Simple Sketchup Like 3d Views

[archislave]

I much prefer the look of sketchup models over the Open GL shading of Archicad. Has anyone ever requested that Archicad get a similar look in the 3d navigation?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Alternative 3D view methods - especially shadows - would be great inside AC of course. Yet another alternative to sending to SU is to save 3D as a U3D file for PDF.

Windows users can directly create an embedded U3D PDF; Mac users have to have Adobe Acrobat Professional, create a 3D viewpoint in a doc with the 3D tool and link the U3D file.

I had not played with this in a year or two - and was impressed this past week at all of the new features Adobe Reader (or Pro) have when opening such a file. Very much like SketchUp, with options for OpenGL textures, semi-transparent elements, lines only, sketch lines, shaded sketch lines, various lighting options (no shadows), and a live section mode much like SU. For the section mode, you open the section palette, select the axis, and as you drag a slider, the cut is dynamic just like SU.

In addition, you can display a side panel that shows all saved views - like tabs on SU, but no movie mode between them - and can make any selected surfaces invisible.

Pretty cool and fast for being free. Would be nice to have that kind of behavior inside AC itself. And live shadows.

Karl