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Quick tutorial for road design on a terrain

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  • C Offline
    charly2008
    last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 15:33

    Hi Csaba,

    thanks for your advise. That means I should let it run and then hope it will be finished somtime! More greatly shits. Sorry.

    At present i'm trying to stamp a more curved road into this high triangulated Terrain to see how it looks like. It makes a little desire if this lasts so eternally.

    Karlheinz

    He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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    • G Offline
      Gaieus
      last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 15:38

      Don't try to be very accurate with the stamp tool (vertically). It will have fancy results anyway. After it has done its job, you can always select the road surface and with the Move tool, adjust its height properly.

      Gai...

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      • C Offline
        charly2008
        last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 16:45

        Csaba i will follow your advices. Sketchup has now finished the explode process, it took one hour for this 42MB file.

        Karlheinz

        He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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        • G Offline
          Gaieus
          last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 19:15

          That's indeed a very high poly model. In fact,you generally don't need such a detailed model in SU if you take it seriously that SU is a presentational and conceptual design tool rather than a detailed mapping or engineering one as in this case.

          If you simplify that mesh (even to a fraction of it), you can still demonstrate almost everything in the same way on it (and maybe only keep smaller parts that you really need detailed). No one would look at the other side of a mountain to see how accurate the terrain is if you have your model on this side.

          Gai...

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          • C Offline
            charly2008
            last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 19:17

            Hi,

            after waiting another hour the stamp process has finished. But i think if there are so many polygons it makes no sense to work with in Sketchup because Sketchup needs to much time for the calculation. May be the better way is to design a road in a CAD System. At present i can't see any other solution.

            Karlheinz


            Vue Terrain 1.jpg

            He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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            • C Offline
              charly2008
              last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 19:43

              Csaba,

              i'm not shure about how to simplify the mesh. Is the simplify or simplify contour tool used for?

              Karlheinz

              He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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              • C Offline
                Chris Fullmer
                last edited by 5 Jun 2009, 23:28

                SU does not really have a simplify mesh feature built in, unfortunately. Simplify contours will only simplify contour lines before they are made into a terrain mesh. It won't help on a mesh like this.

                Didier did make a plugin though that will help with this. It is called terrain re-shaper. It has many uses, one of which is to downsample a terrain. But it will also be a time costly process.

                http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=11320&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

                Check it out, and see if it helps. The simpler the mesh, the faster it runs. I think you could measure the width of your terrain you have there, and then use that to help determine how to use his plugin. Anyhow, check it out. It will probably help,

                Chris

                Lately you've been tan, suspicious for the winter.
                All my Plugins I've written

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                • S Offline
                  solo
                  last edited by 6 Jun 2009, 00:55

                  That's the thing, like I mentioned in another thread relating to this, you need to divide the terrain to a point where it's smooth before even attempting anything road-wise.
                  For anything really accurate and useable for construction or even client visualisation I would seriously urge you to look beyond SU, SU just does not have the 'balls' for this kind of work. I would recommend Geocontrol 2 and Vue for this. Here is a link to how it can be achieved with Geocontrol 2 (it's a road tutorial), after which you can either continue working with the terrain in Geo or move it into Vue for finishing.

                  favicon

                  (www.cajomi.de)

                  http://www.solos-art.com

                  If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                  • C Offline
                    charly2008
                    last edited by 6 Jun 2009, 10:57

                    Hi Chris, hi Pete,

                    thanks for your detailed advices. I will try it with the terrain reshaper and consuming some cups of
                    coffee.

                    Another question is how to get a less triangulated mesh out from Vue. Maybe that would be the way for future to start with less triangulated Terrains. I have spent some time for work with VUE. Geocontrol seems to be a nice tool.

                    Karlheinz

                    He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                    • S Offline
                      solo
                      last edited by 6 Jun 2009, 11:33

                      Karl

                      Select the terrain in Vue then go to your file drop down menu and select 'export object', a new dialogue will appear which will give you a mesh quality slider, the lower the slider the less detailed/triangulation, the highest will probably kill SU.

                      http://www.solos-art.com

                      If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                      • C Offline
                        charly2008
                        last edited by 7 Jun 2009, 13:56

                        Hi Pete,

                        i had a look at the Geocontrol tutorial and it seems not bad and relativly simple to use. I have downloaded the trial version to carry out some tests according to that video. From Geocontrol i exported a wave object file with a project size of 128, then imported the file into Vue and exported a 3ds file. The file size in Sketchup is now reasonable. It seems to be a promising solution. To have a similar tool inside Sketchup would be very nice. It should be possible somehow to develop something like that also for Sketchup in anyway.

