Hi All
As elsewhere in this forum, where JoKe presents breathtakingly good results with the new Nano Banana AI image generation tool Modelling a tramway, I am also playing around with this tool and consider it a real milestone in AI-supported image generation, particularly due to its outstanding model consistency.
This test example, as strange as it may seem at first glance, required only two prompts and a waiting time of about 8 seconds. But since I made this nutcracker myself, Nano Banana did not overlook or misinterpret the smallest detail of my model template.
[This whole AI-thing is still somewhat ambivalent for me, a mixture of fascination and โwhat on earth is going on here?!?โ]

Posts
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RE: Best wishes for the 2024 Christmas Season!
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WIP / Visualisation of a Green Wall Facade System.
Hi
This Green-Wall-system is based on facade anchors and wires stretched between them. Somehow quite similar to any real actual planting method later on this model-visu approach results in a vegetation system that inevitably has to be achieved by using a linear helix-spline-curve based generation method rather than any surface filling method.
I first tried to use 3D plant models, but they were unsuitable due to the sheer amount of geometry. Instead, I used about 5 small fast and sloppy done test-PNG images to imitate the plants.[SkUp2023/ Random Tools by Alex Schreyer/ Helix along Curve by 3Dalbertsoft/ Scale and Rotate Multiple by Chris Fullmer (which btw is a tool I love!)/ Enscape/ Affinity Photo2]
(the pictures below show my initial approach, which I am very happy with so far.)
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RE: ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
@alexpacio2013 thanks for the nice compliment!
Yes, saving your own needed presets for having them available further on is the essential benefit from this tooland was my intention for making this tool (in a much easier version) about a year ago.
By the way, having easy access to standardized export settings is an underestimated point because it makes live so much easier in any downstream workflow such as layouting or so. And you don't have to care about your own sketchup setup anymore. You or even anyone else will be able now to reproduce your own absolute identical export results again and again any time you want.Best, and I'm glad that everything is going well now.
Ps: don't forget to setup AND SAVE your remaining 7 possible presets
Hitting the Save button saves ALL your done settings, not only W x H.
When you close sketchup and reopen it any time later, your ViewportBuster will then open with YOUR own presets... -
RE: ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
@alexpacio2013
Hi
I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulties using the plugin.
I am still unable to reproduce your issue โ please see the screenshot of my retest with your values. The Viewportbuster is doing exactly what it should.Let's check whether Viewportbuster is saving your desired values correctly. In the plugin directory of your SketchUp, you will find this TXT file (screenshot). This TXT file saves your desired ViewportBuster-settings and actuality your txt file must also display these values now.
Please check whether your TXT file looks like the one in my screenshot.I'm sure we'll figure out what the problem is!
(A silly question from me โ why are you trying to export your randomly given viewport size of 5189 x 1750? Imagine you change your SkUp setting with any new plugin toolbars. The result would be that your viewport would change again and again and you would then export any different image ratio than today. - The purpose of the ViewportBuster plugin is to overcome these random factors and to replace them with your desired โstandardโ values that remain constant, so to speak)
Best
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RE: ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
...Hi alexpacio2013 and thanks for the congratulations.
Yes, of course, there is a solution, and obviously I didn't make that clear enoughNo one has to work with my default settings; you can set your own prefered Preset-settings as you like.
I assume you exported the image using one of my preset settings, all of which are actually in HD aspect ratioThese are the settings I always prefer.
Now I've imitated your viewport proportions. Let's say you have approx. 2100px x 730px (you can see this when you use SkUp's native exporter).
You can now use these aspect-ratio-values from your given viewport in my plugin, for example as Preset 1 and Preset 2, and also save them so that they remain as consistent exortsettings for you.
And just to check โ ViewportBuster exports Preset 2 exactly as it should and even with the correct automated PNG naming :
I hope I have understood your question correctly and that my answer is helpful to you.Best
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RE: SubD examples and models
A Great work! โ & thanks for the many pictures of the doing process.
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[Plugin] MaterialFinder6
Hi All
I have released a second plugin โMaterialFinder6โ.
The plugin finds and lists searched SKM materials stored on your computer in real time and loads selected materials instantly into the โIn Modelโ area of your material browser before you have even applied a material to any model itself.
The plugin bypasses the non-existent material search option of the native SkUp material browser and accesses the material you are looking for directly from your assigned hard drive location or another assigned file storage location.! -
RE: A Mahogany Lowboy
a great model!! (At the latest with these legs I would have a lot to think about, and they wouldn't have been made yet
)
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RE: ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
sorry, I have really no idea what or how to do there. Just saw this page for the first time
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RE: ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
@Rich-O-Brien
because I don't know how to do it
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ViewportBuster - my first SketchUp Plugin
Hi all
Yesterday I actually managed to release my very first SketchUp plugin
"ViewportBuster".
Eventually it became what I wanted, what I needed and what I was able to achieve at allit passed the guidelines of the SketchUp Extension Store and especially I am happy to share my tool as one possible PNG-exporting solution with this community, especially because my previous used plugin solution came from this place here!
https://sketchucation.com/plugin/2902-viewportbuster
ViewportBuster is available as a free plugin.The target group for this Plugin are those who rely, like me, on a cross-team but nevertheless synchronised image data export out from native SketchUp.
ViewportBuster is the small PNG exporter tool that can support all those across workplaces of different people and their individual UI setups and the correspondingly always different viewports to ensure an always predictable and consistent identical PNG export result which can even be automated to a certain extent by using individually editable presets.
Such a standardisation and synchronisation of export image data can be advantageous for everyone, but especially for those who work in larger teams and feed their image data into any downstream and equally automated production process. This could be pre-configured layout tools (e.g. InDesign) or web applications etc...
(I have released ViewportBuster for Windows versions only - simply for lack of any Mac test environment)
For me this was a pretty long, exhausting but also interesting and inspiring journey and I have not only learned a lot but above all had a lot of fun! -
RE: Many projects
a nice restrained sense of detail in the washing machine picture!
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RE: SubD examples and models
@Rich-O-Brien said in SubD examples and models:
Tony Hawk's
that's right! I completely forgot about that guy!!
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RE: SubD examples and models
Boahhhhh !
Respect Panixia - the project and your presentation here are impressive! -
RE: How to remove non-existing but listed Material Libraries?
@Rich-O-Brien
thank you for this useful and correct advice for most people.
We, on the other hand, are decentralised across Europe and many other countries and do not share a common server drives at the moment.
Another very important point is that various material pallets relate to specific product lines which may only be used in certain countries. This allows me to better delegate responsibility, maintenance and fine tuning for use to the users themselves...