[red_shift]

Can someone explain how to get the Maxwell camera to match the SU camera. In Maxwell the camera has a smaller FOV both horizontally and vertically even though the focal lengths are the same.

[JDHill]

Have you tried opening the Maxwell Camera panel, checking 'Show Render Area', and then clicking OK? The render should match whatever is shown in the viewport when this is enabled, provided that you're using a perspective camera in SketchUp, and don't have any lens shift in your Maxwell camera.

[red_shift]

Well, this is just the problem. I have tried that, but that changes the viewpoint in SU to match Maxwell. When I then alter the camera location in SU to get the extent of view that I want and export out images from SU, they are overlaid by gray bars and/or squares. So it's a Catch-22. I am wanting to export linework, etc. from the Sketchup view to overlay on the Maxwell render, but I find it almost impossible to match two accurately. Why can't Maxwell's camera parameters be adjusted to match what is in the SU view? I don't even mind doing it manually if there is a way to do that.

[JDHill]

It basically has to do with the Maxwell camera being more realistic than the SketchUp camera. You might consider those guides (gray bars) annoying, but they are the only way of showing you what you are going to get, given the Maxwell camera's filmback and output aspect ratio. So the way of doing what you want to do is different only in that you would want to reverse your strategy: you want to make the SketchUp viewport match the Maxwell camera using the visual guides the plugin provides (or conversely, adjust the Maxwell camera so the guides match your viewport).

A couple of points about that feature - it's something I had to implement from scratch in other plugins, and it's valuable because there are often times (most often, I'd think) that you don't want your output being affected by something as fleeting as the physical pixel dimensions of the viewport - just move a toolbar, and your output gets screwed up. So, by doing things this way, it doesn't matter what you do to the viewport - your output remains consistent. That said, my other plugins also have, by default, a viewport-matched output, and that is not the case in this SketchUp plugin.

So, for the time being, I'd say, use the plugin's camera to define your output by:

a) adjusting the output dimensions (or film) such that the Maxwell camera matches your SketchUp view
b) adjusting your SketchUp viewport such that it matches what the Maxwell camera shows you

Then, in the new plugin, your camera will have two output resolution modes: auto (or, 'viewport') , where the plugin will match the viewport automatically, and manual, where it will work as it does now, in a viewport-independent way.

[red_shift]

That all makes sense. I just wonder why once I check "show render area" in the Camera selections that upon exporting a 2D image from SU that it is covered by a series of horizontal gray bars? The vertical bars would not be a problem, but these multiple bars run across the image left to right.

[JDHill]

Hmm, that would be a problem, but I'm not seeing it here. What format are you exporting to, and what OS/SketchUp version are you using? Also, which other plugins/scripts might be running?

[red_shift]

I am using SU 7.1.5803 , OS X 10.6.2 I get that result any time I check "show render area" and then export a 2D image. If I uncheck it, the image exports normally.

[JDHill]

Okay, I figured it out. It looks like if you enable anti-aliasing on the SketchUp output, that it louses up the rendering, but only on OSX. Let me know if the 2D rendering from SketchUp looks as expected with anti-alias disabled. I'll have to see if there's any way to work around this - I'm not aware of any way for the plugin to detect when SketchUp is actually rendering, so that it could disable the film overlay during that time.

[red_shift]

That works, but only for 640x480. If I increase the image size by a multiple, say to 2560x1920 I get the same problem, even with antialiasing off.

[JDHill]

I see that now. Looks like this is just a general OSX SU issue - if you open the ruby console and type 'Sketchup.active_model.active_view.camera.aspect_ratio=1.8', hit enter, then try to export a 2D image, it'll come with those messed-up gray bars. I'm still looking for a workaround for you...

[red_shift]

Thanks JDhill..I thought I had stumbled upon a solution with the FixAspectRatio ruby plugin for SU that at least sets the viewport to what the Maxwell plugin establishes. But, exported images still have the grey bars as before. I'll look some more on the Sketchucation forums, but I'm not really a software debugger..

[JDHill]

Well, I've posted it as a bug on the SU forums, because that's really what it is; we are simply calling a normal SU API function that sets the current camera's aspect ratio, showing off-view portions as overlaid in grey. On OSX, however, this seems to be bugged in SU, and those overlays get mangled up with the output image when you Export > 2D Graphic. Apparently, rendering to PDF seems to use a different route in SU (that is, it must not use OpenGL or screen-grab, as the jpg/png/tiff exports seem to do), so that may be one possible workaround for you. On our end, I am trying to see if I can alter the plugin so that it does not need the SU aspect ratio to be set in order to obtain a good result...more news on that when I have some.

[red_shift]

Thanks JDHill! I will try PDF output. I hadn't thought of that. I have been trying several workaround, but nothing seems to work. Thanks for your help on this.

[red_shift]

Here's a kick in the shorts...the PDF export doesn't export textures, just base color.

[JDHill]

Lovely. I don't have any other ideas yet, other than using a screengrab...but that won't get you to the resolution you want.