Sorry to slow replying to this but I haven't checked in for quite a while .... busy. Yes I discovered that quite by chance. Very useful! I think I am almost certainly going to buy this app - it's very reasonably priced and it seems pretty solid. Thanks again for pointing me at it.

XnView still has problems in its Mac incarnation, however, the Graphic Converter does the trick perfectly ..... and it's packed with other useful stuff too. I could easily see it becoming my default viewer and image management app. Thanks for the pointer.

Does anyone know of a preview utility for Mac OS which allows quick preview of Sketchup images in a folder?

I really could use one .....

Thanks

David Mac

@arc said:

And no need to use Match Photo, just set camera and check the menu camera-->two point perspective......then get your step6, right?

Ummmm ..... Yes ......

......... and ....... No ........

Two point perspective does seem to have the same 2D qualities when manipulated with same Hand/Zoom toolset. I hadn't appreciated that. But .......... unless I am missing something here ........ it limits you to two point perspective!

The example I showed is far from two point ......... Match Photo works for any perspective ......

That said and done, I do often use two point perspective and this is a great shortcut for that situation. Thank you.

David Mac

@gaieus said:

And thanks again, David, for taking your time to fully elaborate the method. I will also fiddle around with it (maybe even play around with some rendering plugins to see how this can get through).

The only Renderer I have any experience of is IDX Renditioner it has an absolute size limit of 4096 pixels width or height. No work arounds there. Trying to tile renders produces unmatched renders from tile to tile.

David Mac

I know this is a very old thread by now, but I have found a way getting round these limits and exporting at any size you want.

It is here in the Tutorial forum:

"Exporting 2D graphics with NO size limit" http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26527

I have also posted a second tutorial on exporting Alpha masks for your 2D exports.

"Creating an Alpha mask of your model for 2D graphic export" http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26530#p228664

Bon appetit!

David Mac

OK this is now posted as proper tutorial with screenshots and hopefully better instructions.

"Exporting 2D graphics with NO size limit" http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26527

I have also posted a second tutorial on exporting Alpha masks for your 2D exports.

"Creating an Alpha mask of your model for 2D graphic export" http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26530#p228664

Bon appetit!

David Mac

This tutorial is a partner to "Exporting 2D graphics with NO size limits". elsewhere in this forum http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26527

In a recent thread on exporting 2D images I heard that exporting transparency for a 2D graphic is apparently a luxury available only to Mac users.

Here is a work around for non Mac users which allows you to export an Alpha channel of just your model using SU's 2D export. It is a bit clunky, especially if your model is very complex, but it produces very accurate masking and will certainly do until something better comes along.

I am very much the amateur in SU. (I am really a Photographer/Photoshopper who uses SU to produce elements to use in Photoshop for creating photo realistic illusions.) So it is very likely that the more experienced among you will be able to fine tune this method further.

That being said, although, like all instructions, it looks very long and tedious, to do the actions is really quite quick and simple.

1. First position your model for export.

2. In the Scenes dialogue uncheck everything except Camera Location and save the current camera position as a Scene. (You may need to click on the plus button in the top right of the dialogue to reveal these settings)

3)File > Export > 2D Graphic. Set size as required in the Options dialogue and export your model in whatever file format you prefer.

4. SAVE YOUR MODEL'S SKP FILE!!!! We are about to radically change it.

5. Fill the entire model with 100% black colour.

6. Group the entire model.

7. In the Entity Info dialogue uncheck Cast Shadows and Receive Shadows. (You may need to click on the plus button in the top right of the dialogue to reveal these settings)

8. In the Shadows dialogue check Display Shadows and then move the Time slider to the extreme left or right. This will ensure that your model is a 100% solid black.

9. If you have moved your model in any of the previous operations click the Scene button in the top of the modeling window to restore your camera position.

10. File > Export > 2D Graphic. Export with exactly the same settings you used to export your model. (Warning these settings are not always "sticky". Open Options and set the export size by hand again.)

This will give you an image which is a solid black mask of your model on a white background. You need to invert it and create a mask from it in Photoshop. I have made the following instructions backwardly compatible for any version of CS.

In Photoshop open both images (I shall call them Model and Mask).

In the Mask image:

1. [i:3snv35lk]Image > Adjustments > Invert[/i:3snv35lk]

2. [i:3snv35lk]Select > All[/i:3snv35lk] and [i:3snv35lk]Edit > Copy[/i:3snv35lk]

In the Model image:

3. Double click [i:3snv35lk]Background[/i:3snv35lk] in the [i:3snv35lk]Layers Palette[/i:3snv35lk] to convert it to a layer.

