Do you need a flat color on each face or can you use a texture?
Maybe the SketchUV Mapping Tools http://sketchucation.com/plugin/960-dm_sketchuv is the right plugin.

Can you post a screenshot of your model? to undestand better which plugin is better for you.

Hello Malaise,

I tried to test if there is a workaround.

A label's text is a kind of "face camera" object.
If you use the 3D Text tool, you can make a component and choose "always face camera" in the Component Window.

Sadly Simlab can't transfer this function to a PDF. You can animate every single object, but you can't constrain it to face the camera.

I suggest you to draw a vectorial number near every group/component of your model and add a fixed text area (with the PDF template window of Simlab) with a corresponding numbered legend.
As alternative you can use a coloured legend, if your components are painted with an unuque colour.

Yes, it works!
Thank you Andrew.

@rich o brien said:

I'm not sure if that can be redistributed publicly?

I understand, I'll ask directly to Trimble.

It's really strange. If I buy the english version, I get all the scapbooks and page templates. If I buy the italian, they're gone.

The Italian version of Layout lacks all the TB Scrapbooks.
I don't know why. Maybe because it's a standard architectural style of North America.

Even the page templates are gone - you can choose only between a blank page and graph paper.

Is anyone so kind to attach the TB scapbooks here?
They were so useful to me.

Thanks
Matteo

thank you very much for sharing this great plugin: very good idea!

It's not just a matter of grayscale contrast: I want to achieve a visual style that simulates (fakes) natural light. Natural light comes in a wide range of different flavours, and the difference between them can be enormous. The source of all our natural light is the sun, however it takes on different characteristics at different times of day and in different weather conditions, turning this one source of light into essentially many different ones ranging from hard and warm to soft and cool.

In Wings 3D, shadows and color are driven by Spherical Harmonics coordinates. Since I have no idea if Sketchup's rendering engine can do this, I found a workaround by painting my model's surfaces.

I tweaked the ruby script "Color By" by sdmitch, using my personal colour values. The result is a sort of "Cylindical Harmonics" style. My palette is based on the Kelvin Spectrum, which I find pleasant for my eyes.

Here the part of the script that I changed.

	def self.direction_color(v)
		v.y = v.y > 1.0 ? 1.0 ; v.y
		angle=Math.acos(v.y).radians
		angle=360.0-angle if v.x < 0.0
		### change these test ranges and/or color to suit...
		case angle
			when 11.25...33.75;color=[255,189,124];			#2000 K°
			when 33.75...56.25;color=[255,217,181];
			when 56.25...78.75;color=[254,227,203];
			when 78.75...101.25;color=[253,237,225];
			when 101.25...123.75;color=[249,237,232];
			when 123.75...146.25;color=[245,238,239];
			when 146.25...168.75;color=[238,238,247];
			when 168.75...191.25;color=[232,237,254];
			when 191.25...213.75;color=[223,232,254];
			when 213.75...236.25;color=[214,227,255];
			when 236.25...258.75;color=[201,219,255];
			when 258.75...281.25;color=[191,212,255];
			when 281.25...303.75;color=[181,206,255];
			when 303.75...326.25;color=[166,197,255];
			when 326.25...348.75;color=[151,187,255];		#8000 K°
			else color=[255,255,255];				

Now, it would be nice to drive this with the sun position, and have an imput panel where you can set 2 main colors and let the script generate the gradient between them. In this way we could easlily fake the light of midday sunshine, late afernoon, sunset, dusk and so on.

Anybody who can help is welcome!

Wings 3D has many different options to display your model, while working: this means that it's a real-time calculation. One very pleasant "style" is called "Spherical Harmonics 9" and it's like a fake HDRI enviroment. The image attached speaks for itself.

Is there a way to tweak sketchup's rendering engine to achieve the some effect?

I don't know where to post exactly this request: it's not something that can be done by tweaking the Style parameters, but it doesn't look like a proper task for Ruby scripting too.

Here a couple of links to download some of the structures I created for Stebo Ambiente: it's an italian company that manufactures playground equipment and landscaping furniture.
They have kindly published a few dozen components on their website and everyone can download them.

I've made these replicas last year (2009), keeping an ideal balance between quality and number of polygons: they were modeled with SUpro 6 and 7.0.
Doing them was a great fun! and a truly nice job. I made also many drawings and projects for customers and open competitions.

You can find a small description in english and a visual index of the structures of the Vitus series on my blog:
http://desert-b.blogspot.com/2010/08/041-enus-stebo-ambientes-playground.html

or just browse the models at Stebo Ambiente's webpage (it is written in Italian and German):
http://www.steboambiente.com/

Not every item has a corresponding 3D model: when you click on the thumb image, you'll open a popup window - at bottom of the page there is the download link.
If I have time I'll post a list with all available downloads. I have counted more than 70 pieces so far.

Special thanks to Urgen , who kindly gave me the permission to use his wood texture.
The 2D face-me trees in the rendering are the 2d NPR Trees shared by Boofredlay.

/matteo

png allows you to benefit from the use of the alpha channel - in other words you can draw transparent and semi-transparent areas inside the some texture or even a transparent gradient.

for a concrete wall or ceiling png is as good as a jpg with a low compression.