@mikeg73 said:

Hello,

Any updates on this software, as everything is like is 10+ years, new features. etc...

Cheers!

According to their pages the last update was 2023-02-23. v.1.37. But afaik know it is mainly for allowing it to work with newer versions of SketchUp.
I have been retired for some years now, and rarely use it nowadays. But I'm still a big fan of both SketcUp and tgi3D's Photoscan.
When I occasionally use them I'm using the SU 2016 version, mainly because I have it set up with a lot of plugins.

A very old thread that just turned up while doing some email cleaning.

tgi3d Photoscan is a great tool, and it allows you to make precise (or sloppy if you want to) models. A few square kms should be no problem. What may cause problems is if you use a lot of photos, because they all have to be imported into SU after the calibration.
I think I hit a ceiling at around 75 7Mpx photos.
I have ImageModeler (no longer available to non-Autodesk-users), PhotoModeler and Canoma (bought up and killed by Adobe many years ago), and I never use anything else than tgi3D nowadays. It combines precision with ease of modelling (in SketchUp).
I have tried some of those free online point-cloud generators, but never liked them very much. Point-clouds and SketchUp is not a good combo, IMHO.

@baz said:

It might be several things. Show us a screen shot.
Or even post the photo itself?

One thing that is pretty important for good results is that the photo should be uncropped.
Ideally it should also be undistorted if it shows some lens distortions, because SU does not handle eny distortions. If is heavily distorted it will contain curved lines, which will be impossible to align with the straight red/green lines.

What is going on with this software?
I noticed that nothing seems to have happened in one year?
Looks like it could be very useful, but the info is very scarce.
For one, I don't (yet) have a laser distance meter, and it would be nice to know what devices are supported?
So far I've been using photos with tgi3D's PhotoScan, but it would be nice with a combination I guess?
Installing the .exe file to see if contains more info isn't very tempting if it just makes SketchUp crash...

@skalp said:

There are 2 places where you can find all changes/fixes in the last version(s):

• p45 in the getting started manual (http://download.skalp4sketchup.com/downloads/docs/getting_started.pdf)
• Skalp.rb file in the plugin folder.

The Skalp Team.

Thanks
I wasn't aware of that the getting_started file was updated.

@skalp said:

it is support@sklap4sketchup.com

Really?
I just got a reply/receipt from support@skalp4sketchup.com
Haven't tried "sklap" yet though

BTW, it would be nice if you translated also your 2 last menu sections, contact/resellers. Now part of it is in Dutch.

It would also be nice if you made available a small text file or something with all changes/fixes in the last version(s), as well as known bugs and planned features?

@skalp said:

At this we doesn't support sectionplanes nested into groups or components. But I'll report it as a feature request.

The Skalp Team.

Thanks
I really think that supporting what SU supports re nesting etc would make Skalp a lot more useful.

BTW, I just sent a bug report on this + another problem.
Looks like the email you supplied, support@skalp4sketchup.be , doesn't work?

  Recipient address; support@skalp4sketchup.be
  Reason; Illegal host/domain name found

I tried support@skalp4sketchup.com now instead. So far I haven't received any error messages from there.

Regards

@skalp said:

Indeed we support sectioning nested objects, but we doesn't support nested section planes. We will investigated if we can introduce this in a next version.

The Skalp Team

I really hope you'll do that

Re nested objects, as the attached image shows, Skalp does not fully respect "local" section planes neither? It shows how it does add slices to solid objects/groups which are not cut by the SketchUp Section plane tool. The section plane is placed inside a group consisting of all the walls and windows only.

@skalp said:

@bjornkn said:

I just bought it a little while ago, and it looks like it could be very useful.
However, it is pretty beta'ish at the moment, and I'm really looking forward to the next release, be it beta or not. I suppose it's not much point writing a beta/bug report now that it expires within a few days?

As it says that this current beta version expires 30 august, I hope there will be a new version available very soon?

Please always write beta/bug reports to support@skalp4sketchup.be. This is important info for us. There will be a new beta this week.

