How to export to a 2D Graphic to a scale
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Hello,
I need to export an object I've created in SU to a 2D graphic, in Scale. I think that you can print to scale and I know how to export, but not sure how to export to Scale. the reason I can't simply print it is because I will be taking it into another layout program ( InDesign )
Thank You
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On a computer, image files are measured in pixels and not in real world units. That means you can scale the image later to any size.
For printing, there exist something like a "conversion unit": dpi (dots per inch). That means if you have exported an image of 2400px width and print it with 300dpi, it will be 8 inch width. Maybe InDesign allows to import images with a certain dpi.
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What Aerilius says - an image is always kind of "flexible". However, there are some guidelines with this. You need to know what resolution to export in order to be able to scale your image in those other apps correctly and still be able to print in a reasonable quality.
If you wish, you can even use a virtual printer called PDFCreator. This will work as a printer in your system and beside printing into a PDF document (which could also be used), it can also print into different image formats where you can set many parameters.
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its important to remember, that SketchUp only lets you print to scale, if you are in parralel projection mode.
so go to Camera > Parallel Projection. then use one of the standart views to make sure, you are aligned correctly to your model (or if your model isn't at a right angle to the original coordinate axes, right-click a face that you want to look straight onto and use the 'align-view' command).
if you now print (as Gaieus said: print as a pdf. thats ideal for furhter use in inDesign), you should be able to define the scale...
[Edit]
as far as I know the only way to export to scale, if you want to use the 'export 2d' function as opposed to the 'print' function is to export as dxf/dwg file. when you import these into inDesign, you will get the actual line work. the upside is, that you can change these lines at will (line weight, colour, etc). the downside is, that you won't get any coloured faces, textures or shadows...
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you can also do scale in photoshop before importing to indesign
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I like to save as dwg/dxf. At that point it is still full size (1"=1"). Then I import it into Illustrator, which now lets you scale to a desired scale (e.g. 1200units =1"). You can't keep it 1"=1" if you are designing a building because Illustrator as pasteboard size limits. At this point you can save your Illustrator file and then import into InDesign.
A different approach is to set your scaled drawing up in Layout, and export as a PDF. You can open this in Illustrator and manipulate (but not to the level of manipulation you can get from a dwg file). The nice thing about this method is that you keep your raster artwork and your vector artwork.
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My workflow from SU to page layout software (like InDesign) via Photoshop:
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I draw an empty "picture frame" of known size around my model, parallel to the plane that I want to export to scale
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I export an image to a high resolution with the whole frame showing.
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I open the image in Photoshop (any good image editor will do).
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I use the Trim command in Photoshop to automatically remove all the white space around my picture frame.
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Now I open the image size dialog. SU-exported images (on the PC at least) have no DPI information so the initial dialog will show a huge image with a 72 dpi resolution.
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I set the new size by dividing the size of the frame with the desired scale, and resize the image with Bicubic resampling, using a resolution of 200 dpi (usually with colour images to be printed on a laser printer).
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now I can further crop the image, if necessary, and save it. The size information is saved with the image, and when imported into Indesign (or Pagemaker or...) will be correctly scaled.
Anssi
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And the other way, if you have a PDF printer, is to print a PDF to scale, and then either import it directly into InDesign, or convert it into a raster image in Photoshop and import that.
Anssi
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This post is deleted! -
Steven, you do realize this thread is more than 10 years old and the OP's last visit here was in 2014, right?
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