Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Architectural Design with SketchUp
to what you can set in SketchUp using the Soften Edges window, it is possible to pick an
angle value below which adjoining faces will become smooth. For example, a value of 45
would mean that all neighboring surfaces that have an angle of 45 degrees between them
will appear as one smooth surface. Figure 5.25 shows an example of this method.
Figure 5.24: Combination image with rendering and hidden-line export
Figure 5.25: Smoothing of tessellated surfaces (left: SketchUp model; middle: no edge softening; right: full
edge softening)
Of course, you can also smooth surfaces by increasing the number of polygons that make
up the surface. You will have to do this using a plugin because SketchUp has no native function
for this task. In addition, increasing the number of polygons may likewise increase render time,
so having fewer polygons and visually smoothing them may be the most efficient approach.
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Front Face and Back Face
SketchUp’s faces have two sides to them: a front and a back. You can distinguish them easily
by the default color with which each face is painted. The front is painted white, and the
back is painted blue. Extruding a polygon and then removing some faces reveals the two
colors quite nicely.