[Plugin] UVTools v0.1

Whaat

what a wonderful plugin - works really good.

cylindrical mapping is even exportet in Indigo (spherical is screwed up a bit)

[attachment=0:2hx0fdop]spherical_zylindrical.jpg[/attachment:2hx0fdop]
this is a start of a new world in SketchUp...

thank you so much Whaat!

Your sphere might have reversed faces. I have seen this type of behavior before in the case of reveresed faces.

plot-paris

doesn't work with right face orientation either - I just checked to be sure... still the same messy texture.

indigo would have ignored a reversed face anyway.

but this is the first beta release, and it works perfect in SU!
it is such a wonderful thing (just imagine how easy it is for fred to texture his sculptures now )

dtrarch

Stinkie is right.

Lightning BugSplat!!! on non-textured surfaces.

Otherwise works like a charm.

Thanks for such a fun tool too.

dtr

Pixero

Whaat, here is a link that might be of interest to you.
http://ozviz.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/texture_colour/spheremap/

Jon

I have to agree with plot-paris. It doesn't kep it's genuine texture in Kerkythea, either.
But other than that, it works like a charm! Thank you!!!

Whaat

@jon said:

I have to agree with plot-paris. It doesn't kep it's genuine texture in Kerkythea, either.

I find this very hard to believe! Please post your SKP file for me to test. Thanks!

Jon

Well, it fails with every model I've exported so far, but here's the most recent one.
With some models, there seems to be the change of the actual texture when exporting.
The other spheres surrounding the model are the atmosphere and cloud layer.
Thanks again, Whaat!

earth.skp

Whaat

@jon said:

Well, it fails with every model I've exported so far, but here's the most recent one.
With some models, there seems to be the change of the actual texture when exporting.
The other spheres surrounding the model are the atmosphere and cloud layer.
Thanks again, Whaat!

Thanks, Jon.

This seems to be an issue with non-triangular faces. If you can somehow triangulate the geometry prior to exporting, then the UVs should still be correct.

My 'Polyreducer' script triangulates all of the faces of a mesh. However, it will also reduce some polys. (The minimum is 10%). Once I triangulated your spheres, I reapplied the spherical mapping and then exported to Indigo. It worked perfect! I expect it to work with other rendering engines as well.

Another script that will triangulate faces is my 'SubD and Smooth' script (but it's not free)

Thanks for posting the scene!

Jon

Thank for the info, Whaat.

plot-paris

and here we go - with a perfect spherical mapping in Indigo!

triangulated faces. thanks whaat, that really did the trick

sepo

Thanks for the plugin. It works. You might encounter problem of reversed faces in SU and it will look kind of crazy. Reverse faces and it works. Tried quick render in Podium and it works no problem.

Alan Fraser

Excellent work, Dale. The key to decent spherical mapping lies in a combination of triangular faces (no real surprise there) plus enough of them to do the job. Attached is the standard SU sphere which has been given 2 iterations of Subdivide and Smooth to produce much smaller triangles, then a spherical map of the Earth applied. The result is about as good as it gets.
My sincere compliments.

I haven't tried it yet, but it may be possible to raise the resolution of the mesh in just the polar regions and achieve pretty much the same result but with far fewer faces.

globe.skp

kwistenbiebel

Nice results Alan!

I wil give the plugin a spin this weekend. Another cool Whaat piece of work.

watkins

Dear Alan,

Could you give a little tut to show how you map the texture onto the sphere using the various tool? I cannot quite see how it all hangs together.

Thanks,
Bob

Alan Fraser

It's fairly straightforward, Bob.
I imported the sphere from Shapes and exploded it.
I then applied Subdivide and Smooth with 2 iterations (it maps reasonably well with just 1, but 2 is better)
I then resized the sphere to exactly 10' diameter...it's a tad larger than that by default.
I imported the image and exploded it, then edited its height in the Material Editor to match the sphere's diameter.
I then applied the image, from the Material browser to the sphere.
I then right-clicked the sphere and chose UV Tools > Spherical from the context menu....and Bingo!
That's all there is to it.

Whaat

@alan fraser said:

I then resized the sphere to exactly 10' diameter...it's a tad larger than that by default.
I imported the image and exploded it, then edited its height in the Material Editor to match the sphere's diameter.

Resizing the image before using the plugin is an unecessary step. The plugin will always map the image the full height of the sphere and wrap it exactly once around the sphere.

Alan Fraser

Thanks Dale. I should have figured that with no adjustment controls, it would be set to fit. I've only just taken a look now at the code.

watkins

Dear Alan,

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. As I wrote somewhere else, I tend not to texture my models, being content with the default shades, and so I haven't built up any skill in this area.

Thanks again, and thanks to Dale for another useful script. The model of the globe is really very impressive. I must have a go at Mars.

Kind regards,
Bob

Alan Fraser

Bob,
You'll find some decent planet maps here.
http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html
The individual planets are linked at the bottom of the page.

The maps are distorted because in order to fit a sphere the entire top and bottom edges need to come to a single point at either pole, so you'll appreciate that things get progressively stretched as you move away from the equator.

You don't need to start from scratch. You can merely open the Earth globe skp, go to the Material browser...In Model, select the Earth texture then in edit mode replace the earth.jpg with one of the planetary ones you download from the above site. It will map automatically.

Frederik

Thanks for both the tut' and the link to the planet texture maps, Alan..!!
Much appreciated..!!