Does layout not support hidden lines?

tvcasualty · 27 Sept 2010, 00:08

Seems strange that I am having such a hard time getting layout 3 to show me hidden lines from my drawing as SU8 does. Showing hidden lines is a huge step towards being a CAD program someone can actually make things from, and it seems like there must be a way to make Layout show them!

Can anyone help a guy out?

Gaieus · 27 Sept 2010, 08:21

Displaying hidden lines is a style feature. When you turn hidden lines on, open your style panel, go to "In model", select the style you are using and update it.

NOW send the file to LayOut (or if you have already sent it there, update the skp file inside LO).

Have a look at the LO document below. It has two pages where I inserted the same skp model. On page 1, one of the scenes of the SU model is displayed and in this scene, the active style does not display hidden lines. On page one, the same model but with another scene where the active style is set to display the hidden lines.

Hidden lines.layout

tvcasualty · 29 Sept 2010, 01:42

Thanks but that's not quite what I'm after...
This is what Layout / Sketchup needs to do:

I want to show this in Layout, only I'd like it to show as vectors (not as raster), and if it's not too much more to ask, I'd like that to export as a dxf.

Note, it should also work for holes, and not just square cut outs (if I drew a hole, the hidden line does not show up as an edge).

Thanks again for your response though.

Gaieus · 29 Sept 2010, 02:02

If you turn your inserted SU model to vector or hybrid rendering mode than right click and explode it, you can assign any kind of line weights, colours or styles to the individual edges.

Also (with LO 3 now) you can export it to dwg/dxf.

What you showed, how would be achieved in SU?

bjanzen · 29 Sept 2010, 17:19

So if your style has back edges turned on in SketchUp, you should see those in LayOut. Is that not working for you? If you don't have LO3, does changing face style to X-ray work for you in 2.1? It does for me.

b

walzo · 28 Jan 2011, 20:37

I'm guessing the issue here is that Layout doesn't display hidden lines in vector mode (I wish it did!). Correct Gaieus? Ideally one wouldn't have to explode a model, thereby losing the capacity to remodel it in Sketchup.

Gaieus · 29 Jan 2011, 16:20

Not in vector mode but in hybrid mode it does (where your edges are vectors but your textures are raster). Probably the most resource hungry mode however.

bmike · 11 May 2011, 00:57

@gaieus said:

Not in vector mode but in hybrid mode it does (where your edges are vectors but your textures are raster). Probably the most resource hungry mode however.

Not seeing this in hybrid, was really hoping for it on a complex project...
Will have to settle for vector, I guess.

Dave R · 11 May 2011, 01:44

Looks like Back Edges will only display in Raster mode.

Gaieus · 11 May 2011, 08:37

Above, my rendering was in hybrid. Note that back edges is a face style actually so you cannot expect it to work in vector mode but in hybrid mode they should appear (however not as vector edges but as a raster effect on the face itself as far as I can tell or at least imagine).

Dave R · 11 May 2011, 10:19

I don't see back edges in Hybrid. Here's what I get.

Original SU image with style updated:

LO Raster render:

LO Hybrid render:

bmike · 11 May 2011, 13:29

@dave r said:

I don't see back edges in Hybrid. Here's what I get.

Original SU image with style updated:

LO Raster render:

LO Hybrid render:

Same here. I even exported to PDF, to make sure I wasn't missing something.
And set display of models to 'high'. No dice.

jhauswirth · 11 May 2011, 14:10

LO doesn't support the new hiddenline drawing in hybrid or vector.
It will only show them in raster. In hybrid mode it first renders
everything except edges (it turns off ALL edges) and then it
draws all visible edges as vector on top of the raster image.

bmike · 11 May 2011, 16:09

@jhauswirth said:

LO doesn't support the new hiddenline drawing in hybrid or vector.
It will only show them in raster. In hybrid mode it first renders
everything except edges (it turns off ALL edges) and then it
draws all visible edges as vector on top of the raster image.

Would be great to have it available in hybrid... but in my limited testing it would need some finesse on the software side.

I thought it might work to do 2 viewports, one in raster, another on top in vector, but I can't seem to get that to work - although I did think it possible to have 2 or more windows stacked atop one another with transparent backgrounds...

Dave R · 11 May 2011, 16:23

Well, you could do it with overlapping scenes. See the attached PDF. I made two scenes, one in simple Hidden Line style and the other with Back Edges turned on. I overlapped the two scenes in LO with them on separate layers. The Hidden Line view is rendered as Vector and the Back Edges scene in Raster.

To be honest, though. I don't see much point in doing this. The quality of the result isn't very good.

back edges test.pdf

bmike · 11 May 2011, 16:43

@dave r said:

Well, you could do it with overlapping scenes. See the attached PDF. I made two scenes, one in simple Hidden Line style and the other with Back Edges turned on. I overlapped the two scenes in LO with them on separate layers. The Hidden Line view is rendered as Vector and the Back Edges scene in Raster.

To be honest, though. I don't see much point in doing this. The quality of the result isn't very good.

Just figured that out by doing a similar test with something I'm working on. Only time it would make sense for me would be for complex joinery / shop drawings...

Dave R · 11 May 2011, 16:47

Out of curiosity, wouldn't just the Raster-rendered image work for that? Or, you could make a high res image export from SU and insert the image into LO. Of course you'd lose the automatic update if you edit the model but for a few images it might not be so bad.

bmike · 11 May 2011, 17:34

@dave r said:

Out of curiosity, wouldn't just the Raster-rendered image work for that? Or, you could make a high res image export from SU and insert the image into LO. Of course you'd lose the automatic update if you edit the model but for a few images it might not be so bad.

I guess the raster would be fine. But I have no idea in actual practice. I've only used vector for line heavy work, and hybrid for anything with color and shadows...

I've sent a few pages off to plot with the overlay and with just the raster. We'll see how they plot out.

Gaieus · 12 May 2011, 09:32

@jhauswirth said:

LO doesn't support the new hiddenline drawing in hybrid or vector.
It will only show them in raster. In hybrid mode it first renders
everything except edges (it turns off ALL edges) and then it
draws all visible edges as vector on top of the raster image.

I may have remembered my (old) post above wrong then, sorry.

bmike · 12 May 2011, 23:25

Nice thing about backedges, even if they don't render in hybrid or vector - is that they do allow you to snap when section cutting through a model...