Inspired from another topic http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=43282. I used Tgi3D photoscan to model a piece of gravel-cement ground. The model has around 40K faces. To get any higher resolution I would have to chop up the model into smaller components each.

It would be really neat if I could somehow convert the 3d geometry to a bump-map or distance-map. Like the inverse of thomthom's bitmap to mesh script. I don't think there is a mesh-to-bitmap plugin conveniently around but there may be a way...

Ideally, to get what you want, you should be able to assign bump-maps or displacement-maps to surfaces just as in a rendering application. I even asked i-materialise support whether they accept such data. Their answer was that I had to convert the maps to 3d geometry (faces) first. Of course Alan is right, SketchUp (or any other tool) will croak if you want to include fine texture detail as 3d geometry. I think 3d rendering companies and 3d printing companies should cooperate somehow to get that kind of support.

I am observing significant slow-down in rendering with v-ray if the texture has partially transparent areas. This can be seen from the following case. (Both cases have "Use color texture as transparency" checked)

This renders fine (Fencing Diamond Mesh, from default SU materials).

This render has trouble even starting (Fencing Mesh Blue, from default SU materials)

Upon close inspection I find a few half transparent pixels in the alpha channel of the second case, when I replace them with fully transparent or fully opaque pixels I can take renders fine.

I would expect a slowdown for partially transparent textures but not this bad. Am I missing something here?

Ogan

paperball.skp

Impressive modelling under 6 minutes in the tutorial. I had a couple of d'oh's watching.
Ogan

...

Oppps sorry.
Here is 160x160x30 mm version. vray bumpmapped pure glass with texcloth.

I too had suspicions of time cheating for some of the challenge entries earlier. But as I learned better about the modellers active in the forum and what can be achieved with the right plug-in set I am more convinced that the entries at least in principle might have been finished in the time allowed. I had to prepare some real time usage-demo videos for some features, there you have to show the feature doing something useful within 3 minutes; anything longer exceeds useful attention span. By practice (modeling the same thing over and over) you can cut down your modeling time significantly (10x is within reason). Interestingly practice helps you speed up in other models too.
cheers

Last night my brother showed (off) their new large screen 3D TV and his 3D footage with a 3D camera ... I am sold. The video resolution was on the blocky side but I was blown away by the stills. I am at the moment trying to secure finance for a similar set (apparently newer camera versions has better video).

It appears that it is much easier to get successful 3D shots than 2D. In 2D photography mostly you are trying to create the illusion that your photo is actually 3D. These shots really are 3D. In family snaps subject naturally separates from the background. At the scenic shots you are looking at an infinite distance horizon, getting the sense of the immensity of the volume and the scene.

Does any one of you have experience with 3D digital cameras? suggestions?

Ogan

I think you are trying to set the texture to the component. Try setting the texture from inside the component. That is; enter the component by double (left) clicking on it and select everything and then set the texture. That should do it.
good luck

Actually, if you could post or pm (to me) other photos of the kitchen (along with one, preferably long, distance measurement) I could check and see what kind of accuracy you can obtain with those using Tgi3D photoscan.

Project photo interface does project an image exactly as a projector would (distort the image onto the 3d object) do. The problem may be hiding in several places (bad camera alignment, bad 3d object geometry, ...). More detailed info on your case might help finding the root cause.

Ogan

You may want to give Tgi3D PhotoScan a try. You can try it for 30 days for free.

good luck

Your described flow is workable. Keeping the essential methodology same, I can suggest some efficiency improvements using Tgi3D amorph (training version is not enough for you (too many vertices), but you can try amorph for 30 days for free).

workflow

1. converting the contours to construction point cloud, the greatest gain is here.
   a) from Tgi3D settings menu (gear like icon in the tgi3d toolbar), set the curve crease angle to around 80 degrees. This parameter is effective in complexity reduction. If a contour deviates more than this angle on a vertex, that vertex is preserved, these are sharp corners reduction tool, you can play with this angle.
   b) select all the contours.
   c) use resample-paths tool from other Tgi3d utilities sub menu. It will prompt a box asking for the length of new segments, for your case I tried 20m. In your case this operation took around 25 seconds on my pc, so you may have to wait. Better yet start from small cases to build your confidence in the tool. When this stage finishes you should get a reduced vertex contour set.

   d) Using the MarkPoints http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=42089#p373073 (requires LibFredo, I suggest download the latest version) place a construction point in place of every vertex. This leaves the contours selected, I erased the contours right away. You have your construction point cloud now.

2. Convert the construction points to a mesh. (the created mesh will be slightly cleaner, a little less cleaning required)
   a. draw a rectangle around the construction points (encompassing them).
   b. erase the face. select the remaining edges and the construction points. activate create-mesh tool from Tgi3d menu.

The rest is the same as your flow. trim the redundant faces etc...

I hope this helps

Ogan
3.

SU pro has 8 hours free trial. You should be able to verify your suspicions in that time.
cheers

SU Pro has solid tools.

@Roger: As of now oil is the number 1 input of the world economy. Availability of oil (and water) and good weather all enable food production and feeding the billions (hence Mike's point at several threads). When big farm companies talk about their efficiency they report how many gallons of corn syrup they produce per gallon of gas. In industrialized nations 10 to 15 % of the energy expenditure goes to food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture.

As for the current economic woes of the western world, I consider it as the balance shifting a more natural position. Rich ones getting poorer, poor ones getting richer; some kind of global equalization. Average energy expenditure of an industrialized western nation's citizen is several times that of the rest of the world (15-25). I think this will balance itself out very soon.

Hi,
Opps the video showed old icons.

The 4th tool from the left is the cross section tool. In SU most tools provide a hint if you hover the cursor over the icon a few seconds.

Here is a video explaining the usage of Tgi3D cross section editing tool. In your case you should texture the cylinder before you edit it into the tire shape.

[flash=800,620:x8ykvevl]http://www.youtube.com/v/11mhfNJlduE?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:x8ykvevl]

End of cheap oil and climate change are my main worries. I do not believe total annihilation is imminent but a serious reduction in total wealth and well-being seems unavoidable for the next generation. Hopefully internet will be forever...

This has been very instructive for me. The slight shadow does help a lot. The wine... its just experiment and fun.