Experience importing Sketchup models in PTV VISSIM?

Gasalol

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a project that involves both roadway/transit design and traffic modeling. (I work for a mid-size urban planning agency. Public sector.)

My department is designing new streetcar stops for our transit authority as they roll out a new type of light rail vehicle. Meanwhile, another department is doing an operations analysis that involves modeling our streetcar lines to see what time savings (if any) might be gained from the new vehicles and stops.

The light rail vehicles operate partially in mixed traffic, so we're using PTV VISSIM to do the traffic modeling.

I know VISSIM is capable of importing .skp files, but we've never done it before. Does anyone have any experience with this? I've seen very few tutorials out there.

I realize that it can import my SketchUp model, which we can then use for animation purposes, but are there other benefits that I'm not thinking of? I think this could potentially be a very useful tool to help the public understand what these vehicle upgrades mean to them at street-level. It would be awesome, though, if there was some extra analytical component to using a SketchUp model in VISSIM.

THANKS FOR READING!

alpro

No experience but reading over the FAQ section on the PTV Vissim site it seems skp import is not available in the 64 bit version of that software so the obvious question then is are you running the 32 or 64 bit version?

"Unless you work with networks that need access to additional RAM, we recommend to install the 32-bit edition of Vissim as there are a few limitations with the 64-bit edition:

Background vector image formats: SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is not supported, there is only limited support for DXF/DWG files.
Some external signal control interfaces are not available as 64-bit edition. However, the following interfaces do work both with the 32-bit and the 64-bit edition of VISSIM: RBC, SCATS, SCOOT, VAP, VISSIG.
Some external emission models and external driver models are not available as 64-bit edition.
The DDE interface for deprecated signal control interfaces (external EXE files) is not supported.
Database export only works with Windows 64-bit if a 64-bit OLE driver is installed. Example: Microsoft Office 64-bit is required for an export to Microsoft Access (mdb). With 64-bit we recommend using the MS SQL Server Express Edition instead.
For static 3D models only V3D files are supported (SKP, DWF and 3DS are not available)."

Mike

Gasalol

Thanks for responding. I guess I was hoping someone had a little more in-depth experience. The few demonstrations I've seen using a SketchUp model imported into VISSIM have been pretty basic and, frankly, unattractive.

I guess I've got two priorities in figuring out how the two programs might work together:

I'm not expecting to be able to produce the type of rendered animation you'd see in a high-production video game, but I'd like it to look nicer than some of what I've seen out there.

Is there some extra analytic capacity that I'm missing? VISSIM is really good for complex traffic modeling, but I was hoping that there'd be some ability to use SketchUp to add some value to that analysis by including streetscape and land use details. (i.e. What are the traffic impacts of one type of in-street transit stop vs. another?)

jcohen71

We've had some experience this year at Fat Pencil Studio using SketchUp with VISSIM. Here's a couple blog posts describing the results:

http://fatpencilstudio.com/traffic-simulation/
http://fatpencilstudio.com/pedestrian-simulation/

A few things we learned in the process:

Save files as "SketchUp 6.0" format before attempting to import into VISSIM. The SketchUp file comes in as a static "background", and you can define movement paths right on top.
Some materials that look fine in SketchUp were problematic in VISSIM, either because of a color shift, or texture rotation. We used a trial & error process to fix these.
For parked cars, SketchUp components work fine. For moving cars, we used VISSIM stock components.
For the light rail vehicle, we had to use VISSIM's 3d model editor to import a SketchUp file and then make it available as a simulation component.

Joshua Cohen
Fat Pencil Studio
503.465.4533

louiej5

Although this post might be a bit old (and already resolved), I would like to add my two cents when it comes to animating vehicle sliding doors:

Before importing an LRV sketchup model into V3DM, assign each inside face of the door a different material. The outside face can remain their true colours. For some reason in V3DM, all faces with the same inside and outside faces of an imported sketchup model can only be selected simultaneously, not individually. After importing to V3DM, group the faces that belong to each door. Now you can define these groups as doors in V3DM. Vissim will automatically determine the sliding direction for each door.