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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
Modifier key assignment and Create polylines tip:
I like the implementation of lines and curving.
In the Create polylines tip it says: ..if you press alt key while drawing the first segment, a curve will be created... I may be missing something here, but shouldn't it say: .. if you press CTRL-click to end the first segment, a curve will be created... ?
Here CTRL curves a polyline (just like a wall), but there is something strange with magnetism - SHIFT toggles magnetism for polylines, and ALT does not seem to be doing anything for Polylines.
ok
Version 5.0 Beta 10 Java version 1.8.0_45 / 32 bit / 0.6 GB max
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
Thanks OK for your deep review. I actually wrote the tip for Mac OS X, and forgot to mention that under Windows, the Ctrl key should be used to force the creation of a curved polyline, rather than the alt key. The fixed tip will appear in the next Beta. Note also that the "control" points of the curve are not editable for simplification purpose, but their location are computed in such a way that if you draw a closed square, the resulting curve will be a circle. This tip should avoid to add an other tool able to draw circles and ellipses.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D developer
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
Yes, the curve implementation is good. Much simpler without the Bézier control points.
As for the fonts, I did a little experiment. I fear the symbols/fonts may not survive in a transition between platforms (or are there native Java fonts that would work?).
My test became pretty messy, I tried using multiple same elevation levels, but must get used to how best to work this to switch between normal and construction elements (and then I really do not know how to do technical drawings in the first place).
France
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
The Beta 11 brings the support for $level variable in the print setup dialog box, to print the name of the current level (thanks to Stefan idea). I wanted to add also the ability to select the printed levels, but finally stopped the development of new features, because this feature isn't so easy to program and I think I shouldn't wait longer to release version 5.0. So now, it's time for translating the new features, and probably adjusting a few things that won't modify the words in the user interface. By advance, thanks to the contributors who help for this translation.
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Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D developer
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last edit by Puybaret at Jul 2, 2015, 8:56:41 PM]
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
The Beta 10 improves font rendering in the 3D view. Now the size of the generated texture image is always between 256² and 512² pixels, so if the text size is small, its texture image will be still not too small in the 3D view, and if the text is very long, the width and height of its texture image will be computed in a way their product is at worse 512² (which already requires 1 MB in memory!). In the previous version, the quality deteriorated quickly with the length of the text because the longest size (width or height) was never larger than 512 pixels. A text with ↑ ∼ ∠ ♣ symbols was correctly displayed in the plan and the 3D view on my side. I guess your issue as well as the one with Symbol characters might depend on the font you use and the system. Just for the fun, I tried to render this small text with the photo creation tool.
SnakeGB, I hope the two issues you reported on 3D texts will work better now (I noticed that from far away, letters like g, p, q... with a drawing below text baseline may still generate a small artifact at the top of the 3D text, but I'm not sure I can still improve it).
Yes fonts working great now, pollylines are a great feture when planning
USA
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
Here's a problem I've been having since Beta 4 (?), as demonstrated in Beta 12. (No demo file, as it's easier to create your own than download mine.)
1. Create sloping wall. Here I have two, the first sloping from 4 units to 6, the second from 6 units to 4. Texture on wall alternates colors every 1 unit. To make the bug easier to see, on the left hand wall I've defined a baseboard 4 units high with a different texture in 1-unit bands.
2. Add another level.
3. Return to your original level and change its elevation to something other than 0. (In this instance, I set it to 1 unit.) This enables a floor for the level.
Note what happens to the ending height of sloping walls.
(Note: The uneven vertical edges are seemingly an artifact of the surprisingly bad antialiasing -- note the jagged diagonal edges, as well.)
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
I should clarify by 'surprisingly bad antialiasing' I meant 'surprising because I'd never noticed any problems with it in actual production renders.' I may have stumbled across a not-so-sweet-spot: Just the right combination of resolution, focal length, and object geometry to cause problems.
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Re: Sweet Home 3D 5.0
This was a problem in 4.6, and it remains in the 5.0 beta. I first came across it while trying to fake a lightbulb in a hanging fixture, but it shows up in other circumstances, as well.
The easiest demonstration is using a light source and a sphere on which I've mapped a partially transparent PNG as a texture. This is the situation where I first came across the bug.
1. 'Baseline' render of light source alone. Light at 1-inch diameter and 3-foot elevation, with a small square floor at 0 elevation.
2. Light source and sphere concentric, both with 2-inch diameter and 3-foot elevation. Sphere is not illuminated by light source; light is not filtered by sphere texture.
3. Light source and sphere concentric. Light has 2-inch diameter and is at 3' 1/8" elevation. Sphere has 2.25-inch diameter and is at 3-foot elevation. Light source is filtered by sphere texture (IIRC, 30% transparent PNG).
Note dark rectangular artifact in center of image.
This second example demonstrates a similar issue using a flat translucent filter a various distances from a light source.
1. Basic set-up: Light 'fixture' is a half-sphere modeled in Sketchup. Fixture is 5 inches in diameter at 3-foot elevation. 'Inside' the fixture is a white light source at 1-inch diameter, aligned with the fixture on X and Y axes, with an elevation of 3' 1". Filter is also aligned on X and Y; it measures 6 inches on a side and is 1/8-inch deep. A partially transparent PNG has been mapped against the filter object as a texture. (Not visible here is a square floor at 0 elevation.)
2. 'Baseline' render, with filter at 2' 8" elevation. (Oddly, this image does not display the expected bug.)
3. Filter at 2' 0" elevation. No bug.
4. When filter is raised to 2' 2", the expected block of projected filtered light (as seen in the previous image) is somehow blocked by dark rectangular artifact.
5. At elevation of 2' 6", artifact still exists; projected block of filtered light is larger than artifact and can be seen as colored fringe outside of artifact.
6. At elevation of 2' 9", artifact remains, with filtered block increasing in size.
7. Filter elevated to 2' 11-7/8", bringing top face of filter into contact with fixture. (In other words, all light visible from light source must pass through the filter.) Note increasingly artificial appearance of artifact. (That is, in comparison with images 5 and 6, where the artifact seems more like a failed scene element than a clearly extraneous glitch.)
8. 'Nighttime' variant on render 7, clearly demonstrating artifact.
A few more examples. Without going into too much detail, these are test renders I generated a couple of months ago while experimenting with the use of translucent gradients to create directionally variable lights.
For instance, in the left-most image, all four fixtures contain concentric spheres and light sources, with the diameter of the light sources 98% that of the spheres. All spheres have translucent white textures; however, the two on the left have a uniformly 50% transparent texture, while the two on the right have a gradient ranging from 50% transparent down to 15% and back, with the gradient oriented so the area of greatest opacity is between the light source and the wall at the back of the scene. As you can see, the two lights with gradient textures do not 'burn out' as badly as the two with uniform textures while casting a comparable amount of light in other directions. (Note the reflection in the surface below the lights.)
However, what's important here is *not* my oh-so-clever use of gradient textures ; instead, it's our old friend the Artifact that seemingly appears whenever a light source is completely enclosed in or blocked by other objects.