouds from both sides now. From up and down and still somehow. It's cloud's illusions I recall..." --Judy Collins
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The cloud.rb is great for xyz coordinates like you have. But the native .dem importer allows you to specify how detailed you want your terrain to be imported. So if there was a way to convert one of your files to .dem to test, that might be worth testing. Just to see if the ability to control the amount of detail is useful.
Chris
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@gealagie said:
I am looking for a program that will join the mesh into larger triangles in the planar areas and perhaps tighten the mesh in areas of high curvature.
On "flat" areas the edges of the tin are coplanar. Have a look at deletecoplanaredges.rb or [CASF]DelCopEdges.rb in Didier's Ruby Library Depot; they will erase every edge that is not needed to create the mesh (sometimes they erase even more however
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Gaieous--I got 'em, but I apparently am not smart enough to use them. I put deletecoplanaredges.rb into the plugins folder, opened SU and the model after copying them there, made one of my triangulated surfaces visible and then selected it (it consists of edges and faces--I had deleted the construction points). Then I looked for a delcopedg button somewhere and never found one. The only other rubies I'm familiar with so far, Cloud.rb and terrain_shaper.rb, put a pull-down selection under the Plugins and Tools menu items, resp. So I replaced deletecoplanaredges.rb with {CASF}DelCopEdges.rb in the plugins folder with the same result. I think I had them both there at one point. I must be doing something wrong!
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No, thats the beauty <<sarcasm>> of Rubies is that they can be in lots of different places. And generally its someplace you'd never think to look. So it can be in the right click context menu, in plugins, or any other menu. Or it can make its own, or add a button. Etc.
I suppose it is actually a good feature, but it often just makes my brain hurt trying to remmeber where that ruby is that I only use once a year....
Chris
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Yeah,as far as I remember, deletecoplanaredges is in the right click menu (another one that I used to have was in the Edit menu)
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Ok. I found that and will know what "context menu" means from now on. Thanks.
This is a very basic question, but one I've looked all through the tutorials and can't answer: Can you ungroup once you've grouped? How?
I am trying to develop a better understanding of the appropriate uses of groups, components and how to manage them among layers for this type of model work flow. I know from the tut that components are linked and all, but I'm not making hundreds of duplicate windows--I'm not making duplicates of anything.
Right now I have all these TIN surfaces in different layers--Cloud asked me if I wanted them like that and I said sure. I am going to go through them now and group each one (Cloud put the triangles there but didn't group them first), but I'm not sure exactly why I'm grouping. Maybe I'll find out once I've done it. The "Components" tutorial video (with the roof, walls and base layers) said to group before assigning to layers. So I'm obeying!Maybe this shot of my mess will give you some idea of what I've been up to.
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Thank you James.
I'm still struggling along with this experiment. The trouble is I'm not a modeler and have limited time to demonstrate (or condemn) to my company the effectiveness of SU for this sort of geological illustration. For times sake I'm going to have to be selective about which tutorial videos and rubies I explore. Another problem has been that I'm running SU through a type of virtual PC connection to my Linux workstation and as a result of our network setup have been unable to watch videos conveniently here--I have to walk around the building to another machine to watch them!
I'm still working with the geometry, as you call it, at this point (see above). I may not get into the texturing and rendering arenas on this go-round. I just read a newbie forum about sails. It strikes me that making sails is not unlike what I'm working with and some of those tools might be useful to me. What I have is a lot of Cloud-imported TIN surfaces that I've put into individual layers and made each into it's own group. Some of these surfaces (sail-like surfaces) already intersect one another and I need only "intersect" them and then erase away the overhanging part what's unwanted--leaving a 3d edge with two curving TIN faces. Others should intersect but (for reasons I could not control) do not quite intersect and I'm afraid that's going to take me a "geological Era" to fix using the only workflow I know--which is the following: (1) make two of the groups/layers that need to connect visible, (2) use the protractor to project guidelines through space from one TIN surface to the other TIN surface, and (3) draw additional triangles to connect the two TINs. I'm unclear exactly what should and shouldn't remain grouped throughout this process and whether I should just add these triangles straight onto one of the groups, or go as you have said and add onto Layer 0 and then add it to the group later.
Maybe you guys can point me through a better workflow or plugin that will simplify things for me.
Also, my network administrator asked me what these .skb files are and why they are placing themselves in directories I have not directed!
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Another quicky Q for any of you willing to help relates to the smooVing. It is "smooving", right? I have watched a vid about this somewhere but they are all running together and have not tried it yet. I understand the smooving is where you would round, or smooth a tesselated surface. I believe I remember the triangle edges remain, but are hidden by passes of the tool and can be recovered if needed? Well I need to find that instructional again, but would there be any benefit to smooving before I attempt the connection of non-intersecting grouped TIN surfaces by guideline projection construction mentioned just above?
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