Hello!
I would like to know if it’s possible to export a smooth curve in SketchUp as PDF without the hidden geometry…
PDF export is on the left, SketchUp is on the right. The PDF doesn’t work for me because I would like to show it as smooth as possible, but have it still be a vector graphic.
Any help would be appreciated!
That is very unlikely possible. Shading of smooth surfaces is a function of all the facets of a mesh, a very special gradient. 2D vector graphics support primitive gradient types (linear, radial) and to limited degree higher parametrized ones.
The only reasonable way to represent complex smooth shading is to rasterize it (e.g. Inkscape rasterized unsupported effects to raster layers in PDF). As far as I know, SketchUp only has the option to export all raster or all vector (what you see is not hidden geometry, but the artifacts between the boundaries of the facets). Sketchup’s PDF exporter would need such an option for mixed vector/raster export.
You could of course hide edges and profiles and do a raster export, do a vector PDF export with hidden-line face style, and finally comose them in a single PDF file.
Exporting from LayOut with Hybrid rendering would yield a PDF with the edges as vector lines but the fill as a raster image.
I’d like to suggest the hybrid export feature for future versions of SketchUp, but Anssi’s response about LayOut seems to do the trick easily. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer!
Thank you so much! I have never tried LayOut. I’ll check it out 
