User Interface Error Applying textures from material collection of .SKM files originating from PC SketchUp for Mac SketchUp

[julie2]

Hi Colin,

FYI: I have this feedback from Enscape:

Please note: I do not have Enscape installed on the Mac, not every Mac in the studio runs on Apple Silicon Processors so we cannot, and even if we could, we could not justify the financial expense to have a license for each machine as the studio staff do not do any visualization/renderings.

Please let me know if there is something that could be done from Trimble’s end to troubleshoot the .skm files themselves.

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Hayley Smith (Enscape)

Jan 8, 2024, 6:30 PM GMT+2

Hi Julie,

Thank you for contacting us at Enscape, and I’m sorry to hear you’re experiencing this.

For clarification, this is occurring on Macs that do not have Enscape installed, correct? If so, then most likely, what you’re experiencing is a glitch where Sketchup is looking for Enscape to collect the additional material options Enscape adds to Sketchup via the Material Editor. Only the albedo is saved inside, and therefore read by, Sketchup natively; the Enscape options will need to have a connection to Enscape in order to process.

What we’d advise for this would be one of two solutions:

1. Install Enscape on every Mac that utilizes these materials or work with projects that utilize these materials. You will need each of these to have an activated license in order to use the Material Editor.
2. Use two different .skm libraries - one for Enscape options and one for native Sketchup options. I would advise working with Trimble in your forum thread for the best workflow for this.

If the Macs do not have Enscape installed, this is firmly a Sketchup issue that you will need to work with them on. We cannot troubleshoot issues where Enscape isn’t present, nor can we troubleshoot .skm files themselves.

However, if Enscape is present on these Macs with each machine using a valid license and this is occurring, we would need to investigate this with logfiles from your machine and the corresponding Mac. Due to the potential complexity of file structures and how they would translate to MacOS and Sketchup for Mac, log files would be the easiest method of retrieval for this information. Please note that we will be unable to move forward in troubleshooting without logs from each machine.

With this being said, even if you experienced this with Enscape installed on each machine, I would not be able to guarantee it would be an issue we could fix on our end, as the Paintbucket tool is outside of our control. Enscape only plugs into Sketchup and pulls information from it; it does not control the application of materials to the project. In addition, Enscape would be unable to solve potential issues with .skm’s themselves, as Enscape is only reading the data Sketchup feeds it.

Thank you in advance!

Kind regards,

Hayley Smith
Customer Support Representative

[colin]

If you see the thumbnails ok, that suggests the ‘albedo’ materials are being imported ok. If selecting a later entry gives you the albedo image from an earlier entry, that sounds like SketchUp is being confused by the Enscape data.

I do see that happening with the small file you sent. I will try to figure out what the problem is.

I quickly found out that if I edit the material inside SketchUp (using Photoshop as the external editor), then the materials become usable in SketchUp. Hopefully I will be able to see what changes there are before and after I do the edit.

[julie2]

Thank you Colin,

My current workaround is to embed the material library in a SketchUp File, each applied to a cube mesh geometry and share this file as a template to be deployed on the Macs. I have observed that there are no UI issue with the Paint Bucket tool when the materials already exist in the model originating from PC+SketchUP+Enscape.

It seems to me when the albedo textures already pre-exist inside the SketchUp model and isn’t being assigned for the first time, maybe it circumvents this query to Enscape to gather more info thereby avoiding the glitching. The paint bucket tool will work normally even if the mesh assigned with the materials are deleted before re-assigning to new meshes.

That said, it is useful to know that running the edit tool inside Mac stabilizes the Paint Bucket Tool operation for libraries loaded from .skm collections.

Julie

[ateliernab]

maybe a silly idea but,

Have you tried installing enscape on those machine BUT not activating it ? (if off course it’s possible, depends on the software)

Right now on my machine I have Vray, and I could log out of Vray, it would still be installed.
Since your SU file is trying to reach some Enscape libraries, could it stabilize the situation ?

[colin]

I found out more. I’m having trouble making an SKM after editing the data, but that aside, it’s worth asking Enscape for an opinion about this:

In the SKM is a textureFilename entry, that points to the original file that made the material:

<mat:texture textureFilename="G:\Shared drives\WSS Visualization\AssetLibrary\Maps\ART\ART_DonaldMartiny_Blue.png"

Then there is another entry for the material’s file path:

<mat:image id="1" path="ART_DonaldMartiny_Blue_1.png" />

A Mac user won’t have a G drive, let alone the original image file. In a normal SKM the textureFilename entry is the same as the path entry, only with the _1 part removed.

You could ask if it’s possible to make the SKM using a relative path instead of the full path to the image file.

[julie2]

I thought of that, but Enscape for Mac has hardware requirement for the machine to be running on Apple Silicon Processor so that stopped me from trying to see “what if”, we have Mac machines from different generations some are still on Intel. In particular, I had access to one that is running on Intel.

