Method of creating a super-light-weight "hollow box" model for aerial setups?

[Nathank9000]

Let’s say you need to make a development with 8 different house models scattered around a landscape, 5 copies of each, so 40 houses total.

Problem is, each house model is about 150-200 MB, with all the details & textures. So 40 of them make even a Ryzen 9 7950X3D and a 16-GB videocard choke and die.

Is there any way to take a detailed model of a house, and make a “hollow box” version of it, in some sort of automated fashion, so these “hollow box” models can be put together in an aerial setup without overloading the machine?

In other words, I have the super-detailed model that can be edited & is great for closeups, but I also need to make a “frozen” version of it that’s as light-weight as possible.

How would you go about it?

[dezmo]

FredoGhost | SketchUcation

(An older one, not sure if it still works on a newer Sketchup: Proxy View | SketchUcation )

[bmike]

Is it just for plan view?
I usually just copy the roof planes, porches, patios, etc then drop them into another model.

You could also try this extension:

BIMShell - Simplify BIM models and more

A small showcase of a 3D building model simplification using the Voxel Shell function [Voxel shells of different resolutions] Plus a short comparison on the effect in terms of poly count (triangles, rather than SketchUp faces) and file size (based on .glb export). [Poly count and size at selected resolutions]

[monospaced]

If the house was built in an organized fashion, with tags for different elements— floor, roof, walls, furniture, accessories, etc — this would be incredibly simple. You would simply hide all of the non-visible tags (e.g., interior), leaving only the walls and roof, making it incredibly easy to copy only those elements, which I imagine would be under 1MB each if done correctly.

[citygeometrix]

Like @bmike accurately pointed out, this sounds pretty much like a situation that BIMShell could handle well. Please give it a try (particularly the Outer Shell option, if you want to keep the texture, but reduce the polygon count). It basically removes all internal geometries, and it can get coarser to finer according to the grid resolution that you set.

I would be curious to learn to which extent it can help solve your issue.

[Nathank9000]

Here’s my feedback so far:

1.) Installed the extension, it didn’t show up until I closed every instance of Sketchup and started a fresh one. Not sure if this is expected behavior or a potential conflict with one of my other extensions, but it’s definitely a stumbling block, especially for new users.

2.) It would be nice to have it as a toolbar/icon, like many other extensions. Going through the menus is a hassle when you have a lot of things installed.

3.) It lets me generate the footprint shell - which is useful for many purposes. But when I tried the other shells, it says there’s no valid license - even though it’s supposed to be a 7-day trial. Again, it’s nothing I can’t solve by going back to your site & signing up for the trial, but it’s another thing that some users, especially beginners, may not think of.

4.) I got an E-mail with the receipt, but no license number. Is it supposed to be a separate E-mail? If so, I’m not getting one (it’s been 10+ minutes).

Soo… it looks like a REALLY interesting idea, but the onboarding process could use some improvements.

[Nathank9000]

And it died on the next reload:

Extension Errors Report

SketchUp: 24.0.553

OS: Windows 11

Ruby: 3.2.2

Extension: BIMShell (1.1.0)

Error: Errno::EACCES (Permission denied @ rb_sysopen - c:/users/[REDACTED]/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2024/sketchup/plugins/su_bimshell/lib/BIMShell.so)

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2291:in `initialize’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2291:in `open’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2291:in `block in copy_file’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2290:in `open’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2290:in `copy_file’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:1088:in `copy_file’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:887:in `block in cp’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2481:in `block in fu_each_src_dest’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2495:in `fu_each_src_dest0’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:2479:in `fu_each_src_dest’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/RubyStdLib/fileutils.rb:886:in `cp’

c:/users/[REDACTED]/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2024/sketchup/plugins/su_bimshell/cg_bimshell_main.rbe:40:in `module:BIMShell’

c:/users/[REDACTED]/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2024/sketchup/plugins/su_bimshell/cg_bimshell_main.rbe:11:in `module:CityGeometrix’

c:/users/[REDACTED]/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2024/sketchup/plugins/su_bimshell/cg_bimshell_main.rbe:10:in `’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/extensions.rb:197:in `eval’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/extensions.rb:197:in `require’

H:/SKETCHUP - PROGRAM/Tools/extensions.rb:197:in `load’

C:/Users/[REDACTED]/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2024/SketchUp/Plugins/su_bimshell.rb:16:in `register_extension’

C:/Users/[REDACTED]/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2024/SketchUp/Plugins/su_bimshell.rb:16:in `module:BIMShell’

C:/Users/[REDACTED]/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2024/SketchUp/Plugins/su_bimshell.rb:6:in `module:CityGeometrix’

C:/Users/[REDACTED]/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2024/SketchUp/Plugins/su_bimshell.rb:5:in `<top (required)>’

[citygeometrix]

Thanks a lot Nathan for this detailed feedback, I’m on your case now. Just saw that there was an error sending the licence email! I will fix that.

