Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Increase resolution of 3D views produced from Axon or Perspective views

rm
Expert
Currently, AC limits the size of any 3D view to your personal screen resolution. Screens are designed to display at 72dpi. Therefore final resolution of the image is 72dpi, unless when you place the image in the Layout Book, you resize the image smaller causing the dpi to increase. However, in doing so, your image gets terribly small if you want the resolution to be 300dpi for print. I would prefer even 600dpi as my large format printer is capable of 2400dpi

In photography if you want a 300dpi print to be 36", the original file has to be 36 x 300 pixels wide resulting in an original image of 10,800 pixels wide. No problem, you can get this to work in PS all day long, your only limitation is getting a printer that can make a 36" wide print.

On architectural coversheets, especially for presentations, it would be great to be able to place a min. 300dpi image across the full width of the paper, be it 18", 24", 36" etc, etc. We currently cannot do that in AC. Again, the limitation is 72 dpi if you want to image to go full width of your layout sheet.

72dpi flat out is terrible and no where near presentation quality for print.

I have not run across an Architectural Review Board that has not wanted full size high resolution renderings and elevations for review and approval.....But with AC we can't offer that.

Graphisoft PLEASE give us this ability to do so. Not everything is presented on displays, many clients or review boards request hard copy.
Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26
14 REPLIES 14
DGSketcher
Legend
You should vote for your own poll, it might help sway GSHQ.
Apple iMac Intel i9 / macOS Sonoma / AC27UKI (most recent builds.. if they work)
rm
Expert
Good point!

DGSketcher wrote:
You should vote for your own poll, it might help sway GSHQ.
Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Hi Robert,

Could you clarify a bit: If what you want for an axometric or perspective view is a line drawing (with fills/sun shading perhaps) - then you should be saving as a 3D Document and placing THAT on your layout as it will be a vector drawing and totally scalable.

If what you're talking about is getting a textured OpenGL (or Internal Engine) view saved with a large number of pixels (vs actually rendering the view), that's another story.

What kind of views are you having issues with? [Your topic says 'views' but your poll says 'images', so I'm guessing perhaps the latter?]

Cheers,
Karl

PS. The 72 dpi is a fact of life if you are saving to JPEG. JPEG only supports that. Modern screens are MUCH denser in ppi than 72 dpi... and you will get as many pixels as match your screen. The DPI thing is totally under your control for any kind of image by how you scale it on the layout...just have to do the math on total pixels to find the resulting printable dimensions at 300 dpi, 240 dpi, etc if working with JPEG. (If you work with, or convert to, PSD for example, you can specify the DPI in the image file itself.)
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Lingwisyer
Guru
You can manually set the window size then save that as a view. It is not the easiest thing to manage though as while setting it it is 1 to 1 so you cannot see beyond the extents of your monitor. As far as I can tell, it scales from your current window size linearly so you can first set an aspect ratio that fits within your monitors resolution to get the framing, then scale up to your desired resolution from there. Beware though that the 3D window may take quite a while to regenerate.



Ling.

AC22-23 AUS 7000Help Those Help You - Add a Signature
Self-taught, bend it till it breaksCreating a Thread
Win10 | R5 2600 | 16GB | GTX1660 
rm
Expert
Hi Karl!

Thanks for trying to help. I may have mixed up terms as far as file types go. Let me clarify. The Perspective view in the first attachment here, is the view I wish to place in my layout book. In order to increase its overall pixel size, I undock the tab it is associated with, right click on view and a pallet comes up to change the overall pixel size for width and height - highlighted in RED. Once you hit, OK the image increases in size. In my case the whole screen goes black, not sure why. I then right click on the black screen and select, save and place in layout book. The view is brought into the layout book and this is where the bug in AC shows itself.



In the next attachment, you see a screen shot of the layout book with the saved view placed on the layout. Notice the top and bottom of the frame is clipped. In AC23 you would typically resize the frame and update it and the whole image would be seen again. Unfortunately it doesn't work with Axons or Perspectives and GS NA has reported this to GS as an issue. Also note the dpi of the image is now 302, which would work fine for me in this case, but unfortunately the top and bottom of the image is clipped, therefore is of no use to me.


