Text text text!

stuartb · 6 Dec 2007, 09:50

Its all very nice to hear that the team are working very hard on 'new stuff' but there are two BASIC things needed if they are truly serious about the 'Pro' in Sketchup Pro : -

1 - Dimension text has the option to 'lay flat' relative to a surface.
'Normal' text needs to be able to do the same. Why on earth can it not? It floats about aligned to the view all the time meaning there is no real control over how it looks. Pro's need to put notes on their work!
I use a 'workaround' trick whereby I use dimension text all the time with a micro-scopic mark . . . but its really not good enough.
Surely this is an easy one to implement? The dimension text can do it already.

2 - Support for text when importing dwg or dxf.
Sketchup can import a detailed ordnance survey contour map very nicely . . . . . but loses all the text data, the contour heights . . .everything.
This is another basic requirement.

I suspect these two achilles heels may be linked somehow . . . . . . but if I was Mr Google I would put ALL the developers onto it and leave the airy-fairy stuff for now.

Edson · 6 Dec 2007, 10:03

i second that most emphatically!

Kenny · 6 Dec 2007, 10:36

I've made the point about imported DWG text on a few occasions to Google, it's a glaring omission at the moment. A separate window in CAD has to be opened to read the text and you have to keep referring back and forward. This also brings with it a margin for error in a drawing where you misread the text in relation to a spot height or site feature when you click back on to the Sketchup file. Hopefully Google will address this.

Kenny

JuanV.Soler · 6 Dec 2007, 11:09

It is a cry in the desert.
"I would put ALL the developers onto it and leave the airy-fairy stuff for now."
Me too.

Hi Brad, hi Craig, hi Google people in here
cant you do something about it?

TIG · 8 Dec 2007, 16:26

Using 3D text with no depth would give you that ability. I could see a script, that was called say "Text-Tag", that would let you add a text-tag to a model that became a component using 3D text; it would also have an attribute that tells us it's a text-tag and the second part of the text-tag script then lets you [right-click]edit any text-tag so you can renew its text etc and it'll then replace the old text-tag component with the new info...
It would be [relatively] easy to read the text part from a DXF and then make some SUp text at the same location - complex thinking on how to get the size/font to correspond etc but NOT impossible... DWG files are more complex to read directly...

Voder Vocoder · 8 Dec 2007, 18:17

TIG,

There's a basic problem with 3D text: since it is rendered as ordinary 3D geometry it has an outline--and a thick one--which is whatever the Profile edge attribute is set to. Unfortunately, scalable fonts are designed to be rendered net; that is, fill but no outline. The result is that SU renders 3D text characters distorted: strokes are too thick; cutouts get filled in; characters bleed together, etc. The effect is less noticeable at large point sizes, where the outlines account for a much smaller percentage of stroke width, but at small sizes, like the size of note text, the characters look fuzzy and ill-proportioned at best and barely legible at worst.

You can hide the edges, but that's a pretty kludgey and time-consuming workaround. The best workaround I've found is to intersect (integrate) the edges with a rectangular face, paint the face with an invisible color, hide the edges of the rectangle, and smooth the edges of the characters. That leaves you with your block of text on an invisible plane, which you can position and orient as you please.

There are still other problems with 3D text, though--most notably, the leading (line spacing) is too tight for most purposes, and there's no kerning. True, you can fiddle with the geometry, but that becomes rather laborious.

Voder Vocoder

stuartb · 8 Dec 2007, 21:32

Lets not get side-tracked here or make this more complicated than necessary . . . . there's absolutely nothing wrong with the basic 'vector' text in Sketchup . . . I just wish it had the same options as the dimension text already has. Specifically, the option to have it aligned/glued to a surface and not to always 'float about' aligned to the viewport.

TIG · 9 Dec 2007, 09:45

@voder vocoder said:

...There's a basic problem with 3D text: since it is rendered as ordinary 3D geometry it has an outline--and a thick one--which is whatever the Profile edge attribute is set to. Unfortunately, scalable fonts are designed to be rendered net; that is, fill but no outline. The result is that SU renders 3D text characters distorted: strokes are too thick; cutouts get filled in; characters bleed together, etc. The effect is less noticeable at large point sizes, where the outlines account for a much smaller percentage of stroke width, but at small sizes, like the size of note text, the characters look fuzzy and ill-proportioned at best and barely legible at worst.