The Skalp Team.
I will do that after I get the new version, but currently I have to finish my current project.
One question though:
The manual says that Skalp supports nested groups/objects, but I can't really find if it is supposed to support "local sections"? That is one of the nice features of the SU sections that I can't get to work in Skalp.
One example:
I have a building with 4 floors, internal walls/doors and a lot of furniture.
The building has walls/windows etc as subgroups, and furniture are grouped for each floor.
Then it is all grouped into a single master group.

What I want is to cut down the walls so that the interior is shown, complete with furniture. I do not want to slice through the furniture here..
In SU I can apply a section to the external walls/windows only, or to the external/internal walls and windows, but leave all the furniture untouched. And I can apply sections to a single subobject far down the hierarchy, and to the entire scene, and have them all active at the same time.
Such behaviour seems currently to be impossible in Skalp?

The attachement shows 3 simultaneously active sections at different hierarchical levels.
Would this be possible in Skalp?

I just bought it a little while ago, and it looks like it could be very useful.
However, it is pretty beta'ish at the moment, and I'm really looking forward to the next release, be it beta or not. I suppose it's not much point writing a beta/bug report now that it expires within a few days?

As it says that this current beta version expires 30 august, I hope there will be a new version available very soon?

Just wanted to add a comment - but it was too long under the article.
So here it is:

I've been using this 3D Browser with Polygon Cruncher for many years (at least 11 years now?). It works very well, but has been a bit unstable earlier. Looks like this new version is pretty stable?

What is really remarkable about this suite is the Polygon Cruncher. It does a very good (or hould I say extremely good?) job reducing polygons, while mainitaining the UV mapping. I just crunched a 123D Catch scan of an old viking girl skull from 260k polys down to 21000. Not a single UV mapping error, and the model looks pretty much identical to the higher poly version (which means - not really that very good

Anyway - the software is definitely recommended

I do a lot of tgi3D PhotoScan work, and end up with lots of non-quite-flat areas that I want to apply projected photo textures to. Applying the entire photo works, but it tends to make very bloated files when they're using small parts of a lot of different photos. It makes them also quite impossible to load into Layout, because everything gets so sluggish.

Cropping these photos down to a single poly works fine by using the "Make unique texture" command. This works fine if you have an entire facade wall of a building that is completely flat (and one single rectangle), but if you want the same cropped part of a photo as applied to several polygons (iow - the wall isn't completely flat, but still smoothed) it does not work fine any longer, because now every single polygon/triangle gets its own unique material, instead of that the entire selected set of polys gets a single, projected, cropped photo texture/material.

So far I haven't really found any tools/plugins that helps with this problem.
Is there a plugin that would be able to handle this?

PhotoScan does have a tool that may help, but it tends to make bitmaps that are not easily edited, and that typically uses only a small part of a larger square bitmap.

Another workaround is to make some temporary simple smaller rectangles, apply the photo and make uniqe. Then this projected, but by now smaller, cropped bitmap, can be applied to a number of polygons without using the entire old/full photo.
It works, but is quite tedious.

I would love to have a tool that automates this.
And hopefully also merges/blends textures - but I guess that will have to wait...

@dave r said:

That's strange. The plugins shown in the EW have to go through quality testing by someone to ensure they meet standards before they are made available. Your first stops for plugins should be the Sketchucation Plugin Store and the Extension Warehouse. And both show the date and version number of the latest version of the plugin.
Well, you know when you try a new tool and it doesn't work like expected right away you tend to shy away from it until the tool starts getting some applause (like now ...

@dave r said:

Yes. It is a newer version. In fact I would expect all of Chris Fullmer's plugins to be newer in the Extension Warehouse. You can see that the version uploaded here is 2.1 while the version in the EW is 2.2.

I guess one shouldn't complain when you get such great tools for free, but it is a bit confusing when there are different versions around. I have used the Extension warehouse very little, as it seems to often be the other way around; the old version on EW and the newer one posted here. ?

I'd love to have a 64 bit version too

I'm very often using tgi3d PhotoScan on projects, and they will often contain up to 70+ 7Mpx photos alongside the model itself. The file may be 350MB+ and SU uses 2GB+ while working. Pretty close to the "border", but only a few times have I encountered that "out of memory" message (knock on wood !

