Well, pixplant has a feature to incorporate repeating patterns (if there are any of course). Also you can add as many "seeds" (i.e. colour variations) as you wish. (Which brings into my mind that I should go out and take a bunch of photos for my pixplant...)

The icon design contest is closed. Here is the winner: [image: NprTools-toolbar.jpg]

I use Sketchup only. I use Revit & AutoCAD from time to time only to get some data from it. (I work as a modelmaker at an architectural office.) Our software packages are AutoCAD & Revit for the plan drawings and Sketchup for the illustrations. Our office is about 20+ people. With exception of me, all SU users are also AutoCAD users, with increasing number of Revit users. I didn't vote on the poll because I don't have much info to give such a large estimate. (From the poll in this thread it seemed you asked for what each person here thought about everyone else. But the one you posted a screenshot of from the other forum seems to be easier to answer as it asks what the users personally use.)

I think this varies in different places and in different industries. Here in yorkshire I know of a lot of small and large architectural firms that employ an autocad & SU (or revit and SU) workflow for major projects. It seems to me that now their aren't so many people in the architecture industry around here that dismiss Sketchup, but that's just one industry in the north of England. In the last few months I have had at least one experience with a designer from further afield whose project I modelled, his response, and I quote: "Er yeah, nice model but we wouldn't touch SU with a barge pole". The arrogant b****** then updated his website with stills from the SU model.

I decided I wanted to ask these question on some other forums as well - like AutoCAD and Revit Forums. So I have created an on-line survey with all the questions. Even if you have replied here already, please take the time to complete the on-line survey. On Line Survey The results will be posted from time to time on this Wiki Page

I decided I wanted to ask these question on some other forums as well - like AutoCAD and Revit Forums. So I have created an on-line survey with all the questions. Even if you have replied here already, please take the time to complete the on-line survey. On Line Survey The results will be posted from time to time on this Wiki Page

@remus said: Check the openGL settings as well. i think SU defaults to no hardware acceleration, so this could slow it down quite a lot. After I started this thread I remembered that Hardware Acceleration causes Bug Splats on my machine. Every now and then SketchUp seems to switch back to it. (I remote login to my machine sometimes, and I think SketchUp sometimes changes its video settings when it notices this). Last week, SketchUp started Bug Splatting, and I uninstalled it, re-installed it and was ready to cancel by demo the next day when nothing helped (I also deleted all the .rb files in the plugins folder). Then I remembered about the problems I sometimes have with Hardware Acceleration settings.

A few more listed here too: http://sketchuplinks.blogspot.com/2008/11/graphics-editing-software.html Later...

We have uploaded a new version of NprTools- IF16. See: Downloads This version has combined Soft Shadows and Sketchy Shadows into a single tab dialog - which uses the same settings for both and which should also be easier to use. We have also added some radio button presets for Shadow Softness and Spread which should make it easier to get the desired effects. (After adding lots of options to let you control shadow softness, patterns, intensity, and other things the application has become rather complex. These radio settings will make it easier to get started. However you can still adjust iterations, days and times as desired in Custom mode.) [image: Soft-Shadows-Dialog.jpg]

Thanks, BTM If you decide to upload all 12, in a zip file (which would be easier for me - since I can download all 12 at once), then name them 1,2,3,4 for each type. (Criss-cross shadows require that the various patterns go up by 1, e.g. if xxx1.jpg is the first criss-cross, then xxx2.jpg needs to be the second. Also, if you have the opportunity to easily save them as .png files, then that will improve the quality of the product that much more - by not having to deal with the loss of quality with .jpg compression.) Also, when you get your copy of the product, and try them out and if you want to change them, all 12 images are stored in a folder - (It will actually be called: C:\program Files\Render Plus\RpTools\appl\NprTools\Images ) Other users - you will be able to select any group of images of you own for use as patterns as well. [image: SeR5_btm-images.png]

Deserving winners if ever there was. Congrats all round

Just keep your eyes open. I will post it on this thread: NprTools

You could still add something to the side area to take up some space, just not making it look like it's out of place, like the first design which seems like it's going over it's page.

@thomthom said: I can't see, at the moment, any use of adding a pattern to line edges. I think the difference between patterns and using a lighter edge color are subtle. However, there may be times when they can be useful. Here is a sample of the steps from this white house, using normal (thin) edge lines (upper left) and making them light grey in SketchUp (upper right), 50% mask and 50% transparency (lower left) and 50% mask, 75% transparency (lower right). The images are extracted as a detail from a larger model at the top and then blown up 4X at the bottom so you can see how the transparency and masking works. [image: WH-detail.JPG] I have put some larger examples on the RPS Wiki Here is the whole image with 50% masking and 75% transparency: [image: WH-small-4.jpg] And the same image with light grey edge lines in SketchUp [image: WH-small-2.jpg] Again, the difference are subtle, but there may be uses for them.

Thanks Al, @unknownuser said: The new URL works fine Also, after emptying the cache, the old URL works fine too Ditto for me. Both URLs working fine at this point. August

We have selected the finalists in the IRender nXt Rendering Contest. Thanks to all who participated. Take a look at: Rendering Contest Now we just need to determine the 3 winners from the 12 finalists. Also, we are letting the SketchUp Community be one of the judges. Cast your vote HERE.

We completed the site design contest, and then ran a second contest for a new logo: [image: feQl_new-site.JPG] renderplus.com We're pretty pleased with the results and hope it will cause SketchUp users all over the world to have an improved opinion of us - at least from the first impressions of our web site.

thanks, richcat. i did not know about that.