Soften Edges in Large Terrain

SketchUp Pro
#1

Hi All

Hope somebody might be able to help me. I am a newbie to SU but have 20 years experience in modeling.

I am creating a golf course from a DWG file. My workflow is

Import DWG
Explode
Select Contours
Using TOPO Shaper create terrain at 3m intervals (takes bout 60 minutes)
Add Terrain to its own layer (tag)
Select all terrain shapes (greens, bunkers etc) in the DWG and Copy.
Open the terrain layer (group)
Paste in place
Drape (takes about 60 minutes)
Add material to each draped face.

So this all works very nicely and i get good results. My issue is that i am seeing some sharp edges in the terrain that when rendered look very artificial, a golf course shoud be nice a smooth. I have tried all maner of smoothing but with no avail. I have Artisan but whn i use that for smoothing it destroys the shapes of each feature.

SU
SU1917×1040 427 KB

#2

Before using the Drape command, round (smooth contours) the desired areas

glg-03
glg-031000×600 2.31 MB

2 Likes
#3

Thanks, will try that. I should have said, that the terrain looks good before I drape

#4

I am afraid that did not work

#5

Can you post your model so folks can see what’s you’re working with. If it’s too big then copy a problematic section, one green or sand trap into a fresh file and post that, with the contours and terrain before draping included.

#6

Hi endlessfix.

Thank you for the reply. Here is a 1 hole sample. Made the same way as my original post.Golf Test.skp (4.3 MB)

You can see the the bad shading in this image

Edges2
Edges21148×590 75.5 KB

And here rendered

Edges3
Edges31148×590 242 KB

#7

I haven’t used artisan for a few years, but doesn’t it have a sculpting brush option that will soften/smooth very specific areas.

#8

I’d say this is part of your problem. 3m is quite a large grid.
if it was me I would create a patchwork of sections with a level of detail appropriate to the terrain. A long flat fairway can be a large grid, even a green can be quite flat, but a bunker needs a lot smaller mesh to get the smooth shapes you are after. I certainly wouldn’t use a small mesh for all of it, you would kill your computer, but plan out the detail areas.
Here’s a very basic example of what I mean, the smaller mesh creates smoother surface.
Detail

#9

Thanks I had thought of that but it is not really feasible in terms of man hours. Off the top of my head if I included a tighter mesh for all the problem areas there would be in excess of 300 tighter meshes required.

What I don’t understand is when I create the initial terrain before I drape the shapes it is perfect. It’s the act of draping that adds these sharp shaded lines.

I’m very impressed with sketchup but maybe it’s just not able for large outdoor spaces with this type of detail. I’ve worked in other design software with the same grid spacing and never seen this before

#10

Yes it does.

@GolfArchitect In reference to Box’s comment, I think you should definity explore Artisan as a tool for organic shaping.

You should also have a look at Thomthom’s Vertex Tools

#11

Thanks Chris

I have been playing with artisan today, I was hoping i could use it on the final i had built but it destroys all the edges of bunkers etc.

Tomorrow i will try it on the fresh terrain before any draping.

Just realised i can project the aerial image as a material, so at least i can see the areas i need to work on