topic Re: SketchUp to Indigo in Collaboration with other software

SketchUp to Indigo

Chadwick — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:46:50 GMT

Well its been a long time since I've been on this forum. After 2 years using Archicad then 6 months using Revit I can say both programs have problems with rendering (I also think just as many people complain on the AUGI forums as here).

In any case, I thought I would post a solution we came to for visualization. I remember all the frustrating moments I had with Lightworks and the black soffit disease.

There is a free renderer called Indigo that runs directly out of sketchup. Its a unbiased renderer like Maxwell. We dump the model into sketchup and then render with Indigo. I've posted a result of the accuracy of the lighting - its a little fuzzy but thats because I didn't give it too much time to render.

I dont think even Dwight could fake that kind of light!

Hope this helps some.

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

stefan — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:16:22 GMT

Nice and free 😉

Would you mind setting the same scene to a daylight version and re-render? Having different lighting setups from the same scene would be interesting.

I have tried it and the process (from SketchUp) was pretty smooth. How does it manage complex ArchiCAD scenes?

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Chadwick — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:50:17 GMT

I've got a day render of that same view cooking right now - I'll post it in the afternoon for comparison. I've posted another image here of the light accuracy capabilities - a park at night. I let this one render for 6 hrs. Also, I'm only rendering these on one processor - with the core 2 duos its nice to be able to render these and still be able to use your computer.

I haven't imported an ArchiCAD scene yet but it handles our Revit models very well. I'm sure it would behave similarly. You just have to remember to turn off the stuff you won't see in the view so that you are more efficient. I remember needing to do this even when using lightworks - keep the poly count down as much as possible.

Anyway, I'll post the day scene in a bit.

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Chadwick — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:45:15 GMT

Here's a day shot that I let render for 3 hrs. I'm not sure why, but it seems that glass takes longer to become less fuzzy - probably because of all the light bounces. I took out the textures because they were more of a distraction then anything as they were hastily applied.

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

stefan — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:21:37 GMT

It goes nicely from SketchUp models. Setting up materials correctly is a bit of a pain, though. You have to do this in text dialogs and remembering which materials have already been set up...

You get reasonable (but noisy) results in a fairly short amount of time. Clean renders take a long time. Quite similar to Maxwell, although Maxwell has a more elaborated workflow for ultimate control.

But Indigo being free would be a nice application for people on a budget. Especially the glossy reflections help a lot in improving the realism. The Sky gives a very blueish color, though.

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:14:56 GMT

"After 2 years using Archicad then 6 months using Revit I can say both programs have problems with rendering "

Here I come again....
Sorry, but you are one of the few that have used both programs extensively.
Wich is better at getting contract documents & take offs finished? (With less time and more quality)

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

stefan — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:25:30 GMT

jocontreras wrote:
"After 2 years using Archicad then 6 months using Revit I can say both programs have problems with rendering "

Here I come again....
Sorry, but you are one of the few that have used both programs extensively.
Wich is better at getting contract documents & take offs finished? (With less time and more quality)

Might be better to post this in another thread... This tread is discussing SketchUp and mainly Indigo...

(I find it an interesting question, but don't feel it belongs here...)

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Rakela Raul — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:17:19 GMT

(I find it an interesting question, but don't feel it belongs here...)

i wanna hear it also

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Chadwick — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:42:07 GMT

From what I can tell, you can get that sky to change its color by manipulating the render settings. You can have it generated by the background color in sketchup or the sun and sky settings in sketchup.

I've played around with Maxwell a tiny bit and it does have a lot more control, but that also adds to the learning curve. I couldn't produce an image as effortlessly as the ones above in Maxwell - although with time and learning its interface I'm sure that I would have no problem. Maxwell is incredibly fast though, which is nice.

I'll just say one short thing about Revit and ArchiCAD - I don't want to create one of those flaming threads that are 29 pages long but every post basically says the same thing: my program is better than yours. They both have their issues - neither is perfect by far. I have done cost estimating in both (neither is automatic and requires a bit of set up to get done) and I have produced CDs in both. I find it easier to make objects in Revit with the family editor but maybe thats because I'm a visual person. I've attached a family that I made yesterday in about 2 hours and I really have limited experience with families. If you have Revit or a demo, you can check it out.

Both are very capable programs. The #1 asset, IMHO, for either program are their respective community forums. Without these forums I think people would be a lot less likely to stick through the troubling learning curves.

If I had to use ArchiCAD again I wouldn't be too upset - just don't make me go back to flat cad.

Re: SketchUp to Indigo

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:14:55 GMT

Thank you very much. I didnt want to start another long flaming thread neither. Thats why I took the liberty of asking in this forum theme.
(Sorry Stefan)