You can hide the edges, but that's a pretty kludgey and time-consuming workaround. The best workaround I've found is to intersect (integrate) the edges with a rectangular face, paint the face with an invisible color, hide the edges of the rectangle, and smooth the edges of the characters. That leaves you with your block of text on an invisible plane, which you can position and orient as you please.

There are still other problems with 3D text, though--most notably, the leading (line spacing) is too tight for most purposes, and there's no kerning. True, you can fiddle with the geometry, but that becomes rather laborious.
Voder Vocoder

IF you were automating 3D-text as text-tags then it'd be [relatively] easy to hide all edges in the text-tag component and make the faces 'black'... Kerning etc is more painful...

TIG · 9 Dec 2007, 20:57

See: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=14125#p14125

for a script to do what we've discussed...

stuartb · 10 Dec 2007, 09:49

thats pretty brilliant TIG! Thanks a lot.
How can I get the text created using the script to export to dwg? The 'normal' Sketchup text seems to export to dwg by converting itself to faces.

TIG · 10 Dec 2007, 15:07

@stuartb said:

that's pretty brilliant TIG! Thanks a lot.
How can I get the text created using the script to export to dwg? The 'normal' Sketchup text seems to export to dwg by converting itself to faces.

You can't... BUT I could make an addition to the script to export the TextTags as a dxf file for the TextTags only [model-TaGTags.dwk]. It'd be done by manipulating the components' attributes to get the text, font, size etc and then make a 'real' text bit when opened into ACAD... It's a bit convoluted but could work - watch this space...

stuartb · 10 Dec 2007, 17:39

TIG . . what are the font limitations? Can I use ANY TTF font I have installed?
Edit : I re-read your instructions . . I can add fonts by editing the script. i will try that.

TIG · 10 Dec 2007, 19:50

@stuartb said:

TIG . . what are the font limitations? Can I use ANY TTF font I have installed?
Edit : I re-read your instructions . . I can add fonts by editing the script. I will try that.

Yes: Scroll down from the instruction part and find ###FONTLIST...
You can add any TTF fonts you want. Only use a plain text editor - word-processors will mess up the script by putting in hidden formatting characters etc...
Firstly make a back up of the ruby somewhere in case you mess up...
The font names are sorted into alphabetical order later on in the script so you could add your own fonts at the beginning...


### FONTLIST...
### ADD into the font list [or delete] any fonts YOU use [don't ever want to use]...
@fontlist=["YOUR_FONT","Arial",...]

Use the 'name' that appears in the system's list of fonts, rather than the file name itself - so it's "Arial" NOT "arial.ttf". If you want to remove any fonts ensure that the whole thing goes with any separating commas - e.g. <kept>"Tahoma",<kept>... The more fonts you have in the list then the longer the dialog's list and then you might have to resort to typing the first letter and then using the arrow keys to find the one you want - like on the colors... I recommend you have a concise list of fonts you usually use - I find that I only use a few fonts.

brad · 12 Dec 2007, 20:02

@unknownuser said:

Lets not get side-tracked here or make this more complicated than necessary . . . . there's absolutely nothing wrong with the basic 'vector' text in Sketchup . . . I just wish it had the same options as the dimension text already has. Specifically, the option to have it aligned/glued to a surface and not to always 'float about' aligned to the viewport.

I like the idea so much I logged a feature request.

Hope that helps.

linea · 12 Dec 2007, 20:16

I'd like to see this too, it is so fundamental!

tim · 24 Dec 2007, 06:22

@stuartb said:

Specifically, the option to have it aligned/glued to a surface and not to always 'float about' aligned to the viewport.

OK, I finally found the dimension text alignment option in 'model info' but I only see 'align to dimension line'. How does one glue the text to a surface?

Gaieus · 24 Dec 2007, 08:54

Tim,

That's not possible from "native" SU but you can use TIG's script for that:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=153&t=2953

stuartb · 1 Jan 2008, 23:58

Tim,
Gaieus is incorrect. For dimension text, native SU is fine.
By unticking 'align to screen' and choosing 'align to dimension line' you will notice that the dimension text does 'glue' to the sketchup surface and does not float about.

My complaint is that 'normal' text cannot do this. It is always 'aligned to screen' . .hence the need for TIGs script . . . which is nice . . but doesnt export to a dwg so you cant share your text with anyone.

Gaieus · 2 Jan 2008, 12:39

I was also referring to the text tool, not the dimension tool.