@tomsdesk said:

Well, it's about damn time!

@solo said:

Good reply Fletch!

thanks, Solo

@solo said:

...wait for Podium version 2 as it will not be KT based.

are you absolutely certain about that?

@unknownuser said:

Shall we postpone then?

Postpone comparing KT to KT? I have thousands of renders comparing KT to KT if you want to see them, let me know... I can post some

Hi Al,

so... basically, you are talking about writing a second 'SU2KT (SketchUp2Kerkythea)' exporter?
... sorry... I'm confused.

Have you thought about writing a universal exporter if you want to take on something like this... that will export to Kerkythea, Indigo, RenderMan, Sunflow, and all the other great free render engines... heck let's just throw in Maxwell and Vray just for fun.

Stinkie wrote: "I have tried KT at maxed out settings..."

Well, this is the common mistake of new users with Kerkythea (mine too! ) ... people think (quite naturally) "higher settings must be 'better'" When in actuality it is important to understand what all those settings mean. And if one does not, then they are better off sticking to the 'presets' as their aid/friend/guide.

I have done many, many... and yes - many - test renders with various methods and settings in VIZ scanline, VIZ radiosity, Mental Ray, Vue Infinite 5 and 6, and Kerkythea. I can tell you Kerkythea gives me the best quality with fastest set up and ease of use/material mapping & creation... and I have gotten just as good results in 30mins at 2800px on PM+FG low preset in KT as I got in 24hrs with MLT... it ALL DEPENDS ON THE SCENE AND THE LIGHTING AND MATERIALS.

The key is knowing the 'optimum' settings... a professional workflow is to do test renders small and very low qual. settings, and slowly work your way to bigger renders/higher quality until you know what the settings will do without needing so many test renders.

Comparing speed of Kerkythea and Podium is both silly and pointless IMHO. Podium IS USING Kerkythea, but since it is inside SU is obviously much easier and quicker to use... TBD has done a good job 'optimizing' the settings for you, so you don't have to do all the testing/trials to actually learn the program yourself... you just get the fun of rendering.

If Podium makes you and your clients happy, and you're having fun - well THAT'S WHAT MATTERS!

If you want to have choice to render the exact same scene with biased or unbiased methods, hundreds of advanced options, and soon to be much much more... then perhaps keep Kerkythea handy... but really, they serve two different 'audiences'. Podium is for people who want to just stick with SU and not have to "go-back-and-forth" and who do not want to have to think about all the other info available in Kerkythea.

Trying to compare them is, again, IMHO, both pointless and silly.
1-they both have the same engine - KT
2-you would have to make sure every single setting is the same in both of them... which you cannot be sure of
3-what's the point? oh yeah, being happy rendering... and you can be happy with either of them! there's your answer... they both win.

Love, Fletch!

Very nice renders,
I hope your bathrooms are not to, ehm... Stinkie?

I agree both Podium and Indigo do very well.

If you want a render engine that can do both biased and unbiased methods (so you can pick the right one for the job but no need to re-do all your scene/lights/materials you should try Kerkythea, as you can render using as many cores as you like... and the next version will net-render.

this whole thread was worth a hundred bucks...
we discuss these 'entourage' issues in the office all the time... I used to sneak people into my drawings too... but it wasn't any fun when no one seemed to notice.

Didier,
Your script works beautifully, thanks for the tip!

well... hmm..
I was all excited and tried it... but what happens is when I select a point that is above the z plane I'm working on, it seems to align with it, but really it draws it off in the distance. (i'm not drawing in plan view, but in 3D) now it may work ok if I'm looking in pure plan view... but it doesn't work the way I was hoping.

nevertheless, it's a beautiful thing, I don't want to pester you about it. I was just curious if we could finally have a Pline tool like ACAD's.

Soccer,
you will find that tool on Didier Bur's ruby website... I picked it up there a few weeks ago and love it.

Jim,
This script of your is very powerful already! I love it!
When I combine it with the auto-division power of the Soap Skin Bubble script, it's really awesome.

Here's my post at the KT forum with 3 completely different renders/uses for your script.

Thanks for your work on this.

2 small things to implement would be
1 -that it would automatically divide a chosen face(s) either with a grid or randomly
2 - that it would do secondary or tertiary offsets and pushpulls

But it is already very powerful... thanks for your hard work!

