With Vue4.2 I run into the problem that I cannot smoothe meshes imported from another application, in this case: Sketchup. The reason is that if connecting faces share points, Sketchup stacks the overlapping points from all connecting faces on top each other rather than turning it into a single point. As a result, Vue reads this as several separate faces rather than a continuous mesh. There are programs out there that can convert the stacked points into a single one, creating a "smoothable" mesh, but I wondered if maybe Pro has an option to do this as well? In that case I would prefer to invest in the upgrade rather than buy a whole new application.

What format exports Sketchup? I don't know this soft. Is it for Mac?

I would always prefer to use the original creator software to handle models - as long as it can do that. Only when that is not possible i would look for something else. I think Sketchup should be able to clean and smooth meshes, therefore i always would go for that first. As Gebe already said, it is inportant to know what export format you use from Sketchup.

The exports are in 3ds format - sorry, should have said that right away. I use Sketchup in Windows. Sketchup does have a smoothing option, but that smoothing is lost the 3ds format.

I don't understand why you cannot smooth an object. I have jjust tried in Vue 4.2 to import a 3ds plant that came in 3 pieces. Double-clicked the first part (leaves) and smoothed the mesh. Double-clicked the stem and smoothed it and so on. Where exactly is your problem?

It has something to do with the way Sketchup builds an object, I think. Maybe Im not understanding it correctly myself - heres how a fellow Sketchup user explained it to me: Smoothing SU meshes is prevented in other 3D apps by the fact that SU outputs single faces. If 4 faces share a point then SU will export 4 points on top of each others instead of only one point. Most 3D apps can't smooth this because they see it as 4 separate faces instead of parts of the same mesh. The solution is to remove all those redundant points. I don't know if Vue can do this for you, but many programs can. trueSpace can not. I'm often using Deep Exploration to "join equal 3D points". Does that make it any clearer? Seeing that TrueSpace isnt able to deal with this problem, I doubt Vue Pro is. By the way: you are really QUICK Gebe!! Thanks!

(Oops, that was quick too. Double the pleasure...?)

No, I don't see how Vue or Vue Pro could do that.

But not to forget: Vu eis not a modeling program:-)

MartinPh, if you can convert your file to a .obj - Wings3D, Anim8or or Crossroads can do that for you (all are free) - then UVMapper (also free) has a "weld vertices" tool that will do the job for you. John

Hi John, Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out. I can export in obj. format straight from sketchup, so I'll give it a try and see what happens. Meanwhile I also downloaded the Deep Exploration demo, which looks good but unfortunately costs $299...

No, I was too optimistic there - Sketchup doesnt export Obj.-files - though Im sure the next update will. Meanwhile I downloaded Wings3d, and the good news is that simply converting from 3ds to obj. does the trick: I then get a beautifully smoothed model in Vue! Thanks for the help!

It looks like SU4 did not solve the problem of smoothing objects exported to Vue. Have you found another solution to the problem? Regards, Heikki