Trouble with Trees

I'm using the latest version of nXt and have had a curious issue. When I rendered the trees created with arPlants, they get cropped off at the top of the image. They are in full view on the SU screen, but cut off in the jpg. output from nXt. The top image is from SU, the lower one from nXt.

Is there something I missed in the setup? Never had this issue previously. The image size is set to "Sketch Up".

Tags: cropping, issue, rendering

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Render Plus on February 15, 2011 at 1:53pm

We need to see how large the trees are.

Can you place a cylinder next to the trees in the second image in SketchUp and stretch it up to the height of the tree in SketchUp? Then see how big the tree thinks it is. (When you create a tree it shows it height at the bottom of the Tree Maker window in meters)

Here is a tree which should have been about 12 meters tall. I placed a 12 meter cylinder next to it, and it rendered 5% to 10% too tall.

Part of the difference may be that the height shown in the tree maker wizard it the height of the branches and does not include the leaves.

One thing you can do if you have a problem is to scale the tree in SketchUp. Here I used SketchUp to scale the tree component to 1/2 the height.It also rendered at 1/2 the height.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Render Plus on February 15, 2011 at 1:56pm

If your problem is not with the tree height - but rather with the size of the image in the renderer, then let me know. Either upload a small model here or send it to support@renderplus.com

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Render Plus on February 15, 2011 at 1:57pm

Also - were you using AR4 plants or the new nXt RpTreemaker plants?

(We may not be able to scale AR4 plants)

Send us the model and we will take a look.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher Alan Krupp on February 15, 2011 at 7:30pm

Al:

Here are 2 images from nXt, both of the same SU model. The first is with the cylinder that you suggested pulled up to the tree height of 26' As you can see it cropped off the top in the rendering.

The second is the tree scaled down vertically in SU. It made some difference, but not much and I scaled the tree down quite a bit to 22'-6".

I used rpTreeMaker to make the tree...from the very latest nXt plug-in, just downloaded today.

I've attached the SU file as well.

I don't get it. I thought maybe it might have something to do with scaling in SU, but apparently not????

Odd that the cylinder rendered completely in both images and the tree is chopped of.

Thanks,

Chris

Al Hart said:

Also - were you using AR4 plants or the new nXt RpTreemaker plants?

(We may not be able to scale AR4 plants)

Send us the model and we will take a look.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher Alan Krupp on February 15, 2011 at 7:32pm

Al:

Sorry, forgot the SU file in my previous post.

Chris

Attachments:

AutoSave_Autumn Tree Test.skp, 1.3 MB

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Render Plus on February 16, 2011 at 7:34pm

AHA - I found it. You were using the scale factor in the tree editor to make the tree smaller and I was using the same scale factor to scale the tree vs the scale of the SketchUp component. Instead of just setting the scale factor to match the SketchUp scale, I should have multiplied any existing scale by the SketchUp scale.

I will fix it in the next version.

In the meantime, until I get it fixed, leave the Tree Editor scale set to 1.0 (or 100%) and just use SketchUp to scale the trees.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher Alan Krupp on February 17, 2011 at 9:02am

Al:

Yahoo! The tree editor scale is the one under "Standard > Proportion?" That's the only Scale item I could find.

Please let me know........the one I find doesn't have a 1.0 value available.

FYI: in the images I sent the 2nd tree WAS scaled in SketchUp only. The column was also shortened to match the new tree height.

Hey, what's with the metric size measurements? Did you rip this off from Europe or something? Ha, ha.

Let me know when the next version is available please.

Chris

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Render Plus on February 17, 2011 at 9:20am

Set Proportion/Scale to 100

I think rendering people like to develop their software in meters, even when they live in the U.S. There may be several reasons. Perhaps some of the routines or algorithms they use which have already been developed work best in meters. Or perhaps, with metric you don't have to decide whether to use feet or inches (and then forget which one you chose).

The nXt Rendering Engine is developed by McNeel and Associates, (the AccuRender people). We interface it to SketchUp and Revit and provide the user interface, etc. But McNeel provides the technology of the renderer itself.

We will see if we can pass "units" to the Tree Editor to make it easier for foot/inch people to use.