Hi there all. in the picture attached, the left Cylinder was modeled in Sketchup3D( AutoCAD gives the same result when saved in 3DS and then loaded in Vue). The right Cylinder was modeled in Wings3D and saved in 3DS and loaded in Vue. Regardless of what rendering mode I choose, the Sketchup3d/AutoCAD one always renders faceted, whereas the Wings3D one looks smooth. When modeled, the Sketchup3D one was drawn as a circular/surface having made up of 12 or 16 closed segmants/polylines, and then extruded/pushed up to make the Cylinder. The Wings3D one is just a regular Cylinder primitive scaled uniformly and by default has 16 sides/faces. They both get saved in 3Ds format. How is it that they render differently in Vue? Thanks in advance, Nick

Try importing them into the Sketch/Wings visa versa and see what happens. Could be a vue thing but I doubt it.

It looks to me as if the Wings3D program is generating a NURBS model, rather than a polygon model. These are two different 3d technologies. A polygon model is made of "faces" (polygons), and vertices, with the final geometry of the model calculated from the vertices. A NURBS model ("Nonuniform Rational B-Splines") uses an entirely different technology and will always give a smooth curve - it doesn't use polygons. The technology is something like a Bezier curve - curved lines extending from points, rather than straight lines, as in polygons. NURBS models require more horsepower to compute, and the software that makes them is more complex. Typically, NURBS models are converted to a polygon representation before they can be saved in .3ds file format. (So, they end up as polygons, but typically have more faces in wireframe mode, and the file size is larger.) Understandable?

I can understand that of course. So that means even though they can be exported in a same format as in 3DS, but their diff tech. make one smooth and the other faceted when rendered?! I just modeled a Cylinder in Form.Z and saved it in 3DS and loaded it in Vue. It is also smooth when rendered and it was created the same way as the Sketchup model. First the circle and then extruding in z direction. I will have to do few more tests. Wings3D is a polygonal mesh modeler as this reads on their website: , so got to do more research. Thank you guys again.

Nick do you have the recent update to SU? They have that problem solve in the new version. That really bothered me as well. You can make nice circles now as well. By holding down the shift key while erasing unwanted lines like in an arch or column. shoop

I think Forester is right. It is a question of what modeling "language" a program uses and wether Vue can understand it. Nurbs and splines are completely different methods to discribe a curve. Even splines do have a lot of subspecies which not all programs can handle (of course). So what happens. Vue is reading a 3DS file with a curve description that it cannot understand. It tries it's best and takes the keypoints as curve points ignoring the interpretation of the in-between. Result is a faceted cylinder. Most modeling program do offer a convertion from one curve model to another. You should look for that and try out other modes. To do an anthology. What would you do if i'll send you a tutorial written in sanscrit and you have to interpretate it. You would take the words you understand and try to bring them in a sort of context. Exactly what Vue is doing.

Shoop, yes I do have the latest version and in sketchup it looks smooth when you make a cylinder and you can even do some tricks to get rid of lines and edged on topos, but when you export the model as 3ds and load it in view, the edges/facets still show. With the previous version, I used to get a lot of triangulation( still in version 3 when you look at the model in wireframe mode. Wabe, thanks for the additional explanation. I guess that might be the case. Calls for more messing about with Vue. Thanks guys, Nick

Shoop, yes I do have the latest version and in sketchup it looks smooth when you make a cylinder and you can even do some tricks to get rid of lines and edged on topos, but when you export the model as 3ds and load it in Vue, the edges/facets still show. With the previous version, I used to get a lot of triangulation( still in version 3 when you look at the model in wireframe mode. Wabe, thanks for the additional explanation. I guess that might be the case. Calls for more messing about with Vue. Thanks guys, Nick

By golly your right I just tried it as well and there is a noticeable difference. That kind of sucks, now you got me curious I have to play with this as well.

Nick you are right although looking smooth in SU in Vue they are not smooth at all. I never noticed this before as I usually use the Vue cylinder. Good call. Forester has the answer I think. I will email SU and ask a few questions. Thanks, Shoop

Hey guys, when you draw the circle in Sketch, right click on it and select properties. Select arc and increase the segments on it. The default is 24 and it makes it look jagged. I experimented with 70 segments and it helped tremendously. Let me know if this works!

Ok now I am stumpped.. I right click and select properties but I do not see an arc selection? I am missing something? shoop

You have to right click on the circle before you apply the push/pull tool. Sketch won't allow any alterations on an extruded surface. I found that out the hard way! LOL!

Ok I get it now the edge has to be highlighted and then right click for edge properties and you are right on 70 smoothes it out nicely. Well done Shari you are very resourceful. Thanks again, shoop

Ah, yes. Nice detective work by all. Autocad is using the ancient .dxf format before it every converts to .3ds mode. Maybe SU is also.

