Weird Display While Trying To Print

[Aswald]

Hello,

I have a weird problem. I am getting weird diplay with blocks of gray/black when I am trying to print my drawing.

It happens when shadow is turned on. Blocks looks like random reflections of the model I am drawing.

Once the blocks appear it stays like that unless I toggle the face textures and/or switch shadows on and off a few times. Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't.

Am using,

Dell XPS 8100 i7 2.8Ghz
16bG Ram
512gB SSD HD
Nvidia Quadro 4000 (with Dell 2007FP and U2711)

I thought it was the video card but this problem persisted after I upgraded from the older Quadro FX3800. Display drivers are up to date.

Windows 7 is freshly installed a few months back (also to rule out OS issues).

I also have a 7200rpm Samsung HD with same OS installed but same results.

Any ideas?
Nothing I have done could solve this mysterious blocks.

Attached some pics of my problem. The blocks used to be gray on all previous graphic driver.

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[Krisidious]

turn on hidden geometry and see what is really in the model.

try going to model info>statistics>fix problems.

Try going to Preferences and checking your graphic settings, try different settings within to evaluate differences.

There is a plugin called toggle shadow strings fix. although I think it's more for when there are holes and strings in your shadows. But you could try it and see what happens.

Have you tried the file on another computer that is using a game type video card like the GTX series? I've been seeing quadro problems abit as of late. would be good to make sure it's not that.

[Aswald]

Hi Kristoff,

Thx for taking the time.

Hidden geometry shows nothing not already seen on the darwing.
Model info/statistics/fix problems resulted in no errors to be fixed.
Toggling graphic settings does not show improvement. Fast feedback gave fuzzy lines so I de-selected it.

The models ran and printed fine on my other pcs. Although slower. They include,

Dell Dimension 9200 Q6700, 2.66gHz, 4g ram with Quadro FX3800 Win Vista OS
Dell Dimension 8250 P4, 2.53gHz, 1.5g ram, with Quadro 980 xgl Win XP OS
Dell Latitude e6400, 4gb ram with onboard intel 450 gma gpu Win 7 Pro

So it seems, the problem is unique to the newer Core i7 PC. I've checked everything, re-installed drivers, did a fresh install but still the same results. I am just one step away from changing my mobo/cpu....but that presents other problems.

I was hoping that some one here with similar problems found a solution.

Will try the shadow fix later to day and update.

[Krisidious]

And you're not experiencing this with other models? on that same computer? if so try copy and pasting entire selection of geometry out of file and into a new one.

I've never seen it before and the black with shadow issue scream video issue to me.

perhaps you could try rolling back video driver... is there a recent time when it didn't happen?

[Aswald]

Ok. I have some updates.

The block shadows does not appear when I select "Standard" Print Quality under the Print Preview dialog box.

Shadows appear when I select "High Definition" or "Ultrahigh Definition". Currently I am sending my print output to a Canon Pixma iX4000 on A3+ glossy Canon paper.

All sketchup models with complexity of this drawing level display the shadow problems on the Core i7 PC. Simpler models goes through ok "most" times.

My thoughts are, once the cpu/gpu has successfully sent the high res print output to the printer, video should not be affected on the display. They almost use different paths altogether.

Most times, the block shadows are very stubborn and I could be toggling the texture faces/shadows on/off for like 10 mins before it returns to normal.

I have to do this and hope it reverts back to normal. Off Shadows, switch to hidden lines face texture, then switch to shaded with textures. And repeat after trying shadow on.

Included one of my older models. Just tried and voila. Printed on high definition.

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