Your reply caused me to try an experiment, as you noted modern screens have ppi denser than 72dpi - I took a screen shot of the original 3D view in AC which was a png file. I imported directly into PS. My screens are 4K and 5k . I was able to get in image that would resolve at 300dpi and fit edge to edge on the layout book, effectively doing what AC should be able to do within the AC file itself. This approach requires extra steps, not to mention now I am adding additional external files to the AC file which have to be tracked. But it is a work around until GS can squash this bug.

So to the original point of the poll, if you feel you need this functionality, vote yes. If not - so be it.
Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26
rm
Expert
Ling -

Yes I am aware of the technique as my reply to Karl shows. I noticed you are on a PC. I wonder if the function works fine on a PC only. It is currently not working correctly on my Macs and GS NA has reported it as a bug to GS.
Lingwisyer wrote:
You can manually set the window size then save that as a view. It is not the easiest thing to manage though as while setting it it is 1 to 1 so you cannot see beyond the extents of your monitor. As far as I can tell, it scales from your current window size linearly so you can first set an aspect ratio that fits within your monitors resolution to get the framing, then scale up to your desired resolution from there. Beware though that the 3D window may take quite a while to regenerate.



Ling.
Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26
Lingwisyer
Guru
rm wrote:
I wonder if the function works fine on a PC only

I have not noticed any issues with it the few times I have needed to use it, so that maybe the case... It can take an excessively long time to generate the view after enlarging the window though, during which time AC basically grinds to a standstill...



Ling.

AC22-23 AUS 7000Help Those Help You - Add a Signature
Self-taught, bend it till it breaksCreating a Thread
Win10 | R5 2600 | 16GB | GTX1660 
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
rm wrote:
and a pallet comes up to change the overall pixel size for width and height - highlighted in RED. Once you hit, OK the image increases in size. In my case the whole screen goes black, not sure why. I then right click on the black screen and select, save and place in layout book.
Hi Robert,

Thanks for clarifying. I've reproduced the bug that you and tech support found in AC 23 (build 4004). The bug is in the Set Window Size dialog which will not set the vertical size to an arbitrary pixel value. If I check the padlock to maintain proportions, it shows the result but then ignores it after OK. Similarly, if I type anything larger than what is shown for vertical pixels, and OK, it is ignored and the original value sticks.

On my Mac, I got the black 3D window after I went above 8,000 pixels wide, and I have a Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16 GB graphics memory... so this is another ARCHICAD issue, vs the graphics card.

Did you consider placing a manual-update rendering view onto the layout, since you can specify your exact pixels there and only update it as needed, so that rendering time won't matter. (Saved 3D views can either generate in the 3D window or as a rendering... see the view's Settings.) The preset "Outdoor Daylight Fast" with Sky Setup changed to "None" is quite fast and with a few tweaks can look similar to (perhaps even better than) the OpenGL screenshot that you show. Just save the modified preset with a new name and use that name in your saved 3D view, place the view on a layout and then open the drawing settings and change it to Manual update. You'll be 100% linked and just have to click update to update the cover sheet image if needed. While some time might be required adjusting settings (e.g., global illumination), you'd have the saved settings for use in future projects.

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
rm
Expert
Hi Karl -

Thanks for testing and confirming the same results with the Set Window Size dialogue box that I too experienced. If you have not already, might be good to let GS NA know you to have replicated the same issue.

As for your suggested work around. Personally, I have never been a fan of the built in rendering capabilities of AC. That is why for quick studies, I like the OpenGL images and for my presentation renderings I prefer to use a 3rd party solution. Anxious to see TM 2020 released and also giving Lumion a try now.

The two main reasons I don't care for the built in AC rendering, is you cannot get full screen realtime previews like you can in TM, Lumion or Artlantis. More importantly, I don't like tying up an AC license to do rendering when we need to get our architectural documentation done.

That said, I appreciate once again your helpful suggestions and vast experience knowledge of AC!
Robert Mariani
MARIANI design studio, PLLC
Architecture / Architectural Photography
www.robertmariani.com

Mac OSX 13.1
AC 24 / 25 / 26