Tuesday, 8 November 2011

How to Render a Section Cut from Sketchup

I've been trying to find a way to render a sectional perspective from Sketchup using Vray for Sketchup rendering engine and finally I have found a way. Here's how to prepare a section cut of your sketchup model for rendering. Unfortunately, this has only worked for me using Google Sketchup 7 rather than the newer version 8. But this may work for you using version 8.

Firstly, Make a backup of your model before you start and save it with a new
name and work on that copy.

Second: Download the two plugins listed below and save the downloaded .rb files in the plugins folder:
C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins

Zorro 2 plugin HERE (You Can also download this plugin from Sketchucation HERE, however you may need to register first)

Section Cut Face 2 HERE ( You Can also download this plugin from Sketchucation HERE, however you may need to register first)

Restart SketchUp, and, if you haven't already, create your section plane.
Select the section plane, right click on it, and select the option Add Section-
Cut Face. As shown below:



Press OK on the following window. Don't worry about settings, just click OK.



With the section plane still selected, right click on it again and this time select
the option Slice Model at Section.



Delete the section plane, making sure your model has been indeed cut. I
hope you made that backup.



Apply any Color or material you like to the section face group.



And render the result with your favorite render plug-in or export the model to 3dsmax for rendering purposes.



The Tutotial was found in the Sketchucation Forums.
Visit the forum and register to find out more tips and tricks. You can also, download the tutorial as a pdf for your ready reference HERE.
Once Again this tutorial may only work for Sketchup Pro 7.

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