Didier, are you KIDDING ME?! THIS TOOL IS A MUST-HAVE for AutoCAD users... I mean I use this thing all the time!

If by extrude lines he's talking about the "Extrude lines using 2 Points" tool... or the "Extrude Lines Up" tool... both of which I use many times every day.

Fredo6,
This is really a great script you've done, thanks for sharing

I have always dreamed of a polyline tool that works in SU like it does in ACAD... in ACAD the polyline is forced to stay in the plane of the axis you are using... there is a 3DPolyline tool in ACAD that works very much like the one you've provided w/ your bezier curve tool.

So one tiny request (hopefully tiny) is there a way you could, after selecting the first point for the polyline tool, one could right-click and choose 'lock Z axis' and in this way it would draw all other points forcing them to match the exact elevation of the initial point? (This would be very handy for 'tracing' in plan view over the top of difficult geometry that one cannot seem to close/create a face from no matter what one does.)

While I'm obviously a big fan of a certain render engine, I think it is bad form for people to suggest other render engines when a person has a request about another.

For instance, if someone has a question re: Vray... it should be left alone until someone that knows the answer is able to respond.

Telling a user that they should basically dump it to go to another render engine is not an answer, but a testimonial.

That said, in some instances I can see where it would be appropriate if the person specifically asks - "hey, if I want to quit using X software, what would you suggest to replace it?"

Vray is an exceptional render engine, and it takes time and effort to learn it... much like any other professional endeavor worth pursuing.

as my father used to say... "If it were easy, everyone would do it."

workaround for selecting hidden lines:

turn off 'view hidden geom'
select all items you can see
turn on 'view hidden geom'
use invert selection ruby script
you should now have only hidden geometry selected
delete selected hidden lines

Hi Didier, I tried to use your Select Smooth ruby to select all the hidden lines in a component I imported from ACAD (a large site plan with parking and vegetation islands) I had made them out of regions in ACAD so that they would import nicely into SU for me... but regions have a drawback - they triangulate in SU, and hide the edges of the triangulations. So... I was looking for a script to quickly delete those hidden edges for me, but the select smooth ruby does not select the hidden lines, only the smooth ones.

I tried renaming the ruby script and changing the word smooth everywhere in it to 'hidden' but this did not work.... will not load into SU properly now.

Thanks for the drink Shaun! - oops! - ... didn't mean to bump you that hard! well, you'll dry off soon enough.

thanks for the steak!

ps - I believe the proper spelling is 'Sqirlz' water reflections.

Merry Christmas to all!!! (and Happy Holidays to others for any holiday you may celebrate this time of year)

could come in very handy indeed! thanks!

Step 1 - Export From Revit
In Revit be sure you are in a 3D view:
Export>CAD Formats
----->Options
---------->Solids (3D views only)
---------->Export as polymesh>OK
Save As Type> AutoCAD 2004 DWG Files>don't change anything else... should be "Automatic, Long" and "Current View"
----->Give File a Name>SAVE

Step 2 - Import Into SketchUp
In new SU file:
Import>.dwg file type
--------->find your exported dwg from Revit step above

Options
----->Merge Coplanar Faces=Check
----->Orient Faces Consistently=NO
----->Units=Feet
----->Preserve Drawing Origin=Check

Step 3 - Make SketchUp Do The Work
On Didier Bur's website:
Download and Use his amazing ruby:
layers_materials.rb (updated link as of Jan 2017, but ruby has not been updated since 2010.

Here's the tutorial PDF for using it. Here's the new link to the tutorial pdf

This tool in SketchUp lets you paint things in the SketchUp file automatically by the layer they are on. Since your Revit model should be drawn on layers, this should come in very handy to automatically paint all your glass or window frames or walls almost instantly.

Using that tool, the first option creates 'dummy' materials named for each layer in your model.
Modify each material it creates or delete a material and create your own with the identical name to the one you deleted.
Then, using that Layers and Materials tool, option 3 will automatically paint any material onto the surfaces on the layer for which it is named.

Keep in mind, that this is not a science, but an art, as Revit models are frustratingly inaccurate beasts... (and CurtainWalls will all come in on the same layer and apparently you cannot change this in Revit.)

Anyone with other opinions/easier way, please let me know!

these styles are great... remind me of some FLWright dwgs... good stuff, thx.