4. [i:3snv35lk]Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All[/i:3snv35lk]

5. [i:3snv35lk]Alt Click[/i:3snv35lk] the white layer mask icon in the [i:3snv35lk]Layers Palette[/i:3snv35lk] to edit it directly. (The image will turn white)

6. [i:3snv35lk]Edit > Paste[/i:3snv35lk] (Your Mask image will be pasted into the layer mask and will show on the screen)

7. [i:3snv35lk]Click[/i:3snv35lk] in the Image icon in the [i:3snv35lk]Layers Palette[/i:3snv35lk] to deselect the mask and re-select the image.

Bingo!! Your model is now surrounded by transparency.

If you try this you will see it really isn't as complicated as it looks …….. 

......... and it works ..... 

Good luck and have fun.

David Mac

This tutorial arises from a thread http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=26474 started by me a few days ago asking if anyone could tell me what the limit was on 2D export size as my machine regularly crashed past the 10,000 pixel width mark.

This lead me to an older thread http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=141587 started by Pixero last year concerning size limits on 2D export. Pixero's thread was basically a test to try and establish exactly the limit on size for a two D export by asking other users to test an export of the same image. The results varied from about 5000 to 10,000 pixels wide.

As a Mac user I discovered that, by turning off transparency, and loading a freshly opened file into a freshly open SU I could get up to 14000 pixels width using 2D Export in the File menu. This prompted one user, Gaieus, to comment "Sigh … I cannot even dream about exporting at such large format with AA on (even with AA off I guess)"

So he set me thinking and I did some playing and discovered a work around. Like all work arounds it is a bit clunky …. but it does work. Using it I have already exported the same test image used by Pixero's research at a hefty 30,000 pixels wide and, in theory, the technique is able to export to any size without limit.

In the 2D world if you want to print an image larger than your printer can handle you do it by tiling. You break the image down into smaller 'tiles' and print them individually and then physically reassemble them.

I wondered if the same could be applied to a 2D export from SU. SU exports the part of the image showing on the screen. So if you were to zoom in to your model until it is much larger than the screen, the portion showing on the screen would become a tile. If you were zoomed in to roughly four times the size of your model, for example, you could pan to show the top left quarter of it on screen and export that screen, then pan to the top right quarter of the model and export that screen, and so on for the two lower quarters. Then you simply assemble your four exported tiles in Photoshop.

Now any SU user worth his salt is going to realise immediately that this simply can't work. When you pan in 3D you change the viewpoint and your four exports quite simply would not match. Tiling only works when panning a flat 2D image whose viewpoint does not change.

It suddenly occurred to me that there is a special circumstance under which SU will treat a 3D model as a 2D plane and enable you to pan and zoom it exactly as if it were a flat 2D image and that is when in Match Photo mode. After some trial and error I have come up with this technique:

1. Load your model and adjust it to roughly the viewpoint you want and let it fill the screen but with a bit of "air" all around it. (I am using the same http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=d218e86bdbc5ab2b972ec726e7a08cca&prevstart=72 model that Pixero used for his tests). Here is my starting view.

2. Open the Match Photo dialogue and load a photo. ANY photo will do, wife, girlfriend, landscape, its completely irrelevant what the subject is, but Match Photo needs something to load to work. (This is not a Match Photo tutorial. If you are not familiar with it then dive into Help and find out about it first.)

3. Your model view will be reset with the horizon centered and a fairly wide field of view. Your photo will be behind it. (You can see a glimpse of my grandson's hair top left.) You don't need this photo any longer. It has served its purpose, which was quite simply to launch the Match Photo tools. It is now a distraction. So set the Opacity slider in the Match Photo dialogue to zero.

4. Now use the Match Photo controls in the model window to reset your view. You will need to use the origin control, horizon control, and the red and green axis vanishing point lines. It is not very instinctive and to begin with, until you start to get the knack of what does what, it can be frustrating and fiddly. But you soon get the hang of it. Here is my view view re-set using these controls. (One small caveat here. SU marks the edges of the photo with red lines. They pass behind the model so are not too disturbing but they will get exported with your image so you need to either set your model well within them so they are cropped in the final image or expect to spend a little time removing them in your final composite.)

5. Once you are happy with your view click Done in the Match Photo dialogue box. The view will be saved as a Scene using the name of the photo. If you're not familiar with Scenes then check your Help files.

6. Now comes the fun part ……. WITHOUT TOUCHING THE ORBIT TOOL (OR 3D NAVIGATOR if you use one) …. Use the Pan and Zoom tools ONLY to move your image. If you accidentally use another navigation tool click on the Scene button at the top of the modeling window to restore the photo matched scene you set up.

Now something quite unexpected happens when you move your model around with Pan and Zoom tools in a matched photo scene. SU treats the model as a flat 2D plane! It no longer moves in 3D space but is simply panned and zoomed as a 2D image. You can think of it as being glued to the back of your screen.