For all the other issues, I’ll investigate and get back to you ASAP!

[citygeometrix]

@Nathank9000

1.) Installed the extension, it didn’t show up until I closed every instance of Sketchup and started a fresh one. Not sure if this is expected behavior or a potential conflict with one of my other extensions, but it’s definitely a stumbling block, especially for new users.

This is definitely not the expected behaviour, and the first time it is reported. It would be great to have your list of other extensions and also the Ruby Console open while you install the plugin to see if any error message shows up. Also I suspect this to be related to the issue you mentioned on your following post. It sounds like some install/uninstall problems that keep the BIMShell.so file from being accessed because it’s already loaded in a running SketchUp instance. I think the best way to fix all this would be a complete uninstall (plus a manual deletion of the c:/users/[REDACTED]/appdata/roaming/sketchup/sketchup 2024/sketchup/plugins/su_bimshell folder), followed by a relaunch of SketchUp and re-install (ideally open the Ruby Console beforehand).

@Nathank9000

2.) It would be nice to have it as a toolbar/icon, like many other extensions. Going through the menus is a hassle when you have a lot of things installed.

100%! I haven’t worked out the toolbar yet, but definitely I will need to provide one! I’ll lift it up on the priority list

@Nathank9000

3.) It lets me generate the footprint shell - which is useful for many purposes. But when I tried the other shells, it says there’s no valid license - even though it’s supposed to be a 7-day trial. Again, it’s nothing I can’t solve by going back to your site & signing up for the trial, but it’s another thing that some users, especially beginners, may not think of.

As you can guess, the idea of requiring a signup before activating a licence (even the trial one) is obviously to keep track of the users who are interested in trying the tool further than the free to use Footprint shell. The only other way I can see at this stage would be a signup before downloading the extension, which sounds a bit too demanding for me. But anyway, something to think about (or at least clarify in the download page).

@Nathank9000

4.) I got an E-mail with the receipt, but no license number. Is it supposed to be a separate E-mail? If so, I’m not getting one (it’s been 10+ minutes).

There was an issue with the email delivery service and it should be fixed now. I forwarded you the licence email that you never received and that is supposed to follow shortly after the receipt one (2 different services, so can’t combine unfortunately). Sorry for the inconvenience!

@Nathank9000

Soo… it looks like a REALLY interesting idea, but the onboarding process could use some improvements.

Again thanks a lot for your very much appreciated feedback. I will work on making the onboarding process way smoother . Please have a go with the suggested solutions for the first point, and let us know if it makes things better!

[Nathank9000]

Removed, shut down Sketchup, deleted the folder, reinstalled, added the license - still getting an error:

[citygeometrix]

Hmm, your licence is fine but sounds like the voxel shell failed. Are you having issue with the Outer Shell method as well? And would you be able to share your model strictly for debugging purpose please? I am very intrigued by what could make such a robust approach fail (happy to sign an NDA if required).

[Nathank9000]

I sent you a Dropbox link by DM.

[citygeometrix]

Thank you! Here are the results of my tests:

The voxel shell worked fine at the resolutions of 0.3m and 0.2m. Which value have you tried?
In general, this is not the ideal approach for tilted roofs anyway as you can see the staircase effect that it produces on them. You can try higher resolution (lower values), but you may end up with as many faces as the model you try to reduce.

The Outer Shell may be a better option. Here is the result at 0.2m resolution. As you can see it didn’t capture the beams below the balcony. But it removed quite some interior details. I tried at 0.15m (~7min) but not much difference. So you may try even lower or simply copy and paste the columns if they matter.

Also, closing gaps like the one below can help getting an even lighter shell as it would segregate a bit better the inside and the outside. Still, it seems BIMShell did manage fairly well though.

Finally, I had a few errors during the processes, which resulted in the process stopping but the waiting window still displaying.

Error: #<TypeError: reference to deleted Face>

This only happens when I select a sub-group rather than the whole model. Maybe some faces have been deleted? In any case that some additional work for me in terms of error handling. Hope this helps!

[tweenulzeven]

@A437539856 Please don’t dubbelpost as it is against forum guidelines…

If you want to adress someone personally you can use @ before there forum name (as I did in the first sentence of this post) to give them a message that they are mentioned. You can also send them a private message by clicking on their avatar (the cirlce to the left of their name) and click on message. It is possible you are not yet able to do this since you are new to the forum. This function should be enabled for you when you have made a small number of posts…

[A437539856]

Thank you for your reminder. I have deleted the duplicate post.