Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Chapter 5 Rendering in SketchUp
Depending on your preferences and your workflow requirements, you can choose between
easy-to-use or highly customizable software. It is often a good idea to create a sample rendering
using a trial version before you commit, especially to the more expensive programs.
Other aspects to keep in mind when choosing are quality of help files and tutorials, availability
of good materials, activeness of the user community (e.g., in forums), availability of plugins,
and additional features such as animation support—if needed.
Multithreading and Network Rendering
IN-DEPTH
In both of these techniques, a single rendered image is processed by multiple processor
cores or even computers at the same time (i.e., in parallel). Given that today’s workstations
(and even notebooks) have multiple processor cores built in (as in a “quad-core CPU,” for
example), software can use each of these cores by sending a chunk (often a square portion)
of the image to a different processor core in a process (or a computational thread).
This can result in a significant increase in rendering speed. With enough computing power,
near-real-time rendering is possible using this technique.
Almost all available rendering software can take advantage of multithreading. This means
that if you have a computer with four processor cores, the image can be split up and rendered
by all of those cores at the same time. As mentioned, modern rendering software
can often use the graphics card’s processors (the GPU) to process some of those calculations,
increasing the number of computational cores even more.
Keep in mind: Because your operating system (and any other running software such as your
e‐mail program) uses processor cores, too, it may become necessary to limit the number
of cores used for rendering so that the operating system doesn’t “freeze up” during a
rendering. If this is a problem for you, look into the rendering software’s settings—often
there is an option to limit the number of processes used for rendering.
If you are an advanced user or you are setting up a rendering solution for a larger company,
then it may be a good idea to look into the network rendering capabilities of any
of the software in question. Network rendering is a technique whereby a single rendered
image is processed by multiple computers (and their respective processor cores) at a
time. These computers can be located in your office (e.g., using computers that sit idle
overnight) or in what is commonly called a render farm, which is a similar setup of networked
computers, this time with dedicated rendering computers that are provided (for
a fee) by third-party companies.
The following list is a sampling of currently available rendering software for SketchUp.
Because all of these software packages work with the free version of SketchUp, it is not necessary
to own the Pro version to create renderings. For an updated listing, go to this book’s
companion website and look for “Rendering Software.”
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