Monochrome and Hidden Line

SketchUp
1

I just wanted a bit of clarification on the terminology of the face styles.

This is how the tool-tip on the toolbar (Styles) displays:

Monochrome - Display the model with only front and back face colors.
Hidden Line - Hide all back edges and face colors in the model.

This is how the Knowledge Base Help Center describes:

Front Color, Back Color - Sets the default color for all front and back sides of faces.
Hidden Line - Display faces without any shading or textures.

  1. Consistency of the style names and discription
    The term “Monochrome” is used in the toolbar and “Face Style” under “View”, but that is not how the Knowledge Base lists it. Plus, the Styles Dialogue’s Tool-tip is not really consistent.

    506Ă—875 49 KB

    Why not just say “Display shaded with textures mode.” and “Display monochrome mode.”?

  2. the names are quite confusing.
    I may not be aware of the history or concept behind how the face style names developed in SketchUp, but wouldn’t “hidden line” mean that the lines are hidden?
    The tool-tip description kinda hints that something is hidden - “Hide all back edges and face colors in the model” but, I don’t think it is suitable explanation of the name.
    Monochrome is usually black and white, or one color in different shades. But this shows default front and back face colors which can be totally different shades of color?

Conclusion:
I think the “Hidden Line” mode really should be called “Monochrome” mode, and “Monochrome” mode should be called “Front/Back” mode, or “Evaluation” mode. As we often use this mode to evaluate if the faces are oriented properly.

Any thoughts?

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2

“Hidden Line” means actually “Hidden Line Removal” (HLR) which is a common term for this display mode.

The default outside color is white, the default inside color is grey. Therefore “Monochrome” is correct at least until you override the inside/outside color by your custom color.

3

I suppose it make sense since Hidden Line is commonly used terminology.
Thanks for the clarification.

well…the back face is blueish-gray. so…I suppose they are shades of blue?
I still think either the name or descriptions for the “Monochrome” mode can be better.
The tool-tip on styles dialogue says the Monochrome mode is “Display shaded using all same”. That doesn’t really explain anything.

4

I would agree if Monochrome would become Front/Back. Way easier to understand.

Hidden line is as standard as can be though you have a point… Sketchup is not as standard as can be, that’s the whole purpose of it.

I would call it “Opaque Wireframe” as face opacity is the only difference from “Wireframe” mode.

Another thing that would make sense is that the sequence should change:

1 - Wireframe
2 - Opaque Wireframe (Hidden Line)
3 - Front/Back (Monochrome)
4 - Shaded
5 - Shaded with Textures

Finally it would be very cool to have an unshaded with textures style, wich would remove all shading from a texture model. This would be a perfect diffuse/color channel.

I think we also miss a true monochrome and/or greyscale mode where textures are displayed but greyscaled, without the need to alter them (or allowing for that sort of combo on styles manager).

I am using greyscale plugin that does this, but it does alter materials and that affects renders. So the model I am using in Layout wich is greyscaled, can’t be used in Thea render as it gets no colors there.

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5

Yeah, I was going to mention this in regards to “Monochrome” mode, but thought it might be too many things at once.
But I definitely agree with you.

At least in my workflow, the most often used modes are Hidden Line, and Shaded with Texture. Hidden Line is most useful when I am overlaying it on top of my render to get “Ambient Occlusion” effect.

6

Now that we shifted discussion altogether… :smiley:

Styles are really a great way of creating render passes inside sketchup. They help us compose an image with an image editor very very fast.

In this regard styles is way ahead of competition, however it stopped evolving long time ago. Simple things would help us so much!

Imagine having render passes scenes and compositing them as layers within Layout…

If layout would have blending modes to viewports, like multiply, screen, overlay, etc… imagine what could we do.

it would turn Layout into the first 3D image compositor.

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7

Well, then Layout will touch Photoshop’s territory. I’m not sure if that is a smart idea.
I am happy with my SketchUp, Vray, Photoshop workflow. We shouldn’t really create any overlaps, but perhaps make some process simpler/better.

True that. Simple things like that really does help us in the workflow.

8

You’re thinking like an archviz guy. I’m thinking about ways of communicating to construction, along with vector information

Having overlays isn’t just useful for creating beautiful images, but also for schematics, detailing stuff, creating better graphics for people to understand construction better.

However, I’m also being limited by the way I work with sketchup. I’m an architect doing everything with skechup, concept design, archviz, licencing, construction documentation and also supporting construction teams.

However there are a lot of people that use sketchup in a much more ceative way, those would find a new level of interest on overlaying 3D viewports on the fly instead of having to export everything statically to 3rd party software that outputs raster images instead of accurate vector graphics. I know I would find that interesting.

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9

I was wondering what that meant. and then I realized that is what I do. Or, at least part of what I do.

I understand what you are trying to say. I appreciate your input :smiley:

10

Hey what greyscale plugin were you using… 8 years ago :laughing: … and do you use one today?

11

Load error reinstalling Greyscale Plugin SU2016 - Extensions - SketchUp Community

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