Now we can zoom right into the model and by moving it around export multiple 2D screens of different portions of it … or, in other words, tile the image.

How many tiles you need will depend on how large an export your particular machine can handle. The only way to find out is by testing an export until you find the limit for your machine for a single tile and then do the maths for the number of tiles needed for the final image size you want.

Using this technique I exported this image as six tiles to produce, allowing for overlaps, a final image 30,000 x 18,000 pixels! At a high print density of 300 DPI that's 2.5 x 1.5 metres (or 8' 4" x 5'). Bearing in mind that, if you were making a print for an exhibition that wasn't going to be viewed from close up, a density of 150 DPI would probably be fine you would double that size to 5 x 3 metres or 16' 8" x 10 ft. More than enough for most purposes I would imagine.

So that's it. In theory there is absolutely no limit to the size you can export this way beyond what you can load into your bitmap editor for the final assembly.

Ironically I am not an experienced SU user, so if anyone can see ways to improve on this please don't be shy. I would love to know.

Have fun.

David Mac

BTW In the course of the previous thread Gaieus mentioned that export with transparency is a luxury only available to Mac users. So as a companion to this I am posting a technique for exporting an Alpha channel of your model where SU's own export does not support it. It is under the title "Creating an Alpha mask of your model for 2D Graphic export."

@gaieus said:

Maybe the "general" SketchUp Forum? (Which is indeed the "parent" forum for 4 specialised subforums too - but if you scroll down, you can see that outside those specialised ones, there are more general discussions as well)

DUH! I saw General Discussions in the drop box but thought it was just a category heading for the four forums within. I didn't realise it was a forum in its own right.

Tunnel vision anybody?

I am about to start work on the tutorial? Fingers crossed!

David Mac

It's not obvious on first reading. I do appreciate that. I think one really needs to have a go hands on. Its one of those "Aha!" ideas which isn't evident until you actually try it. In the end this is exploiting an SU oddity, rather than conventional use.

Its late here (Belgium) now Gaieus, but I'll take a look at putting this together tomorrow in a more coherent form for the tutorial forum.

Which leads to a dumb question. Where do you go for non newbie general discussion? The other groups seem highly specialised "Wish list, Bugs, Google earth, Dynamic components, etc." and all sorts of other equally specialised topics "Plugins, Developers, Extensions, etc.".

Where does the not quite any longer Newbie go for exchanging ideas of a general nature ...... such, indeed, as this one?

David Mac

@gaieus said:

Sigh... I cannot even dream about exporting at such large format with AA on (even with AA off I guess)

Well Gaieus it may just be that, even at my advanced age, I am the unexpected answer to a maiden's prayer.

You got me thinking. I love trying to fool software into doing stuff it's not necessarily intended to. I have that kind of obstinate lateral eccentric mindset that likes getting to grips with what supposedly 'can't be done'. My philosophy is there's always a way if you look in the right place.

Now you are obviously a very expert user and I am completely the part time SU amateur (I am a Photographer/Photoshopper who simply uses SU to create "elements" for composites) but in an attempt to emulate the mouse that roared I shall offer you a work around. Like all work arounds it is clunky. But, as far as I can see, it does work!

The obvious solution to exporting a very large image is to tile it and assemble the tiles into a single image after exporting them. Zoom right in to just (for example) a quarter of the model and export it. Now pan to the next quarter and export that, and so forth. The catch, of course, is that in 3D you can't .......... if you pan a 3D object you pan it in 3D space and change the viewpoint. Your exported images won't match. Moving an image around to export tiles only works in a 2D image. But ..... I realised there is a way to force SU to treat a model as a 2D plane. But unless, like me, you are a frequent user of the Match Photo dialogue then you are unlikely ever to have discovered it.

This is what you do:

1. Load your model and zoom it to almost fill the screen but with a bit of "air" all around it.

2. Open the Match Photo dialogue and load a photo. ANY photo will do ... girlfriend, grandmother, landscape, what ever is lying around handy.

3. Your model view will be reset to a view with camera at horizon level with a girlfriend (or whatever) in the background. We don't need her any longer - set the Opacity slider in the Match Photo dialogue to zero.

4. Now use the Match Photo screen controls to get the view of your model you want. Don't worry too much about size - what you are looking for is the viewpoint and perspective that you want for your export. You will need to use the origin control, the yellow horizon line and the red and green vanishing point lines. It takes a bit of experiment and getting used to but you can actually set just about any view you want with a bit of fiddling. (One caveat here: Although size on the screen is not critical, the Match Photo tool displays a red rectangle indicating the edges of the imported photo. This gets exported with image. So it is best to keep your model within it, although you can always erase later in Photoshop.)

