Well here we are again discussing to death what a user in today's world should be expecting from a pro software. As usual, the old timers have a hard time with change, but why are you guys so set on making the rule for every one else? Why does it have to be the same appearance to the end of all times?
There are very good arguments brought up and it being an option to choose from to fit your needs, why the heck not? And alleging it is a a feature that's not much asked for is not at all true. Just because some old timers here talk any progressive idea down, doesn't mean there aaren't enough who would appreciate the request.
I support this 100%.

@aerilius said:

It "can" be achieved, .....

[*]User workflow: The faces must be seamlessly textured before. This is trivial for planar projections, but in many cases users would need more advanced mapping techniques to avoid image stretching.[/list]

What if this would only allow one face/coplanar shape at a time? One texture image per face at a time is produced? The pen sticks to this face during the command / operation and only draws in the limits of the extents. Maybe by pressing the alt key it also aligns, zooms to extents and centers the camera to the face in question?

2048 resolution would be sufficient. The image size will automatically fit to the size of the face's extents/ bounding box. The origin is set in the lower left corner of the extent/bounding box.
E.g. My wall is a n-gon shape/ face, as I attempt to draw on it SU creates a texture image this image is treated like any other image you can load into SU.

I don't know what it would take to get rid of the limitations of the "API", but maybe there is a way?
Maybe not as a plug in but as a native SU tool?

I kind of asked for this before and we all agreed that without 64 bit and loads of memory it would not go anywhere.

Well now we got 64 bit and plenty of computing power. So let's see what you think.

This does not have to be fancy with true colors or high resolution, just basically a pen or marker that you can use to sketch a bitmap directly on a surface.

The tool could have say 4 different resolutions or anything between 320 by 320 pixels up to 3200 by 3200 pixels. 4 different line widths from thin to thick and of course an eraser.

Many times I was thinking to have some pen to draw on a say empty landscape surface or wall, to sketch in some rough ideas on the fly in a presentation or work meeting.

The point is that we could draw in rough geometry on a surface as a bitmap and later 3d edit with lines, arches and circles as geometry.

It would only work on a special sketch material that would appear in the materials window. Each surface that gets sketched on will create its own new material. Background colors could be chosen before the first line gets drawn.

Dead end?

@thomthom said:

Not sure what format you are exporting to, but one can at the expense of some visual deviation convert UVQ to UV. Depending on the mesh the visual difference might not be that noticeable.

FBX, and yes, it's a quad mesh.

@thomthom said:

@desertraven said:

Is this a general sketchup quirk? I was assuming the plug in would only align the UW's accordingly and not chop up the texture image? ?

Am I missing something ? Anybody else ever had this issue?

Kind regards, Olav

This depend on the exporter. SketchUp support UVQ - as oppose to just UV. The Q value is used for perspective mapping. Not all applications or file format support this.
To preserve the visual appearance some exporters will then generate new textures for faces with perspective mapping.

So basically, there is no solution?

I'd like to have only one texture so that I can import this into Unity and apply other maps, derived from the bitmap used, like normal maps displacement maps etc...

Hi Fredo6, I am doing some roads in Sketchup and I came upon your plugin "thruPaint" amongst others to get the job done. Btw, ThruPaint rocks, easy to use amazing results, as intended, in no time.

I also used "curvyloft" to get the ramp shape.

Only thing at the end of the day I ran into a weird issue exporting the finished textured roadway.

The road texture was broken up into many pieces as you can see in my export folder.

Is this a general sketchup quirk? I was assuming the plug in would only align the UW's accordingly and not chop up the texture image? ?

Am I missing something ? Anybody else ever had this issue?

Kind regards, Olav

It has always bothered me.

The bounding box is always like this blur of extra lines that are not exactly but very close to the selected edges. And yes it makes working fast and with precision a chore.

How many times have I worked with Models where team members had just missed the precise position and how many hours of unnecessary work have I spent finding and fixing errors due to this display obscurance?

I can't see any reason at all why there wouldn't be a function to turn them off.

To those of you who are not bothered by the bounding box, why would it bother you if anyone else could just turn it off and be happy?

And how much effort would it take to add the function?

Edit: How about replacing the bounding box with a feature that just highlights the faces of the selected object, and maybe the actual edges, with the color chosen in the styles?

@dave r said:

It seems that most users who ask for it are beginners who haven't taken the time to learn about how to work with SketchUp and utilize the inferencing tools correctly. It really isn't that difficult.

Dear Dave, your reply is almost insulting. I get you are comfortable with how SU handles certain things and that is your prerogative.

On the other hand there are more than enough professionals out here that see the potential that SU is not living up to.

Isn't this the reason there are so many eager plug in programmers out there? To provide solutions for SU's shortcomings? Did someone say "workaround" ?????

It is a shame how stubborn the developers keep clinging to their old outdated views on 3D modeling. Unfortunately this is keeping SU from becoming a real professional tool for more than only square houses and from becoming the tool of choice for 3D printing and asset creation.

Edit: have a close look at the attached file, the constraint engine skips an 1/8th of an inch, both the correct and the wrong line are displayed as on green axis?!

Model001.skp

It is quite the old topic and has been requested soooo many times by Pro and free users. I just don't understand how hard it could be to:

a: make an inferencing override button/ command and
b: to give the pro version basic object snap controls.

Are you guys just to stubborn?