[Plugin] SU2POV 3.5

Didier Bur · 4 Aug 2011, 07:27

Hi,
This message appears in these cases:

SketchUp model has never been saved,
Pov-Ray is not installed on your system,
.pov extension isn't associated with the Pov-Ray program.

Please double-click on the file that has been created and see what happens, and let me know.
Regards,

grusgrus · 9 Aug 2011, 21:06

Hi.

I have discovered a rather obscure but very inconvenient bug in su2pov.
While trying to render an architectural model using POV-ray and su2pov i found that parts of my model were in the wrong place (far far out of place).

The common factor for all the missing or dislocated parts is that they have all been scaled as a part of an operation using other addons.

Components that have been scaled while using Chris Fulmer's ComponentStringer or Scale and rotate multiple are moved out of place.
If a component has been scaled manually it behaves as normal. However this problem is reproducible when using the aforementioned plugins.

One of the components i am using is dynamic and the other is set to face camera. i have not tried with basic components.
I have tried removing all my other plugins and just using su2pov but the problem does persist even so.

I am using SU8 pro, su2pov 3.5 and the latest versions available of ComponentStringer and Scale and rotate mulitiple.

Seeing as all these plugins are very useful tools, I hope it is possible to make them work together.

regards
Grusgrus

CopperFr · 27 Aug 2011, 08:36

Bonjour,

Ce plugin est très intéressant...

Malheureusement, il semble y avoir quelques problèmes de génération des uv_vectors pour les textures dans le fichier .pov

Par exemple, lorsque l'on fait un rectangle sans épaisseur les uv_vectors "ressemblent" aux vertex_vectors...

vertex_vectors {
4,
<208.246285635031,0.0,265.826360174799>,
<-396.253714364969,0.0,-140.798639825201>,
<-396.253714364969,0.0,265.826360174799>,
<208.246285635031,0.0,-140.798639825201>,
}

uv_vectors {
4,
<-208.246285635031,265.826360174799>,
<396.253714364969,-140.798639825201>,
<396.253714364969,265.826360174799>,
<-208.246285635031,-140.798639825201>,
}

alors que l'on devrait avoir

uv_vectors {
4,
<-3.25384821304735,4.15353687773123>,
<6.19146428695265,-2.19997874726877>,
<6.19146428695265,4.15353687773123>,
<-3.25384821304735,-2.19997874726877>,
}

Ca serait cool si une correction était possible...

Test su2pov

Didier Bur · 29 Aug 2011, 11:53

Bonjour,
Oui effectivement il y a un problème, mais qui n'arrive que sur des faces non extrudées, je ne sais pas pourquoi.
Fait un cube avec cette face et tu verras ça marche

CopperFr · 29 Aug 2011, 17:49

Bonjour,

Arf dommage...

En fait, j'avais vu que ça fonctionnait quand on extrudait la face (ca m'a d'ailleurs permis de voir que les uv_vectors étaient en cause)

A noter par ailleurs que le plugin SU2Kerkythea fonctionne correctement dans ce cas de figure... (Bon par contre Kerkytheas est vraiment trop lent chez moi sur des images en 1920x1200)

Je crois qu'il y a d'autres cas ou cela fonctionne pas (mais c'est peut-être un problème d'alignement de texture)

Question subsidiaire : le code source est-il disponible pour que je puisse éventuellement y jeter un coup d'oeil ?

alanr · 13 Feb 2012, 01:02

Hi - Like the plugin - works so much better than the previous one I had installed. Question - is there any way to alter the target of a spotlight once its been added to a scene, or is the only way to delete it and add a new one?

Regards
Alan.

Didier Bur · 13 Feb 2012, 14:49

Hi,
You can orient the spot as you like once it has been created: just select the component and rotate it. The target of the spots are computed WHEN you export your model, the orientation is not an attribute of the spot itself.
Regards,

alanr · 13 Feb 2012, 20:11

Am I doing something wrong? Simple scene, wall with a point light just in front of it. Created a cylinder, semi opaque to look like a shade and positioned this around the bulb. Rendered and all looked like expected. Then I grouped the bulb and the cylinder, and when rendered the light source seems to have moved to the origin while the bulb shape still renders in its original position. Whats going on?

Alan.

Didier Bur · 14 Feb 2012, 10:26

Hi,
Don't group cylinder (or anything else) with bulbs. The script needs to parse the model and find the bulb components to export them correctly. It doesn't dig into user groups to check for that, so bulbs components must be at 'top level' in the model.
Regards

alanr · 14 Feb 2012, 16:38

Thanks for your speedy reply - a good clear explanation - I'll just steer clear of grouping bulbs full stop! I assume this ruling applies equally to spotlights.

