I just installed SU 2026 and I was interested into the new tools of mesh creation and texture generation based on the point cloud.
Does it work for any of you?
I can’t replicate what is showed in the webinar.
When trying to generate a texture, after some calculation time I get nothing, no texture is applied to my simple rectangle in front of the point cloud, nor a texture is generated in the material window.
When trying to create a mesh I have 2 options: if I am in an ortho view I get nothing (after a few seconds of calculations) as a result; if I am in a perspective view, after clicking “create mesh” I am asked (with the pencil icon as cursor) to draw something… I am able only to draw a rectangle - at the opposite corners - which is oriented as the screen, not in perspective, and after a few seconds I get a meaningless bunch of tessellated geometry which is flying in the area. Also the geometry created is a group named: “Terrain Mesh From Cloud Selection” but I pushed the “Surface Mesh” button, not the “Terrain” one.
Could you provide screenshots of the cloud you re trying to texture with and the surface mesh you re trying to build with the resulting mesh. Also screenshots of your parameters. (If you can share your full data, we can reproduce it on our side as well)
Also, did you have the latest version ? Has your cloud been moved from its original position ?
Instead I put some time checking the “Terrain Mesh From Cloud” tool and it does not work as expected. I don’t use it a lot and I skipped SU 2025 for this reason, being ok with SU 2024.
I recorded a video and I am going to post it on YT as the other
Keep in mind that I reset the transformation (but it was a new file where I linked the RWI file for the first time, so why there was one anywy?)
This reminds me of the permanent issue (every time) of creating the first clipping box from point cloud which it never mathces the point cloud itself: I would imagine that it should fit the point cloud (like other similar point cloud software when you create a visibility bounding box) but in SU is always off, sometimes a little, some other more up to not show anything: then wticking the box I am able to get closer to the point cloud and set it up as I need.
Beware: the video is long…
Hello, I am Yannick from the SU team and first I would like to apologies for all the trouble.
I went through your video and saw a lot of things^^.
There are a couple of issues in the way you are using the tools that make me think that the workflows are obviously not clear enough and that we will need to go through the UI/UX things to make those easier to understand. I could explain in details later but for now I would like to focus on the real issues that you show.
Obviously the tools (texture/Surface Mesh) don’t find “points” to work with. It is highlighted when you try the “ground mesh” that is created totally off the visible pointcloud : it mleans that SE find the point where they are obviously not and this is why texture and Surface can’t proceed properly.
The first thing I would like you to check is the following :
Could you please, in the project from the video) go to your “components tray” and look for one named “TSE_Manipulator” and especially check if you have more than one of those components
If this is the case (that you have more than one of those) It could definitely explain the issues you have and the solution could be to delete the extra TSE_Manipulator component, at first.
That TSE_Manipulator embed the potential transformations of the PC and is used by SE tools to “know” where the PC actually is. In older SE versions they were somes cases where that manipulator could be doubled (that was a bug) and then make SE confused about the PC real position, that could explain your issues. The counter part is that deleting one of those manipulators could affect the current position of the PC (by somehow reseting it properly). If your project has no particular model yet this should not be an issue.
If this is not a TSE_Manipulator issue I suggest to start from scratch again. I mean :
Start SU then Uninstall SE from the extension Manager
Get the latest version of SE from the extension Warehouse and install it (don’t restart SU in between) : SE version 2025.1013
Once installed, restart SU
At this point, the best would be to re-import the PC if possible (not using the current existing RWP but recreating a brand new one). If not possible just try re-opening the RWP in a fresh SKP
I checked what you asked and the result is that… the issue was my template file, that I have since… forever. - I guess it had a transformation inside that messed up with the location of the PC.
In any case I recreated the RWP file from the original E57 but I don’t think it was that.
There weren’t 2 TSE in the components manager, but after “Reapplying transformation” in the PC manager of SE to the point cloud (something I eventually tried but felt it was wrong to do), things got back to normal. [To me reapplying a transformation means to do something to the default location and move the PC somewhere. Instead looked like the PC was now moved to the default position, substantially the other way around]
Anyway I reinstalled SU, because I was not able to uninstall SE from the extension manager (it failed). [I have to report that I installed (as administrator) SU asking not to install SE (and I downloaded it separately as .rbz) but after installation I discovered (despite asking not to) that SE was already installed. I am sure it was installed freshly because the SE plugin in the old installation was a previous version. In the new installation the plugin is version 2025.1013.]
And now with a fresh install, updated SE plugin and clean template, everything seems to work similar to “What’s new in SU2026 video”
Still I believe SU will have to create extensive tutorials on how to use these new features.