                        Karlheinz


                        Geocontrol1.jpg


                        Geocontrol2.jpg


                        Test road 1281.jpg


                        Test Road.zip

                        He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                        • C Offline
                          charly2008
                          last edited by 7 Jun 2009, 21:22

                          Hi to All,

                          in the second test, the road looks fine in Geocontrol. But the exported road doesn't look exactly the same in Sketchup. May be anyone has an Idea how to improve the road in Sketchup.

                          Karlheinz


                          testroad.jpg


                          testroad01.jpg


                          testroad1.jpg


                          Test Road.zip

                          He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                          • C Offline
                            charly2008
                            last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 16:33

                            Summary:

                            Up till now I have not found any satisfactory possibility for the construction of roads in Sketchup. Road design within Geocontrol is done simply and shows satisfactory results. The Terrain was exported as an .obj file and changed to an 3ds file which is Sketchup able to import. To have good view of the road in the triangulated terrain in Sketchup it is neccessary to import it as a high resolution terrain.

                            The biggest size which Sketchup was able to load is the terrain shown below. The difficulty is that the road doesn't have a sharp borderline as shown in Geocontrol.

                            I'm not shure if it is possible to create smooth borderlines because for the road also we have only triangles.

                            I will devote again myself to other more pleasant work. May be in the future somebody has a brainwave.

                            Karlheinz


                            testroad01.jpg


                            Test Road 512.jpg

                            He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                            • S Offline
                              solo
                              last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 16:57

                              Karl

                              That looks great, good work.

                              Is this for a particular project/client? is the road asphalt/concrete? and i assume you would need stone barriers too right?

                              I would suggest making the road using a profile in GC, extracting the vector road seperate and the profile seperate, taking them into Vue and exporting them seperately then overlaying them as components in SU that way you will have clear control over them. However it will probably cripple you unless you work with strict layering (but that may not be enough once you start texturing)
                              Or, work the entire project in Vue or GC.

                              http://www.solos-art.com

                              If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                              • C Offline
                                charly2008
                                last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 17:41

                                Hi Pete,

                                it is not a particulare project it is only for fun. I try to find only a comfortable workflow for road design that can be used within Sketchup. With GC i did only some first steps. I don't know how to make a profile in GC and to export them separately. Up till now I have exported only an obj file from GC. In the use of Vue i'm also a beginner. It seems to me that you have some experience with GC. Your method sounds promising but I comprehend not yet completely the steps. Perhaps I can soothe my frustration again. Would you be so kind to give me a rough description of the steps within GC.

                                Karlheinz

                                He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                                • S Offline
                                  solo
                                  last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 21:01

                                  Actually Karl, Pilou may be onto something here, the 'tools on surface' ruby will be good to trace the shape of the road in SU and from there you can pull up the barriers as needed, will be a lot easier than my idea above.

                                  http://www.solos-art.com

                                  If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                                  • G Offline
                                    Gaieus
                                    last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 21:05

                                    What I'd do here is to soften the whole terrain first and then drape the road lines in their place. It wouldn't add further geometry but simply unsoften the two sides of the oad.

                                    Now from then on, you can use TOS to offset and Joint PushPull to erect side barriers, copy along path to distribute road side posts or what you call them or anything for a road.

                                    Gai...

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                                    • C Offline
                                      charly2008
                                      last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 21:45

                                      Pete, Csaba, Pilou,

                                      please can you show me an example how you would do this on the Test Road.skp above.

                                      Karlheinz

                                      He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                                      • G Offline
                                        Gaieus
                                        last edited by 8 Jun 2009, 22:16

                                        For that, I'd need the mesh as it is now AND the road that you integrated in that other app (which I don't know) separately imported into SU.

                                        Can you rip the road only, somehow like Pete suggested above? It would be a long, thin strip this way.

                                        Gai...

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                                        • pilouP Offline
                                          pilou
                                          last edited by 9 Jun 2009, 09:49

                                          In theory you can draw your road with "Tools on surface" by Fredo6 on top view
                                          Just hide or separate some useless reliefs around the road for have a speedy calculate

                                          Frenchy Pilou
                                          Is beautiful that please without concept!
                                          My Little site :)

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