[ateliernab]

ah yes, forgot that it only arrived on mac recently, off course there is no intel version.

back to the drawing board then

[julie2]

Ah… darn it. I think Enscape support will probably tell me not to use G-drives or any networked drive and use a local drive. I am using a Google Shared Drive for assets. I know its not ideal, but its worked out for me majority of the time during this pandemic madness, hybrid working. I will see if changing the location of the texture on a local drive might solve this.

I will forward your note however to see what they say. I will circle back. Thank you !!

[colin]

I wasn’t worrying about you using a network drive. The problem is that a SKM ought to be self contained, and have a copy of any images that it needs.

[julie2]

Yes, that is what I assumed that .skm is completely self contained. Anything otherwise defeat its purpose of being a common file asset. I just know the support/developers over at Enscape always like to advise against the storing of any dependencies asset on network drive, attached or cloud. Some unresolved render anomaly issues are always due to this. The curious thing is, SketchUp obviously can grab the albedo textures as it is loaded as thumbnail in the Mac SketchUp Color editor, but I suspect on material assignment, the .skm file is also trying to resolve the paths all dependency textures are on for Enscape? I’m curious to ask Enscape where the .skm file on creation save the copy the images that it needs? Maybe it doesn’t.

[julie2]

Hi Colin,

I received the following response from Hayley Smith @ Enscape: She has once more emphasized that they have no access/control over .skm code and that they are created by SketchUp’s code base even if it includes Enscape Data.

If the SketchUp team cannot help in this regard, I will just have to relinquish to the fact that using .skm is not feasible to streamline workflow for my studio where access to plug-in and platform differs.

Let me know your thoughts if any. I am not sure if it is useful for me to pursue this further with SketchUp support.

Julie

Hayley Smith (Enscape)

Jan 10, 2024, 6:36 PM GMT+2

Hi Julie,

My team, or even my developers, do not have the ability to answer questions or troubleshoot issues relating to .skm files; these are entirely controlled by Trimble/Sketchup. While he’s correct about the filing structure of Mac versus Windows, Colin’s reply recommending if it’s possible to make the .skm use a relative path is not something we can answer, as we do not have the ability to troubleshoot .skm code. Even if they include Enscape data, it is created by Sketchup’s code base, which we do not control nor have access to. The most relevant developers for this issue are Sketchup themselves.

Further, we cannot troubleshoot issues where Enscape is not present, i.e. the Macs in question. If Enscape is not present on machines receiving internal Enscape data, we do have control over unexpected issues that may arise in the CAD program itself.

We also cannot recommend workflows for situations where Enscape is not present. Again, I would advise working with Trimble for this. In addition, we cannot recommend workflows that use cloud storage, as Enscape itself does not support these.

With this in mind, we can recommend exploring a Remote Desktop Protocol where each member can access one machine where everything is present. While the Enscape rendering engine doesn’t support RDP, this may be useful for your team in applications that do not involve the rendering engine. I recommend floating this idea to Sketchup for their input on this idea.

Thank you in advance for your understanding in this matter, and I wish you luck in resolving this with Sketchup.

Kind regards,

Hayley Smith
Customer Support Representative

[colin]

Mike in the forum discovered that rearranging the materials seems to fix them. That might not be practical if there are hundreds of materials, but you could drag only the ones that fail. Like, you try to fill a face with a later material, and it still looks like an earlier materials, move the later material into any other position.

I will see if there is a known bug, and if not I can make one.

[MikeWayzovski]

Yeah, I dragged the first one next to the second:

Might be as simple as that, after closing and restarting SketchUp, the list will be in the right order.

Could be related with the alphabetical order that was screwed up a few versions ago…

[julie2]

Very interesting discovery! Its helpful to know about this work around, but I probably will not move forward with deploying the .skm library for studio wide use in this way. The collection I have while not hundreds, is substantial enough that it will not make sense for me to ask the users to do this.

Thank you Mike for investigating nevertheless. Your time is very appreciated.

[julie2]

Yes, please Colin, it will take me too long to explain all over to file a report. If you could file this as bug within your organization directly, that will be great. Please let me know how users can find out when bugs are resolved.

I appreciate all of your relentless effort to help. For the time being I will revert to sharing a common SketchUp file as template with the library already assigned to cubes for guaranteed UI tool behavior.

I note Mike’s interesting work around, however I will not implement .skm this way, it will not be received very well in my studio.

Ciao for now!

Julie

[colin]

Would an option be for you to take the skms, do the rearrange fix, then distribute your version of the files?

[julie2]

It will be inside a SketchUp file then, which would essentially be the same as sharing a template file .skp file. I was hoping to share all .skm files directly off of a central place created from my PC since I don’t always have access to a Mac.

It would’ve worked out well if my studio was all on PCs. My collection would be live and always up to date as more .skm files can be added or edited overtime.