NprTools

[Al Hart]

@sorgesu said:

No Al, I can't think of anything like that. But there is a neat demonstration somewhere where you can use the "fog" setting within SketchUp to accomplish the same sort of thing. Something in "black" that conveys the depth by degrees of gray in the alpha channel

That is essentially how it works in Piranesi. If you were to look at the "depth channel" ,which you can indeed do, for any image imported from SketchUp, it is displayed as degrees of Grey ( Gray?) and I believe that is how it is recognized in Piranesi as having differing depth.

It turns out that Piranesi uses a TIFF format format with extra channels added for Z-depth and material ID. I may be able to use it directly, or I may be able to export the same information from SketchUp. I would be easier to have the actual Z-data, rather than having to reverse-engineer it from fog colors.

[sorgesu]

Yes, that's right. I didn't realize that that would have been helpful info, sorry.

[Al Hart]

@sorgesu said:

Yes, that's right. I didn't realize that that would have been helpful info, sorry.

Not really very helpful, because I can't find any software anywhere that already reads it. Still, it would be nice to get the "exact" z-depths rather than having to guess them from fog.

[Chris Fullmer]

What about the .eps format? I thought that Piranesi was using that format? But I know very little about it really.

EDIT Hmm, I see that have their own epx. I must have got the last letter confused in my head.

Chris

[sorgesu]

Ya did, Chris. It is epx which is just a Tiff with 2 extra channels. I can't think how to unravel that info because epix is proprietary and I somehow doubt they would want to share the data therein

[Al Hart]

I added a couple of handy things today (But you won't get them until Monday)

Mask Soft Shadows

I added a "Mask soft shadows to the shape of the original shadow" option.
This lets you you very broad soft shadows, but not let them overwhelm the size if the shadow itself.

Original shadows from ShetchUp

Soft Shadows over a wide area.
(I used just a few iterations so you could see the effect better.

Soft Shadows masked to original shadow shape.

Image Resolution

This options lets you set the resolution to be larger than the SketchUp screen.
(We still are limited to 3,000 pixels or so whatever the SketchUp Wxport 2D limit is)
(Also, be aware, it can take a long time to save hundreds of shadows images for high resolution soft shadows)

[Al Hart]

In playing around with NprTools, I ran into an interesting philosophical question.

In this image, is the wall on the left in a shadow?

One obvious answer is YES - since the sun is not shining on it.

The other answer might me NO - since SketchUp does not show it in the same intensity as the shadows on the ground.

If it is in shadow, then this Sketchy Shadow image (the way it works now), is correct:

However, you might prefer to draw the Sketchy Shadows only where the shadows appear on the ground.

One other complication is that if you turn shadows off in SketchUp, the wall on the left does not change.

So you could argue that the shadows don't really effect it. (This might be the way for me to solve the problem - if we don't like the Sketchy Lines on the wall - by comparing the image with the sun on and with the sun off to find the shadows. Currently, I use a SketchUp hidden-line image to determine where the shadows are.

Any thoughts?

[Chris Fullmer]

There have been places in some of the images that I've seen with the sketchy shadows on them and I've thought - that should not have a shadow like that on it. And then I realize it is lightly shaded in SU, so it gets the shadow effect. I think that often I would prefer that the wall, in this case, did not recieve such intense sketchy shadows.

Thats my thoughts,

Chris

[Al Hart]

The trick is how to get the shadows.

One way is to compare two images and process the differences.

SketchUp gives 2 different results.

Here are two hidden line images (with and without shadows)
(I compare these two images to get the shadows)

Here are two monochrome images (with and without shadows)

I can compare these two images instead.

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I will probably make this an option. But what to call it? ("Use monochrome shadow effect" - I hate check boxes which even I don't understand, or "Use only full shadows")

[Al Hart]

Comparing the two monochrome images worked pretty well.

I wound up calling the new option: "Use only full shadows"

Image with option checked

Image with option unchecked

There are times when you will want to pattern all "non sunny" areas - especially for interiors.

[Al Hart]

Yes,

I'll keep NprTools discussions to the the NprTools topic.

But I felt that this was a more general question for any SketchUp users who were interested in what should be treated as a shadow. People might be interested in how Hidden line treats shadows one way, while colored and textured rendering treat them a different way.

[Al Hart]

@unknownuser said:

When I choose the Launch option, the default image viewer opens
without any image. It's blank.

Default image viewer associated with most images is Irfanview while
default image editor for SU is PS. Irfranview loads quick. That's
good to quickly view the plugin results.

Some options would be to choose default program to view images and
have a choice where to save final output.

I like having only one TemporaryImage folder. I suppose the user will
have the responsibility to clear it out. It is possible to direct
CCleaner to include user defined folders to clean out under Options.

I am copying this from another forum. I will respond to it later.

[Al Hart]

@richcat said:

Al just tried out latest IE19 version and soft shadows appears not to be working.
Reverted back to IE3 which produced first image below then next one with some PS filters applied.

Ps The average shadow image produced in temp file looks interesting as gives better shadows in my opinion, so I tried blending in PS with base image,and then adjusting in PS - which gave me that third image below (edges are wrong but look at the shadows on the wall - luv it)

Fourth one is just for fun

I am not sure what is wrong with IE19. (I wish you could have been more specific)

I appreciate seeing the PS images. You will always be able to do these same things, or better things, in PS. We are just trying to make it easier for SketchUp users. That is why we are adding more features to the "Save Image" section of NprTools - so you can save special image and take them to PS. (In the latest version, we added "Save shadows only")

The latest version also added "Mask to original shadow" which applies the soft shadows only to the original shadow area (rather than letting the shadows get bigger.) That may be what is failing in IE19. It looks like it might be aplying the mask all the time.

