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.
just two words: Ivy Generator
http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/
My avatar image is made with SketchUp (building shapes), populated with Ivy Generator (over the luminous structure), imported into Vue where I added the tree and rendered the whole scene.
You can easily replace the ivy leaf texture and create different vertical green walls.
What do you mean exactly? What kind of population (trees, stones, buildings, people?)
The simple workaround to start with an horizontal or sloped surface, populate it and then make it vertical with a simple rotation; this may not meet your expectations, because a vertical village looks a bit odd 
You can set better this variable in the material editor: there is a slider that controls the population in relation to the slope.
very pleasant illustrations, Ross.
I love this kind of compositions.
Is there a way to change the colour of sun light and shadows?
I remember that ( at least since SU4: sorry for the word play ) there are some ruby scripts that allow you to change the background colour or the sky gradient; you can also display the depth map, alpha channel and so on.
I suppose that these rubies work directly on the rendering engine (opengl) parameters.
Is there a way to change the sun colour and the shadows in a similar way?
It would give a better look to the native SU output. If you create a red sky for a twilight scene, it'd be nice to match your model's colours with the sky.
Here a screenshot taken from Wings 3D to explain better what I mean: it should be a true opengl output - it's more pleasant to see than a grey shadowed model.
It would be great to achieve this inside Sketchup.
That's really well done and the texture is superb.
Who's the next? Antinous or Apollo? 
I don't have illustrator and I think it's not worth buying it only for that reason. In Sketchup, when you export to 3ds format, you have many options: I just wish they could develop a similar interface, when you export a pdf, in the next version of Layout.
nice process!
I must give a look to Fotosketcher. Thank you.
I love how the trees come out.
@unknownuser said:
Hey I'm looking at your picture again...
and suddenly I wonder:
How did that lady get there? Where is the door? There's no door leading to the roof terrace!
Teleportation 
And you haven't seen anything yet: the toilet resides on a desert exotic island! 
Ok, the last was a tribute to Dan Simmons' Hyperion novel.
On a serious way, flipya: that's a great rendering/photo montage! It might be not ultra-real, but it gives the exact sense of what the new addition will be.
@jhauswirth said:
You can explode the SU model in LO and select the polygons and turn off stroke.
A little bit tricky, when you have thousands of faces 
There should be an option to enable or disable this when you export a pdf.