Hey everyone,
This has been bugging me for a while, but is there any way to make Layout 2018 export/display smooth, non-jagged images? Exporting from Sketchup gives nice and smooth images, while Layout is always jagged…
Layout:
Sketchup (2x anti-aliasing)
Thanks!
What are you using for render mode for the viewports in LayOut? Have you tried Hybrid?
I could try that, but in my experience hybrid mode generally takes a very long time to process… But I can try it out. I have a newer computer which may help.
While it will take a little longer to render, Hybrid rendering results in the edges being vector lines instead of raster images. That would be a solution to your complaint. You can try exporting at the High output setting with Raster render. It’ll probably be better but the lines being raster imagery will still be pixelated. Your choice.
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I tried hybrid but it did take a very long time… It’s not practical for me. My guess about why the images are jagged is that it’s somehow tied to how the model views are snappable like the model, as if the rendered view in Layout is still active as a model in a way. It would be nice if when making a PDF or exporting it smooth out the pixels, since it doesn’t need to snap anymore, right?
If setting Output Resolution to High doesn’t yield smooth enough lines, then you would need to render the edges as vector lines which is what Hybrid does. The fact is, as long as you insist on rendering the viewports as raster, the edges will be rasterized and won’t appear sharp like the vector lines do.
maybe you just need to turn off edges in the style you use for the scenes in SketchUp. Then it wouldn’t matter.
Maybe you’d get more acceptable results if you export PNG images of the pages and then insert them into a page editor to create the PDF.
My issue/question is: Why can I export smooth/anti-aliased images from SketchUp, but the image output from Layout is jagged/aliased? (See attached images)
What’s the Output Render setting? Are you exporting an image from LayOut?
Layout render setting is ‘Medium’.
Have you tried High?
I have, but what I’m asking for is edge-smoothing/anti-aliasing. So, it seems like it doesn’t exist in Layout yet. That’s fine. Maybe that’s why there’s a delay in releasing SketchUp 2019…?
This issue is still bothering me. Why is there no anti-aliasing in Layout? And why is it that no Sketchup employees are responding? I know this is a public forum, but I am a paying customer, and this is yet another issue that makes Sketchup/Layout a questionable choice for me moving forward.
Because SketchUp is using a hybrid rendering mode.
As Dave answered last January, your viewports are set to raster render mode.
There is (as Dave explained.)
But also, I believe that LayOut uses the OpenGL settings as set inside the SketchUp preferences (one of which is anti-aliasing.) So check that setting.
It seems the LayOut is using the ol’ WYSIWYG rule, where that which is shown is what is output.
Dave had asked specifically about the “Output Render Resolution.” You answer seems to indicate the Display resolution. (these are separate settings.) Regardless, I don’t see any reason (with today’s fast printers) to have the output resolution set to anything but “High”.
This forum is not for actual official support. That is done via the support portal.
But support is limited to things the support technicians can help with (ie, install, bug workarounds, licensing, etc.)
There is no contract that forces SketchUp employees to publicly comment on why the product does or does not work the way you (or any user) wants it to work. (They have better things to do with their time, which is why this forum exists so users can help other users with questions like this.)
Don’t take that personal. There are millions of SketchUp users. Their employees cannot respond to every question like this.
The best you (or any user) can do, is formulate a well written proper feature request and post it in the LayOut Feature Requests category. Make a good case in support of your ideas.
Talk about the base reason why you keep the viewports set to raster mode even though you need hybrid (vector geometry) rendered output.
You’re not alone, BTW. There have been several posts in the Feature Requests category like this recently. (Several users have expressed the idea of working in “draft mode” but still having output use high quality vector or hybrid rendering.)
These FR posts prompted me to author a request for master override control of viewport render mode, so that document work could be fast and then the render modes set to a presentation quality en masse before printing or export.
Your vote counts, or add your comments …
Dan, as usual your response is well-thought and thorough. However it doesn’t answer why Layout does not generate smooth edged renderings in raster mode. But it’s more of a question for support. Cheers
I can answer some of this. We’re in Boulder, Colorado. I was happily relaxing or sleeping during the whole discussion.
I do get antialiasing when I export PDF as High quality output.
Your images look like you’re letting the export use JPEG compression. That doesn’t really affect antialiasing, but I would turn it off anyway.
Well, I think you should do some research on the web about raster. (It’s pixelated by nature.)
I answered why it may be above, but you never explained what graphics mode and anti-aliasing you have SketchUp set for. Again, LayOut uses the same settings for Hybrid and Vector render mode. So if you want smooth lines, you’ll need to set viewports to one of these two modes.
Same problem here. I don’t think layout has the ability to export anti aliased raster images jet (which is kind of strange). What I do as a workaround is exporting the raster images directly from SketchUp with aniti-alising set to 8X, that works for me.
… perhaps this is the reason for the anti-aliasing to exist, to reduce the “jaggines” of pixels.
Yes, but … why not set LayOut’s render mode to Hybrid before export or printing ?
Well, it depends on what you want to export. I agree that in most cases hybrid or rather vector mode is the best choice but in many cases not. For example in my case, what I wanted to export was an xray scene (not wireframe) and hybrid mode does not support this style (at least in LO 2019). Another reason because I wanted just raster instead of hybrid or vector mode was because it’s performance. In slightly bigger projects with a lot of lines they are way to slow to work with them. Every time I or the program renders I have to wait too much time.
And for example in the case of Cam, there are textures, and textures will behave the same, no matter if it is in raster mode or hybrid mode, the “jaggines”, where the raster elements are located, is happening. The only way to get smooth anti-aliased images is by exporting directly from SU.
I hope in some future Layout will as well support anti-aliasing.
Since this is the first result when Googling “sketchup layout anti aliasing”, I thought it was worth clearing things up for anyone else disappointed with the export results they are getting from Sketchup and/or Layout.
What you see in the Sketchup window, the Layout window, and what gets exported in each program are different things. My understanding is that the real-time Sketchup view of your model uses OpenGL and allows for high-quality anti-aliasing up to 64x, which can be configured from Window > Preferences > OpenGL. To my eye, anything around 16x and up is high quality. This smooths out jagged lines and textures.
When you export from Sketchup, you only get what appears to be 2x or 4x anti-aliasing when you check the “Anti-alias” setting during export.
When exporting from Layout, it appears there is no anti-aliasing available. (By the way, the words raster or vector do not imply whether something gets anti-aliased or not, that just refers to whether lines in Layout remain as actual lines in a PDF. 3D model lines can be rendered as raster lines with or without anti-aliasing)
As mentioned previously, the best way to get a quality image out of Sketchup/Layout is to export 2-4x larger than you need and then downsize. The drawback is that your lines will also be scaled down. One time consuming fix is to export the lines separately in layout as vector lines, adjusting the scale as needed, and then the image without lines in Sketchup, and create a composite image. If your image does not need to be printed at high resolution, the best quality image you can get out of Sketchup is by just taking a screenshot of your sketchup window with high quality OpenGL settings.
Every other 3D modeling application I have used has been able to export with high quality anti-aliasing, so it’s a shame that SketchUp has not at least supported it’s Pro users in this way.