Forester down load the trial version if you have time. The program is amazing as far as modeling goes. The push pull technology is very impressive to me anyway. shoop

Hi All, I tried changing the number of segments in SU for the circle to 70 as it was suggested. Then loaded it in Vue and tried without modifying anything in the Polygon mesh dialog and rendered the object both in preview and final mode. You can still see the faces. Then I thought I should mess about with the Polygon mesh dialog, so I changed the smoothing angle few times and when rendered in both modes, still you could see the faces. There is a pic. attached. Don't know, maybe this is because of my graphic card on this old laptop.I'll keep trying to see what happens. Thanks all, Nick

Hey Nick, I played around some more by increasing the segments to 140 and it came close. I might suggest as high as 200 segments or more. I think we're on the right track, it just takes more than I thought :) (Just as a sidenote: I am definitely not a Sketch Up expert)

Hey Shari, yes we could increase the number of segments as much as we want but that makes the file size huge. I just did a default cylinder 3' in rad and 6' hi in SU and the file size was only around 9KB. Then i did another one the same size, but with 200 segments and the file size went up to 43KB. Almost 5 times more on a simple cylinder. Just imagine if there are lots of curved objects in the scene. Of course Vue would not have any problem with that, I was just thinking about the way they render. Thanks again, Nick

A very ancient discussion. The number of sgments you are using depends from some other factors. How close do you come to the cylindar, do you see it only from the sides or can you see the top or bottom (then you see the facets a lot better). The closer you come, the more facets you will need. But beside this, i think the discussion needs more to go in the direction "why is Vue not dealing with splines/nurbs?" or "why is Sketchup not sending the right type of splines/nurbs?" Facets are facets. You can define as many points on the curve as you want, you always will be able to create situations where you can see the facets.

Nick1, you have Sketchup, paid $500 for it, you use it since version 2(!) and you never heard of the segmantation option for arcs? I mean, every Sketchup user has heard of it... I assume that someone who's willing to pay $500, shows that he's really very interested to learn how to use this program. I have a strong feeling that you're using pirated software...

John12 you are way out of line. You can't get SU in a pirated version to my knowledge. I been using the program for over a year and did not know this option. Looks like you are the one starting trouble not Nick. `shoop

Downloaded software, although purchased through legitimate means, does not include a shipment of a manual. Much to the detriment of people trying to learn their legitimately purchased software. I wasn't aware of a problem until I started importing into Vue, and even then I could find very little to help me. So, basically, for the time being, I have layed aside a very expensive program because I don't have a manual to help me learn it. Maybe other people are having this problem as well!

RDS: "You can't get SU in a pirated version to my knowledge" So you been looking for it eh? Mmm...

John12, As one of their first users and the very first user on Skeychup3D forum,at any time it would be a pleasure to email you a copy of my receipt for SU. As a matter of fact, I would urge to to call the SU people and please talk either to Brad or Tom or Bryce or Yasser or Sara or Jim or John or Brian( I think I am missing few more)and ask about me. The name is Nick Noakhtar and the company name is Noakhtar Design & Associates. Their telephone number is (303)245-8562. After you talked to them and verified that I have a registered software and satisfied your juvenile curiosity, I would expect an apology. I am sure you can be mature enough to oblige that. As far as the segmentation, if you are talking about the number of arcs which would make a circle and so forth, I should say that I already know about that. The question was since both files are 3ds format, how is it that they render differently. If there is another concern that I might not know about it or I might have missed in regards to segmentation, please advise, and maybe I should review some of the things again. Please, speak wisely

John12 just joined up today to start trouble Nick. You can call SU on me as well. There are so many multi ID users at this site it hardly is worth trying to help anyone with out this little punk and all his friends coming out of the woodwork to cause trouble. Renderosity knows how to solve the problem if you look into the moderators forum but they choose to let little cheats like this run free. Ignore the creep IMHO. `shoop

John12 - If you have nothing constructive to add to the discussion, I and doubtless many others here would be grateful if you would keep your wild and gratuitous allegations, which are perilously close to actionable libel, to yourself! These juvenile antics impress no-one.

Hi Nick,
It has been a while since you had the problem with smoothing 3DS objects created in SketchUp and then imported to Vue. I have been looking for a solution to the problem witch doesnt seem to have changed with SU4. The strange thing is that some users seem to be able to smooth in Vue after splitting the object, I can not.
I found out the problem is that SU constructs the model differently from other 3D programs. Different faces create several points in the same location, and Vue can not smooth that. They say I could fix the model by welding the points in 3DMax, but why would I render in Vue if I had Max? I asked @Last what they can do about it, but I have not gotten a reply.
Did you find a solution to the problem?

Regards,
Heikki