Is This Quality Possible?

Dave R

Some of that might be fixed by styles. Maybe you should get rid of endpoints and extensions. You could change Profiles to 1 and reduce the weight of the profile edges. You might also find that changing OpenGL settings for Hardware Acceleration and Fast Feedback (under Preferences) will modify how things look on screen. You might also be able to change Anti-Aliasing settings which is responsible for the pixelation of lines running at an angle across the screen. That 's not so much a SketchUp thing but it has to do with the GPU in your computer.

When you are exporting images you can increase resolution under Options in the save window and you might find that useful.

ely862me

@dave r said:

I think that's a rather simplistic answer that isn't exactly right.

Sorry, it wasn't my intention.
Since Pauly doesn't want to go with a rendering program all he can do is work the drawings inside Sketchup. Of course there are some techniques(rounding corners,hiding some edges, smoothing some others) that would help a bit but editing or applying a style is the only thing he can do.

baz

Doesn't he simply need to export at a much larger size and reduce as we all do?
The roughness he mentions are 'jaggies', a result of screen res are they not?

Dave R

Exporting an image at a larger size can help with reducing the jaggies, too. I was assuming his example is a screen shot but maybe I'm wrong. As I mentioned earlier, increasing image size under Options will help.

pauly7

Hello guys, thanks for all the input... excellent forum.

I have played with the Style settings and it looks much better now, thank you.

I have a few questions:

a - what would be the downside of having end points turned down to 1
b - what would be the downside of having profiles turned down to 1
b - what would be the downside of having extensions turned down to 0
c - does anyone know how to change the Anti-Aliasing settings on a mac

Cheers

Dave R

a - what would be the downside of having end points turned down to 1

The endpoints wouldn't show. My opinion is they shouldn't be turned on when you are modeling. They are more for display. I leave endpoints turned off and don't use them.

b - what would be the downside of having profiles turned down to 1

You won't get the heavier edges in your model. Profiles are mainly for display also.

b - what would be the downside of having extensions turned down to 0

You won't be masking where the edges you're drawing actually end. Again, extensions are for display purposes. They can be annoying when you are modeling. It's much better to have them turned off while you are drawing.

c - does anyone know how to change the Anti-Aliasing settings on a mac

There is a tool that can be used for changing the AA settings on a Mac. Either I'll hunt it up or someone else will be along with the link to it.

pauly7

Thank you so much for all of your help Dave.

I found this hack for the Anti Liasing and i now have a perfect display

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sketchup/823ZHen_Yb0

Dave R

Did you experiment with the OpenGL settings in SketchUp? Don't have any problems with jaggies on my MacBook Pro with the default AA settings.

Dave R

@pauly7 said:

Thank you so much for all of your help Dave.

I found this hack for the Anti Liasing and i now have a perfect display

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sketchup/823ZHen_Yb0

Then you're all set.

pauly7

Hi Dave, i don't have any settings under OpenGL other than the 4 checkboxes

Dave R

Yeah. On Mac that's all you get under OpenGL settings in SketchUp. But did you try making any changes to them to see what you get?

pbacot

Dave, I sometimes find endpoints are helpful in modeling to show me endpoints particularly in non welded curves or colinear edges. Profiles are sometimes helpful in showing non planar edges while modeling.

Dave R

Peter, that's a good point. I meant to add that endpoints and heavy profiles can be useful in some cases so they shouldn't be forgotten. Setting endpoints to 1, though, probably won't be very useful.

Another thing I intended to add is that you probably don't want to turn Profiles off. Setting them to 1 is likely the better choice. Notice the difference in appearance of the cylinder with Profiles set to 1 and turned off entirely.

baz

@dave r said:

Notice the difference in appearance of the cylinder with Profiles set to 1 and turned off entirely.

I always have profiles on, and I have a shortcut to toggle endpoints for same reasons as Peter, but I wasn't onto that

Dave R

Sometimes I see SketchUp files in which the user has turned off profiles and they are wondering why the round stuff disappears.

pauly7

Thanks again for the help guys, much appreciated.

SU should really but an Anti Liasing setting on the Mac version, so users don't have to hack at it in the Ruby Console.