Hi Sketchuo pros…I am making an etching of a house using the photo match technique. Once the model is finished, it will lines only. My quandry is that I need all of the lines to be the same weight. If some are thin, I won’t be able to etch them. Is there a way to “select all” and tell the lines to all have the same weight? I need them to be 1-2 points. Thankyou for your input.LINE THICKNESS.skp (123.4 KB)
Interesting house.
Currently the style you are using has Profiles set to 2 so Profile edges will show heavier. You can set them to 1 and they’ll appear the same as non-profile edges. Make sure you update the style after making the change.
What sort of export are you using to get to the etching stage? You can probably use LayOut if you want all the lines to appear heavier.
Please complete your profile with SketchUp version and your actual graphics card.
Hi Dave…The thickest lines in my render are borderline thick enough…Perhaps 1.5X the thickest lines would be better, but the key point is that ALL lines will need to be the same weight. I then need to export this “cartoon=like” design n the best possible resolution, so I can run it through my Vector Magic software, which will convert it to vectors, scalable to any size without distortion. From there I will make a film stencil and sandblast it on the glass, tile, or whatever the customer prefers. I will use JPEG for the prep for the Vector Magic process, unless Vray or something else can give me a non=pixelated (clean) piece of line art. your opinion matters DaveG. I remember you from a few years ago. You were very knowledgeable and helpful. Thankyou for your input! Rob in Syracuse NY
You can’t make the normal edges in LayOut any thicker than they are. Send the file to LayOut, though, and you can make vector edges at whatever thickness suits the job. Then export an image or export a vector file.
This is from a project I’m working on at the moment.
Vector line work at 0.6 pt.
Or at 2.0 point.
Set it to whatever you want.
DaveG…Here are a couple of things I found by poking around the web. both images look like single line widths, no grays, no hatching, just clean lines. I can’t say much for the building scene, but at least the render would be sandblastable. About 1.5X those lines would fin, and I will blacken in some area where needed for expression.
So LayOut seems to be just the thing.
By the way, who is DaveG?
How about using a wireframe (unique) component superimposed on the original component instance. The wireframe component has all its profiles (a certain set width) over all other edges of the original component.
The unique component has all its faces removed.
Sorry DaveR…I mistyped your name…You helped me out long ago. About the lines…All of the lines have to be the same weight. It is typical Sketchup that defines the outer edges heavier than the inner linework. I would like to be able to select all of the lines and apply an Universal thickness to everything. Then it will look like a pen and ink mechanical. Also, is there a way for me to get a larger file? When I do a 2D export, it’s exports as a VERY low resolution file, so much so that it would be impossible to get a clean vectorization.
Thanks
So Layout…is that a part of SU 2018? I know I have SU and Vray, but don’t know what Layout is?
That is only a style setting. As I said at the beginning, you can set the Profiles to 1 so all the edges have the same weight.
Setting Profiles to 1 is the closest you can come in SketchUp to doing that. In LayOut you have the option to select a different lineweight that will affect all edges equally.
You can change the exported image size in SketchUp’s Export window by clicking on Options. Line weight will appear to get lighter as you increase export size. In LayOut you can export vector lines which will be sharper and with the increased lineweight setting, they lines don’t have to appear thin.
I’ll try anything DaveR, But can you tell me where the “Layout” feature is? Thanks. Rob
LayOut is part of the SketchUp Pro package which you should have since you’ve been using SketchUp for your business.
Dave…Where do I click to use “Layout”? I appreciate your patience
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There are several ways. In SketchUp, go to File and click Send to LayOut.
I found it DaveR, but it doesn’t allow me to select all lines, or just one line. This is a snip of the Layout workspace. I used a simplistic design so I could learn how it works. I need to select all lines, or just 1 line and set the line width. 2 points should be enough, but might need 3-4 points. Thankyou Dave
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No, it doesn’t allow you to change individual line widths, but it does allow you to make all of the lines heavier at once, which is what you wanted originally. Dave showed the solution, with graphics to support them.
Hi Ben, hi dave…The only graphics I see are the snip that I sent of a simple line drawing (JPEG)…Perhaps I’m missing Dave’s graphics? Thankyou.
I was hoping someone could make the design I sent earlier "all one thickness lines, all the same, at least 2 points…I will try to attach it again. I appreciate the efforts of you folks at the Sketchup Community. You people have solved many a quandry for me in the past. Thankyou
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LINE THICKNESS.skp (123 KB)
The first thing you need to do is edit the style like I told you.
You didn’t do that.
You should also set the style to Hidden Line so you only have black edges on white background.
Create a scene to create a fixed location for the camera in case you need to go back to it.
Send it to LayOut.
Select the viewport, render it as Vector and set the Line Weight (it’s called Line Scale in LO 2019) to 2.
Presto! All the lines have the same weight of 2 points just like I showed you yesterday.
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DaveR…I just saw your message with the “gotomeeting” link…I think I installed it, but it says the link has expired…Could you resend it and tell me how to open it. I appreciate this. I have a renewed interest in SU modeling, and am ready to get to work…Also tried to import a JPG for photomatch, and it says it has been locked by another user, so I tried a personal photo and it says the same thing. I will stand by my computer watching for your post to my message. Thankyou