However, your last two images, with the soft sun on the wall, inspire me to have a similar feature called "Soft Sun". It will mask the soft shadows to the area not in shadow (for interiors this is where the sun appears on the wall). If it works well, you should be able to soften the sunlight rather than the shadows. (More to come)

[richcat]

Al
I re installed IE19.
Basically I could not get any soft shadows as images above, only as image below, also see setup image. Do I need to change anything as this is what gave me original soft images, tried various settings but no soft shadows appeared - may be I'm missing something simple.

Also imagine produced still does not open by itself.

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[richcat]

Al just tried out latest IE19 version and soft shadows appears not to be working.
Reverted back to IE3 which produced first image below then next one is this original image with some PS filters applied.

The average shadow image produced in temp file looks interesting as gives better shadows in my opinion, so I tried blending in PS with base image,and then adjusting in PS - which gave me that third image below (edges are wrong but look at the shadows on the wall - luv it)

Fourth one is just for fun

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[Al Hart]

richcat,

This new feature - "Soft Sun", is based on one or the images you have uploaded.

Here we restricted the Soft effect to the area already lit by the sun.

You get a sharp boundary, but a soft effect for the sunlight itself.

[Al Hart]

We have added a new dialog box to use to set the application to use to launch an image.

If you uncheck Launch When Complete, this dialog will be loaded. If you change the application to use to launch an image, the new application will be used in the future.

[Al Hart]

@richcat said:

Al
I re installed IE19.
Basically I could not get any soft shadows as images above, only as image below, also see setup image. Do I need to change anything as this is what gave me original soft images, tried various settings but no soft shadows appeared - may be I'm missing something simple.

we changed the time and day settings to be total time and total days. (It used to be the time and days per iteration). This make it easy to switch from 5 to 10 or 20 iterations without having to adjust the times. However, your setting of 5 minutes, should be changed to 60 minutes. And 5 to 10 days will work better as well.

[Al Hart]

May 24, 2009
* Added Soft Sun capability
* Added dialog to change application to Launch Files
* Added progress bar to display progress which saving and processing images.
* Added option to process only actual shadows, (Rather than surfaces which are in shadow because the surfaces faces away from the sun.)

See: New Version

[thomthom]

Do you have to uninstall previous versions when installing new ones?

I just tried to update and when I click on the OK button in the Sketchy Shadow window I get a messagebox;

@unknownuser said:

ERROR during toolbar command: #Proc:0x0ae3dd68@RpTools_toolbar.rb:205)
wrong number of arguments(5 for 7)

NprTools_image.rb:184:in 'dll_call_merge_shadows'

And the Ruby Console outputs:

Saving shadow image - Please wait
Saving sbase_image; C;\Documents and Settings\thm\Mine dokumenter\NprTools/NprTools_Images/SS_Base.png - please wait
Save no-shadow image
RESTORE  shadow_info["DisplayShadows"]=false old; true 
Saving shadow_image; C;\Documents and Settings\thm\Mine dokumenter\NprTools/NprTools_Images/SS_Shadow_mask.png - please wait
Save shadow image
RESTORE rendering_options["BackgroundColor"]=Color(255, 255, 255, 255) old; Color(204, 204, 201, 255)
RESTORE rendering_options["FaceBackColor"]=Color(255, 255, 255, 255) old; Color(164, 178, 187, 255)
RESTORE rendering_options["GroundColor"]=Color(255, 255, 255, 255) old; Color(210, 208, 185, 255)
RESTORE rendering_options["HideConstructionGeometry"]=true old; false
RESTORE rendering_options["RenderMode"]=1 old; 2
RESTORE rendering_options["Texture"]=false old; true
RESTORE  shadow_info["Dark"]=0 old; 45 
Saving edge_image; C;\Documents and Settings\thm\Mine dokumenter\NprTools/NprTools_Images/SS_Edges.png - please wait
Save edge image
RESTORE rendering_options["BackgroundColor"]=Color(255, 255, 255, 255) old; Color(204, 204, 201, 255)
RESTORE rendering_options["HideConstructionGeometry"]=true old; false
RESTORE rendering_options["RenderMode"]=1 old; 2
RESTORE rendering_options["Texture"]=false old; true
RESTORE  shadow_info["DisplayShadows"]=false old; true 
Creating shadow patterns - please wait
Setting material on entities; RPS Sketchy Shadows - please wait
ADDING COMPONENT; ARC Logo
COMPONENT LOOP length; 1
Processing component; ARC Logo (ents; 18)
End definition; ARC Logo
COMPONENT LOOP length; 1
Saving shadow pattern image - please wait
RESTORE rendering_options["EdgeDisplayMode"]=0 old; 1
RESTORE  shadow_info["Dark"]=100 old; 45 
Merging images - please wait
ERROR during toolbar command; #<Proc;0x0ae3dd68@RpTools_toolbar.rb;205>
wrong number of arguments(5 for 7)

NprTools_image.rb;184;in `dll_call_merge_shadows'

SU7 - XP Pro SP3