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[stephan]

Hi All,

I've created the attached balustrades in sketchup to use as details for an alteration. When I render it the following happens. With Basic render the balustrades are fine, but the floor tiling is a mess. With Advanced render the floor tiling is fine, but the balustrades are a mess. Any suggestions???

Regards
Stephan

[stephan]

Chantale,

Can you maybe ask support what is happening with these renders?.....PLEAAAAAASE!

Stephan

[FynrDzynr]

G'day Stephan!
Email it to support.
Merv

[Allan Chesney]

Many similar examples in TurboFloorPlan also. OK in Basic,  but lots missing in TFP in 3DS objects from TurboCAD in Advanced.

Allan

[Allan Chesney]

Hi again Stephen,

Any reason why you did not do the whole thing in Envisioneer? The railings are just members and the posts would be very easy to make in Envisioneer (or you could still use your existing SKP posts since you already have them now and they appear to work OK).

Allan

[stephan]

Hi Allan,

I just love the ease of modelling with sketchup. It is super accurate, I can create the shapes and curves to exact measurements etc. I've been asking Cadsoft for a similar element creator for years now. If that would happen, voala, all my headaches would be gone and I would be "happyness supreme". Yes I'm sure I can create all of it in Envisioneer, but that is a lot of working around, exporting and importing again. I try to avoid things like that.

On second thoughts, maybe you can give me a few pointers on how you would create that balustrade system. Then, maybe I'll see that it is not as difficult and time consuming as I thought.

There is one thing though that I would like Cadsoft to have a look at: All those polylines on railings that one has to clean up. It takes almost as much time as preparing the rest of the smart view. Especially in this project where there is almost a km of railings.

Regards
Stephan

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Stephan,

I have replicated your Balustrade and saved some screen shots along the way to show how I did it. You probably don't need the 'step by step' views but there may be some others who want to do a similar thing and don't know all the steps. It is actually very quick to do and in your case you know the measurements so that would make it even easier - I was flipping back and fourth to your image to see if the curves looked similar. I think in the final image I have placed them back to front compared with yours but that obviously doesn't matter in this example.

This of course is just one post but once imported and positioned at the right elevation it is just a matter of duplicating them or placing by array if there are many. Rather than members I used the Interior Railings and created a rail set without the posts - they just go around the corner mitering automatically of course. Shame we can't add our own posts into the railings dialog (version 9?) - it would make it very easy!

Objects I have made in Envisioneer or TFP and exported/imported to 'group' them, have always rendered correctly in Basic or Advanced, but I have seen many imported objects that don't - like your example.

I have also suggested a 'make your own' toolkit. All the flexible elements are already there, they just have funny names at the moment, like Floor, Wall, Column, Member etc!!!     It should not take much to give them different names, put them into a catalogue group and have 'group them' and 'save to catalogue' option. (maybe V9 also ?)

Allan

[stephan]

Thank you Allan.

I thought that might be the way you would tackle this model. I would at least like to see a "follow me" tool to insert the railings more accurately. The other thing is when you do real details of the balustrade posts, there will be quite a lot to do still.

I wish I could add a wishlist of small things(curve members, better door and window creators, live views, etc.), snap my fingers, close my eyes, open them and there they all were, incorporated in Envisioneer, working one hundred percent...........and we lived happily ever after......!

Regards
Stephan

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Stephan,

Not quite sure what you mean by :

... a "follow me" tool to insert the railings more accurately.

.
I usually use a Layout line as the centreline. Snapped the first post to it, 'arrayed' the others, and then snapped the railing to the same centreline. Took seconds to do.  Is that the sort of thing your meant or something more elaborate?

The other thing is when you do real details of the balustrade posts, there will be quite a lot to do still.

Biggest problem with this I think is getting rid of all the extral lines that the curves create.  Same issue with SKP and other files too I suspect. It is a shame that Hidden Line view does not work with these imported objects.

Also wondered what you meant by 'curved members'? Do you just mean being able to curve them like you do a wall?  That would be a great step forward too. You can do it now of course but you have to draw the curve first and then draw the Balustrade or Member, which is a nuisence.

I am really looking forward to the new Ambient Light tool. Will save a lot of rendering experimentation time I suspect. I wish Envisioneer/TFP had Lightscape or Lightworks, as the original FloorPlan3D had - both were much more controllable and predicatable.

Allan