Now I am going to see how large is the texture map created out of the PC (4K!)
I never thought about that… very good catch thank you !! And yes, creating a template from a SKP having a TSE_Manipulator already could definitely create issues. We will work on that.
For the rest (regarding the reset/reapply transformation ) I feel like when you have imported your point cloud, even with no transformation, but because of a TSE_Manipulator, TSE “thought” that there was a transformation and consequently proposed the option to reset or reapply, something I can test on my side.
The “normal” behavior when starting from scratch and with the current SE version is that when you import it may ask you if you want to “align the pointcloud to origin” : it is intented to automatically apply a transformation to get the pointcloud close to the SU origin and it is dedicated to pointcloud that can be initially in a “far away” coordinate system. If your pointcloud is close enough it is definitely not necessary to accept that first transformation and in this case the PC Manager should not show you any reset/reapply option (because there is no transformation). In case you accept that transformation, and/or as soon as you use the SE “move/rotate” options then you will have those options : The idea behind is that when modeling you need your pointcloud close to the origin, but if you need to re-export the model (geometries) in a known coordinate system (the original one from the PointCloud) then you can “reset with geometries” (moving back the geometries together with the pointcloud) then export, and then re-apply to bring back everything to your “working” location.
Regarding the installation : Extensions for SU are installed in a separate “plugin” folder that is not uninstalled when uninstalling SU (C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2026\SketchUp\Plugins). It means that even after uninstalling/reinstalling SU, when you will start it, it will load extensions that are in that folder (including obviously Scan essentials at the version it was) this is probably why it was still there. Once updated from the EWH that will still the same, but with the latest version.
In any case I am happy you were able to figure things out. Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions about how things are working, as I agree to the fact that there is a lack of documentation, I’ll be happy to answer.
You mentionned the “size” of textures, I know that we normally manage to don’t create too large “images” and it can lead to a “split” of a “texture from pointcloud” into several different images/materials, when using large resolutions.
I double checked my results and… it works only if I use the new template that comes with SU2026. Please see my new video.
A few notes: no TSE is ever present in the new files when I import for the first time a PC but still there is some kind of a transformation somewhere (no matter if I say to get closer or not to the origin) that somehow affects the geometry and texture generation tools.
I now created a new new custom template starting from the template of SU2026 and it seems to work. The one I created yesterday doesn’t work anymore today.
Also the reset transformation that yesterday worked to fix the issue, has no effect today.
Hi,
Could you post detailed screenshots of your workflows and failures.
Similarly to Gio, could you check if there is a transformation issue. For this just apply ground mesh with the option “use known ground data” on and fit cloud. If the output is perfectly aligned with your point cloud, that should be ok. Otherwise, there is probably a transformation issue.
Best,
YS
First I noticed you are using the “load SKP link” as an “Open”, this is definitely not a big deal and actually does not affect the result, but still it can be considered as an unintended behavior in term of UX/UI.
Second : regarding the 2 first opening you do : As you noticed, either you accept or not the “Align to SU origin” the result is the same : When applying that first “auto-transformation” in this latest SE version we apply a round-up or down to the XYZ values to avoid ending with weird transformations like “123.4567” (with mm tenth of mm etc…) so basically we don’t apply the last “meters” of that transformation to end with something mor “clean” like ”120.00” in that case : my understanding is that the calculated values for your PC are so close to 0,0,0 that after that rounding up/down it indeed ends up to 0,0,0 and finally does not apply any transformation (I was able to reproduce), this is actually intended but I understand it is confusing.
Third : This is weird. I can’t reproduce the issue you have when using your template (with my own basic template) and I am wondering if it could be linked to the component you have in your template (even if I see no specific link for now) Would it be possible to send me your template file ? And maybe explain what is that 0_xyz component and what it does about the original SU coordinate system.
About point 3) I am going to send you a wetransfer link to download my template in a PM.
About the 0_xyz object… I believe it goes back to 2007 when I started using SketchUp: I never liked the x, y and z axis, extended to the infinite, with no scale nor orientation really (negative - positive).
Therefore I created this 3x 10’ long segment object that seats in the origin, oriented in the positive direction, locked and in its on layer, that I use as a defpoints layer/tag to place things that supports modeling but I don’t want to see when I am looking at the final renderings, so I just free the layer than.
Easy
About point 1) definitely there “too many” ways to do the same thing in the UI, therefore users will use the one that makes more sense to them. Or just randomly choose one
About point 2) I need more time to understand what do you mean but I get the idea…