Any chance in the future we might be able to group bulbs along with metalwork and glass to make complete lamp assemblies?

Regards

alanr · 16 Feb 2012, 11:54

Three surfaces, each with own texture, 1 sphere and a circle, just plain colours, and 2 point lights creates a 5.5Mb .pov file. Any tips as to how this can be reduced? as I notice it contains details of surfaces and textures I am not using in this simple scene.

Another downside of such a huge .pov file is that it takes almost 4 seconds for SU2POV to write it, not unreasonable given its size, but nevertheless an annoying delay before I can click POVrays Run button without getting an error.

I created a similar scene using Bishop3D and this produced a 5Kb .pov file which seems more reasonable.

Regards

Didier Bur · 16 Feb 2012, 17:07

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

this ruling applies equally to spotlights
Correct.

@unknownuser said:

Any chance in the future we might be able to group bulbs along with metalwork and glass to make complete lamp assemblies?
No

@unknownuser said:

Three surfaces, each with own texture, 1 sphere and a circle, just plain colours, and 2 point lights creates a 5.5Mb .pov file.
It depends on the number of faces you used to create the sphere I guess. If it is based on an arc with 200 segments, this leads to a bunch of faces that "take place" to describe in a pov-ray file (which is an ascii file, much bigger than binary).

@unknownuser said:

it contains details of surfaces and textures I am not using in this simple scene
Yes, the script does'nt check wether a material is usued or not but exports all materials instead. A good idea is to purge all unused materials (and components as well), export the file, then undo to recover your materials/components.

Regards,

alanr · 16 Feb 2012, 19:49

Ok - good reply - but is there any easy means to delete all unused materials and components? I had thought about moving the materials and components folders away from SU, but this would then mean that although SU would not see them, I would have to generate materials as I went. Nicer would be from within SU so that I could develop a scene, then clearout all unused rubbish before SU2POV.

A ruby script perhaps ??

Regards,

Didier Bur · 17 Feb 2012, 06:48

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

is there any easy means to delete all unused materials and component

Yes, that's built-in: purge mats, comps, layers,styles.

@unknownuser said:

A ruby script perhaps ?

Again yes. See TIG's gem 'Purge All': http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=307
Regards

alanr · 17 Feb 2012, 12:01

Thanks for those tips Didier - they are very helpful. Also tried the script and thats even faster.

Combining these tips with your earlier comment about spheres generating a lot of code I have been able to achieve a dramatic reduction in .pov file size. One design that produced a 12MB pov file, now produces just 670KB, by purging everything unused and also removing 2 spheres based on 96 segment circles.

Is there any reason why your script does not recognise spheres and thus export them to povray as a simple statement, rather than as a series of (many) faces?

Regards

Didier Bur · 17 Feb 2012, 23:27

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

Is there any reason why your script does not recognise spheres and thus export them to povray as a simple statement, rather than as a series of (many) faces?

Simply because there's no geometric primitives (spheres, cubes...) in SU, and recognizing a sphere or another geometric shape in thousands of faces is almost undoable.
Regards,

alanr · 18 Feb 2012, 00:01

Oh right - hadn't realised that! But then again I suppose its obvious in that we don't actually create a sphere rather than rotate a semicircle through 360 degrees, but even then its lines and thus faces that if there are enough of them we get an object that looks like a sphere but made of up to hundreds of flat pieces.

Keep up the good work - most impressed.

One error - there's an image file missing. In the "edit pov-ray finish" option where you get to set finish and surface effect, under surface effect the image for "Minerals: paving pebbles" does not display. I guess this is just a small image file thats missing from the download. But I have had a look and paving pebbles is there as a png, so is there a typo in the main code?

Regards, Alan.

Didier Bur · 18 Feb 2012, 18:45

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

is there a typo in the main code?

Yes just an underscore missing in the image file name.
Try with the attached file (unzip it and put it in Plugins/su2pov folder). It should display the thumbnail now.
Regards,

To be unzipped and put in your SU_install_dir > Plugins > su2pov folder.

alanr · 18 Feb 2012, 23:26

Regards
Alan.

alanr · 19 Feb 2012, 13:00

This may be beyond SU2POV but I'll ask anyway!

White light, piece of (red) coloured glass (50% opacity) yet the shadow that falls on a white card remains neutral - is there any way to get a red shadow or for that matter a colour that mimics the colour of the glass the light is passing through? Or am I missing something?

Regards,
Alan.