But another problem here is that I would like to send such big image-loaded skp files to Layout, but currently that's not at all possible because Layout slows down so much that it is completely useless. The workaround is to export 2D images (or even screen grabs), which is not quite satisfying.
A solution could be to give us a choice if we want to keep all images inside the file, or just load them when needed?

@dave r said:

@bjornkn said:

Any news on this problem with it not working in SU 2013 (and probably 2014 too?) ?

It is a really useful plugin, which I'm really missing..

I just installed it and it works just fine for me on SU2014. Did you try getting the current version via the Extension Warehouse?

I re-installed using the rbz file, which caused no lines to be drawn.
When installing via Extension warehouse it works fine in both 2013 and 2014 - to my big surprise.
Would that be a newer version than the one available here for download then?

Any news on this problem with it not working in SU 2013 (and probably 2014 too?) ?

It is a really useful plugin, which I'm really missing..

@mitcorb said:

Have you tested Fredo's ThruPaint for this? Maybe some other UV tools?
I assume you have posted at tgi3d support?

I think this is really a SU problem, as it is SU who splits a smoothed face into lots of small triangle face texture files/materials?

Thanks for the tip, but according to the docs about it it doesn't seem to be able to do this job, although it looks like a very useful (which I have had installed for a while, but never really used..).
After fiddling around with the tgi3D Create Texture, I'm starting to get a better grasp of what what works ok and what doesn't.
What is interesting too is that with the tgi3D Move tool vertices can be moved around without scrambling the textures/UVs. Works very well for finetuning "UVs"

I'm a big fan of tgi3D's PhotoScan tools, and as such I end up with SkKetchUp scenes that are full of background/photomatch images. A small scene is typically from 100MB and up.
This causes some problems..

1. It works OK inside SU with up to 70-80 images, but it is completely impossible to send/use such scenes to Layout

2. When applying a projected texture to a smooth part of an object it looks fine inside SU. But it will be exported with the full image, even if it uses only a small slice of it.
   Furthermore - if using the "Make unique texture" it will crop the image and leave only the used part. Thais is fine with normal PhotoMatch scenes I guess, where there are mostly larger flat areas. But if this is done on a curved surface, SU will split it up into one single texture image per triangle/face.
   The problem is that in a PhotoScan project you can typically end up with lots of non-flat areas/surfaces, and then end up with hundreds/thousands of small texture files (which does not look good inside SU neither).

The question is if there is a plugin (or some other way) to export/save as skp (or/and other 3D formats) with proper UV mapping based on the cropped projected photos?
This should hopefully solve any problems with using such textured photogrammetry files in SU/Layout, and also other problems?

The thing is that I think I had a solution for this earlier, but I cannot remember how I did it?
Or am I just mixing this up with the way it works in other photogrammetry programs which I've used, like Imagemodeler and Photomodeler (and Canoma)?

There is a tool in PhotoScan, 'Create texture..', which deals with this, sort of, but I don't feel that I have enough control when using it. And it generates new bitmaps where usually 60% or more is not used for the texture image. No stretching of bitmaps, but no packing neither - and no seams settings..
SketchUV has some nice tools, but isn't really targeted at grabbing/cropping textures from photos. External programs like Roadkill, Ultimate Unwrap etc doesn't really help neither, I think?

I would really hate to go back to ImageModeler or Photomodeler (of which I don't have the current versions anyway..), as PhotoScan works so much better for my use..

@charly2008 said:

Hi,

I'm working with Global Mapper (I'm no expert!). I have only one part of the terrain selected and exported as DXF 3D Face file since the whole terrain (appox. 50 x 50km) is very difficult to handle in Sketchup. Global Mapper is also available as a trial version.

Nice
I downloaded v13 and managed to load a DEM file. But to save/export required registration, which was not available now (website down/gone?)

I've also found some programs that will make contour lines from your DEM, like this one: http://freegeographytools.com/2007/converting-digital-elevation-models-to-shapefiledxf-contours
I have not tested it (yet), and it doesn't really say anything about creating contour lines in 3D... ?