5. Once you are happy with your view click Done in the Match Photo dialogue and your view will be saved as a scene.

6. Now comes the fun bit. Try using the zoom and pan controls, but DO NOT TOUCH the Orbit tool. (If you do by mistake then click the Scene button at the top of the image to restore the matched photo view you set up.) You will see that SU treats a matched photo view as a special case ......... it pans and zooms it as a 2D plane not as a 3D model!!

Now you can just zoom within your model and use the hand tool to move it around to export it as tiles.

Like all work arounds it is less than ideal. But it is actually much less complicated than it sounds, and it does seem to work.

Now it is quite possible, that in my inexperience, I have missed something here, but I've tried it several times and I really can't find a catch. But perhaps someone else out there knows better ........

Anyway, have fun. Do let me know if you think this swims or sinks ..... to tell the truth, I am rather proud of it .....

David Mac

Yes of course. I do a lot of edge refinement in PS. Usually softening as the SU export is usually too crisp compared to the photographic elements. But my PS image is 12000 x 9000 px with a huge number of layers. This puts a terrible strain on OSX PS which is still only 32 bit ..... and gets pretty slow. So I prefer to feed the monster with a diet that is already as refined as possible and do what I can pre PS.

In the end it is always a matter of finding the best compromise. I push each application to its limits to find out what is best done where .........

David Mac

OK ... I've done some trials. Here's the score card. 2D export of a freshly open file in a freshly open SU using screen proportions (2560x1600 = 1:1.6) Dual Quad core Mac Pro 8GB RAM.

TIFF max width 12000
PNG Max width 12000
JPG Max width 14000 (Quality 10)

Given that that TIFF and PNG come out the same and that the TIFF file produced weighed in at 354MB against the PNG at just 12.5 and the JPG at 13.6 it would seem that export capability is not governed by file size, but by SU's own calculations.

This led me to speculate that larger JPG's can be generated because SU isn't having to use resources to calculate and store the transparency. So I tried turning off transparency in TIFF and PNG and was able in both cases to push the export size up to the same 14000.

So now I can get the large exports I need. For alpha masking I simply fill the model with black, push the sun below the horizon, and export the black silhouette which is easily turned into a mask in Photoshop.

Clunky ........ but it works.

Another way 2D export is a bit unpredictable is the "stickiness" of settings. Sometimes it remembers them from one export to the next and some times it refuses to remember at all and has to be set manually each time. Mind you that's a lot better than Open Recent on the Files menu, which appears to be totally amnesiac .........

I think turning off anti aliasing might be shooting myself in the foot. The large export sizes are because the SU models are elements for insertion very large high quality Photoshop files. So quality is important. This is also the reason I need an alpha channel.

I will have a stab at PNG. There was no especial reason for Tiff except for transparency and habit - it is my common format of choice for use within Photoshop after PSD itself.

However, the suggestion that file formats might be connected with export size has given me a thought ........ If a high quality JPG will give me a large size then I can improvise an alpha mask separately. All my models are exported on a simple white background. I can export a second JPG with the sun position set so as to render the model completely black. To create a mask layer or channel in Photoshop from this would be the work of but a moment.

Hmmmmmmm ...........

Jeff

Thanks for the pointer to the thread. These do indeed seem murky waters and as you point it would seem that I am actually doing rather well

Solo

Nice and varied portfolio. Thanks for your response.

David Mac

Is there a known size limit to 2D export (tiff with transparency and anti alias)?

SU seems to be imposing its own limit by crashing with enormous frequency once the width of the export exceeds 10,000 pixels and unfortunately I need up to 12,000. A freshly opened SU with a freshly loaded file will cope with over 11,000 on a good day with a following wind but it's very erratic and needs to be closed and re-opened before each export.

What are the factors that affect this, just size, or does model complexity have anything to do with it? Strangely it doesn't seem to judging empirically.

I am exporting from SU V7 standard issue on a Mac Pro with 8GB RAM and oodles of VM and swap space.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

David Mac

I am posting this relative to V7 but it occurred in V6 also. I have customised my toolbar to include Standard Views and Undo/Redo. This works fine except under one circumstance. The use of the MatchPhoto dialogue, either to create a scene or to edit an existing scene, will, upon exit, cause these to become greyed and no longer accessible. I can still access the commands through the menus but not with a single click from the toolbar. This is not a major problem as I have found a work around - which is to close and reopen the document once MatchPhoto has been exited. This will restore these toolbar buttons to their working state. MatchPhoto is a tool I use almost all the time. Indeed, for me, it is one of Sketchup's greatest assets. However it does seem an unnecessary irritation to have to close and reload my document after each use to restore toolbar functionality.

Is this normal behaviour?

Any suggestions?

BTW I LOVE Sketchup and have done ever since V2 when I first discovered it.

David Mac