Plotmaker - 3D Images

[Anonymous]

How I do you get Plotmaker to plot out high quality 3D images of the ArchiCAD model with transparency?

- Importing a TIF of the ArchiCAD image has resulted in a low quality output.

- A saved PMK view loses the transparency of the windows, as does a saved view placed in Plotmaker.

Thanks for any advice.

[Thomas Holm]

I guess you mean you get poor quality of items behind (seen through) transparent materials. I'm not sure at the moment, but I have a recollection that Archicad bit-maps such items when rendered with the Internal Engine. To ge rid of this, you'll need to turn up transparency of the material in question (glass?) to 100%. (Thanks, Matthew!)

[Anonymous]

Thanks Thomas, but the bitmap issue is not the problem. Here is what I was doing...

I wanted to create a Plotmaker layout with a shaded 3D view of my model.

I found that if I imported a 3D view directly into Plotmaker the windows in the model were no longer transparent even though I had transparency on in the AC view.

So I tried to create a TIF of the image to preserve the look of the transparent windows. However, the 72 dpi quality of the TIF image did not give me the same resolution as printing directly from ArchiCAD so using a TIF in Plotmaker resulted in a lower quality output than in ArchiCAD.

I also tried saving a PMK from AC but the windows were still not transparent.

Has anyone got a good way of doing this?

Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

Best way is to render the image, and then place the resulting jpg file in plotmaker. If you want to have a "live linked" jpg in plotmaker (so that you can automatically update the 3D image as well as your other drawings), you need to set up a view set in AC that contains the 3D views & select "generate in photorendering window" instead of the 3D window.

[Thomas Holm]

OK I'm late on this, but...

I now realise that John has the same problem as I've had several times. We like the looks of the shaded 3D view, made with the rendering engine set to Internal - but not "photorendered" or OpenGLed.

This view, with its line-emphasised edges and flat-shaded surfaces, has a not-too-real but real-enough ruler-drawn-perspective-like quality which is very suitable for certain presentations, when you want a level of abstraction that leaves just enough for the client's imagination to fill in. It's also easy and fast to create, and fairly easo to control if you've set your materials aned colors right.

It's not always easy to preserve this quality in presentations, when for example Plotmaker won't accept it completely, as John pointed out.

What I've done is to save/print the image to a pdf, and then make the presentation complete in Indesign, which is a bit above Plotmaker as a layout tool. You lose however Plotmaker's direct links to the AC model. You'll have to save out new pdfs and manually update all links in the presentation each time you change something in the AC model.

The pdf is losslessly scalable, which is a good thing when you don't know on what equipment it will be viewed or printed.

But there are other issues. The bit-mapped transparency rendering mentioned above is one. Also, Archicad renders the whole model (all visible layers/stories) when creating the 3D view this way, beginning with the surface farthest from the eyepoint, regardless of wether this surface is really visible from the eyepoint or not. The pdfs become huge containing layers upon layers of colored polygons covering each other, where most of them make no tribute to the final rendering at all, and each time you take a look or print it this layered rendering process will repeat itself. It's heavy processing each time, and some printers, especially those who have to little memory, or bad emulated Postsccript, will choke and refuse to output. (Some clients don't appreciate that)

(If you want to see it in detail, open the pdf in Acrobat Reader on an old, slow machine - with a properly made view, it looks like the model building is erecting itself before your eyes, and some years ago, we used this effect as a primitive animation).

One would like the pdf-save mechanism to just preserve the visible surfaces, but that (extremely slow) feature was removed some versions ago, I think.

One workaround is to open the pdf in Photoshop and make it a bitmap to your specifications there. That should take care of the resolution issue. Then save as a jpg and import in Plotmaker.

Another one is to photorender your view to an epix file and then tweak it in Piranesi, which can get you back to the pencil-drawn look. Fine, but it's not the same. And it requires full control of resolution issues if you don't want to risk jagged lines at final output.

[Anonymous]

Yes Thomas, this is exactly my problem. You are correct that I am not interested in creating a "rendering" (ie use the render command) as the solid model view is good enough for what I want and much faster to produce.

My workaround has been even more basic than your suggestion: I print out the 3d window directly from ArchiCAD which provides a nice high(er) resolution image and maintains material transparency. Then...

(everyone hold their breath for old school technique to follow)

I put the paper back in the printer and print the tile block using Plotmaker. (It's ugly, I know)

Anyway Thomas thank you for confirming my problem. I guess I'll add it to the wish list.

John

[Karl Ottenstein]

John wrote:
(everyone hold their breath for old school technique to follow)

I prepared myself to read about something involving scissors and glue ... so your solution at least didn't involve chemicals and sharp objects.

Karl

[Thomas Holm]

Well, John, you're on the Mac. If you think Indesign is too expensive (it is), why not try Apple's new Pages program (part of the iWork package). Cheap, and said to handle imported pdfs fine (it's more or less based on Apple's pdf implementation, I think).

Whatever, it shouold be better than running the paper twice through the printer!