Modeling perforated metal facades in SketchUp

[ronen]

Hi @db.inforender

This question is for you…

I’m wondering how to approach modeling such facades in SketchUp… any tips?

[db.inforender]

Hi @ronen, I would trust in skatter for that.

[ronen]

For additive geometry I would think so, but subtraction like this?

What about considering “focal points” or “gravity points” where the holes get bigger or more dense?

[ronen]

I can see how I can Skatter stuff based on a spline with falloff to control size and density, but I will need to either explode it all later or… use a cutting component! hmm… @db.inforender that might do it, right?

[db.inforender]

simple test, yes i think you should trick it a bit with subgroups, to get the nodal point falloff

[db.inforender]

it’s a pitty we don’t have yet that kind of controls, hopefully in the next skatter realease

[ronen]

Nice!

Not sure about what you mean by subgroups, but I think I got what I need. Using a “Hole” and “Void” objects

To actually get the metal facade perforated I don’t think I can get away with exploding the skatter and get the components to cut the surface.

[ronen]

Progress made! No easy way though… Skatter the holes and have them CUT and still have parametric editable option.

[ronen]

This is how it looks so far… @db.inforender @jiminy-billy-bob

[jiminy-billy-bob]

Looking good!

Have you tried this extension? https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/superglue

[ronen]

Nope… but I’ll test it out to see if it can help with the process. Thanks!

[ronen]

Hi @jiminy-billy-bob

I found that distributing based on face center with pointing set to normal is the ideal approach to scatter things on the various facades of the building… I can even use the altitude to modulate density on the elevations.

But FACE based distribution does not allow me to use any of the areas to isolate areas on the facades - it is a TOP DOWN include / exclude thing, right? Any chance this mode can be made to use Include / Exclude objects?

The FACE center based approach is ideal for me since it does not matter the angle of the facade and that I have gaps between panels! I can work out the facade panels however I like and get the holes in the center of each tile accurately.

[jiminy-billy-bob]

This is because areas are projected onto the host, based on an axis (Z by default, but you can set a custom axis). When using Faces Centers, there is no projection.

This is a limitation of v1, we are looking into changing that for v2.

[ronen]

Got ya!

One more thing why v2 needs to be here sooner rather than later.

Thanks Thomas.

[ronen]

Adding here a video showing how this could be done directly in 3dsmax using Volume Select and Morpher Modifier

[ronen]

Hey all!

I moved this to the public Uncategorized category for now as I figure out the overall categories.

Here are some progress snapshots…

[jiminy-billy-bob]

Very nice! Are you rendering that in Lumion? (you seem to do a lot there lately)

[ronen]

I do, but this one is with Corona Renderer. I will take this one for a spin inside Lumion too, as I’m trying to figure out how much I can push it and use it in production.

[ronen]

Here the same crop at Dusk / Nighttime

I wonder what you think @youkishi @db.inforender

[db.inforender]

Looks pretty good. Is there anyway in skatter to work with default skp ‘make hole’ when skattering instances? From a component set like that?