Poor quality geometry
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I keep coming across SketchUp models that use boilerplate Components that appear to have been imported using DWG that are uniformly terrible quality - with cylinders particularly having loads of long skinny shard triangles that don't abut correctly, have gaps, wrong smoothing groups etc.
And/or are massively over the top wrt detail. Coat pegs with N thousand faces, cross bracing where each element is thousands of faces each. Mad and makes for enormous SU files.
What gives? In the video games biz, we have hard geometry budgets that are required to be met for each component as well as large automated conditioning pipelines that all geometry flows through to ensure that it is defect free.
So are there sources of SU components that tend to be better than others on this front? And this big variability in quality; is it normal in Arch / previz?
Adam
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Hi Adam,
Yes, you are right, many of the SU models I also come across are horrible and would need cleaning up and tweaking more than if I started from scratch.
One thing I am pretty certain about though; they are as useless for arch-viz as for gaming.
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I don't get the 'boilerplate component' reference, care to explain?
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Yes - data we get from AutoCAD and Revit is terrible. Not only do they tend to be all to triangulated, but I find often there is microscopic deviances in the mesh that throws of any kind of alignment.
When I import data I always import into a new separate file and sanitize the input data before merging with the main model.
There are some projects at work I dread to work on because I know the CAD data I get is a PITA.
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@adamb said:
So are there sources of SU components that tend to be better than others on this front? And this big variability in quality; is it normal in Arch / previz?
Form Fonts - they usually have sane healthy models.
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@solo said:
I don't get the 'boilerplate component' reference, care to explain?
I think he may mean standard or common place. Yep, some AutoCAD files I've come across are very 'leaky' indeed.
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@mike lucey said:
@solo said:
I don't get the 'boilerplate component' reference, care to explain?
I think he may mean standard or common place. Yep, some AutoCAD files I've come across are very 'leaky' indeed.
Yes, thats it. Often times you have Primary assets which are done by yourself but you may populate/situate with "off the shelve" stuff which has little to do with what you're trying to do but is none the less necessary.
The one that motivated my post was a model of an (artistic) installation built on raised floor panels. The floor panelling is kinda irrelevant but was 200,000 faces of crap.
So you can understand people not wanting to burn cycles on this peripheral stuff but then getting let down by the poor quality.
Its been discussed before, but perhaps a tool that shows relative geometry complexity might be good - I've certainly had entire office floors with less geometry than in a single desk chair in the corner of the building..
Adam
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I've recently had some interior projects to be illustrated. The designers wanted specific products in the model - which is available for download from the manufacturer's website. However, it's often high poly - meant for close up studies of the individual object. Most of the time I never get time to make optimized versions - so I end up with models up to 2mill faces - most of which are the furniture itself - not the building.
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Thom- Import to Blender, decimate, export back to sketchup.
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I have "zero" problems with Dxf2Su, but then again, I don't use Autocad. I also do not use textures with my CAD software. I am surprised at the number of people here who can't even get a simple Acad floor plan consisting of wall lines imported into SU without gaps. When I first read of this, I thought that it was just sloppy drafting. That is, not making sure lines were joined, etc. The kind of thing beginners did in the old days. Then I realized some of the complaints were not from beginners, and then thought maybe its the "floating point" math problem. I am sure in some cases it may be, but that still doesn't account for the number of complaints I have read here.
Maybe it has something to do with SU's problem with dimensions smaller then 1/16 of a inch. But I can see that I didn't get enough sleep, and am off topic
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Adam,
A point to always bear in mind when working with SU are its limitations when modelling circles, cylinders, arcs etc.
Remember that circles, cylinders, pipework etc are made up of short straight line segments and are not really circular at all, but many sided polygons that "cut the corner" of the circles etc they are approximating.
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When importing CAD data eg from AutoCad, the original geometry may be modelled as solids etc and have no problems at all in their original (CAD) form with respect to gaps, slivers, fit etc.
When these solids are imported into SU, all the cylinders, pipes etc are approximated with many sided polygons.
This sometimes creates gaps and slivers where the original geometry in its CAD format had a perfect fit with no gaps at all.
Particularly noticeable if you zoom in.
On the whole SU does a pretty good job when importing such curved CAD data - but it can only ever approximate the original.
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Hope this helps
Howard L'
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