THEA FOR SKETCHUP

USER MANUAL

Revision 141.01

Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Thea for SketchUp is an integrated version of Thea Render. This allows a creation of stunning
images right inside SketchUp and an interactive work with cameras, materials and lights. There is
an option of saving a complete Thea scene with all associated files for utilizing advanced tools
present in Thea Studio. Thea For SketchUp supports SketchUp Versions 6, 7, 8 and 2013 both Free
and Pro, on both systems: Windows & OS X.

1.2 INSTALLATION
MS WINDOWS
Please use provided installer. It is advised to install Thea
Render first and enter Thea4SU license (SketchUp plugin)
inside Thea.
Please make sure you have administrator rights while
installing the plugin.

A default SketchUp installation folder is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Sketchup >version
number<\Plugins

The folder will be automatically found in case of

SketchUP versions 6, 7, 8 and 2013. Figure 1: License Input Form –
Plugins Tab

MAC - OS X
Please use provided installer. The installer will guide you through the needed installation steps. It
also gives you the possibility to select the SketchUp version(s) for the plugin to be installed. It is
advised to install Thea Render first and enter Thea4SU license (for SketchUp plugin) inside Thea.

Materials installation is automatic too. For adding additional libraries though, a default folder for
putting these materials is:
SU8>> Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Google Sketchup 8/Sketchup/Materials
SU2013>> Macintosh HD/Application/SketchUp2013/SketchUp/(right click) -> show content
/Contents/Resources/Content/Materials

Note: if you are using Lion, Snow Lion or higher version of OSX the ~Library forlder is hidden.
Please follow this link to learn how to access the folder:
http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/productivity/how-to-reveal-your-library-folder-in-lion-or-
mountain-lion/

DEMO VERSION LIMITATIONS

While plugin is not licensed, rendered image resolution will be limited and watermarks will be
added.

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1.3 GENERAL LAYOUT OF THE PLUGIN WINDOWS
Once the plugin is installed correctly a new item in the Plugins menu will appear (see Figure 2).
You can also have an access to Thea for SketchUp through tools palette. Select “Show Thea
toolbar” from the plugin menu. A toolbar as seen in Figure 3 will appear on the screen.

Figure 2: Plugins Menu

Figure 3: Thea Render Toolbar

User interface of the plugin is divided into two windows:

• Main Window
The main window displays currently rendered image, provides controls over the displayed
rendering and environment settings.
• Thea Tool Window
It allows setting up cameras, editing materials, placing and editing lights and inserting
external models as simplified components – proxies.

1.5 MAIN WINDOW

1.5.1 CONTROL BUTTONS

Figure 4: Control Buttons of Main Window

Save: it allows to save non-interactive render as an image and also a currently being rendered
model as *.thea.pack file, which can be opened in Thea Studio.
Refresh: it forces a refresh of a current view of the rendering. It is usually being used when one
wants to see immediately the progress of the rendering being done. The plugin refreshes the view
automatically at some intervals.
Start: this button makes Thea collect all necessary data from SketchUp and start the rendering
process. When there is a selection present, when one presses the start button while keeping ALT
key pressed - only the selection will be rendered.
Pause: it pauses the rendering.
Stop: it stops the rendering and makes Thea refresh the main window, so it displays the final
image.

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 1.5.2 MAIN WINDOW TABS
1.5.2.1 RENDERING TAB

Figure 5: Rendering Tab - Interactive Mode

Figure 6: Rendering Tab – Unbiased Mode

Rendering Modes
The control provides a selection of a rendering modes. There are several options that allow also
an interactive type of rendering.
For Interactive rendering engines, as seen in Figure 5, user can specify several settings for the
selected engine, as it is analytically described later.
Server
Server option is available for the Non-Interactive modes (Adaptive (BSD), Unbiased TR1 and TR2)
and helps user perform a network rendering, with the use of client machines.
Super-sampling
This corresponds to the super-sampling used for the image output, i.e. internal resolution
multiplier for anti-aliasing enhancement. None corresponds to no super-sampling, Normal to 2x2
and High to 3x3. Auto corresponds to no super-sampling for biased engine and 2x2 for unbiased
engines. Setting super-sampling to a higher level will generally improve anti-aliasing of the output
but will increase memory demands for storing the image (4 times in Normal level and 9 times in
High level). The time needed to render the scene will also be increased for biased engine. But for
the unbiased engines, the extra time needed to render the higher resolution image is usually
amortized by the reduced noise visible in the visualized (down-sampled) image. It is usually
suggested, for unbiased rendering, to change super-sampling to None for high resolution output
and High when there is persisting noise.
Additional Settings
Threads
This is the entry for the render worker threads that will be used during rendering (not all
application process threads). The special value 0, same like Max, corresponds to the number of
logical cores on your machine. Exceeding this value (shown explicitly as the last value in the drop-
down list) will have no benefit and actually an impact on performance.

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Limits
• Time(min)
This is a parameter used to terminate the unbiased render process (it is only used by
unbiased render engines). It is given in minutes, and 0 is a special value corresponding to
no time limit at all.
• Samples/px
This allows to terminate an unbiased rendering when each pixel in a rendered image will
be sampled given number of times. In simple cases when no much caustics is present in a
model a value of 300 is sufficient. In more complex scenes higher values may be needed.
Interactive Modes
Those modes allow not only render the model as a static image, but also let interactively move a
camera around a model or adjust Sun position and see the rendering view being updated.
IR-Progressive(BSD), IR-Unbiased*(MC), IR-Adaptive(AMC), IR-Presto GPU (BSD) and IR-Presto
GPU (MC) are names of available methods.
Note that Thea Presto engines come as a plugin for Thea Render and an Nvidia CUDA graphics
card is required.
Most robust is Adaptive(AMC) method, which works very well with multiple lights and complex
lighting conditions.
Most important parameter is the 'Tracing Depth' which defines how many times light bounced in
a model. Values starting from 4 give good results in simple conditions, while higher number is
needed when there are many highly reflective surfaces in a model.
For detailed description of parameters of rendering methods, please refer to Thea Render
manual.

Non-Interactive Modes
There are three non-Interactive high quality modes available:
• Adaptive (BSD): in many cases the fastest method based on pre-sets, but it requires some
experience when a certain set-up is advantageous.

Figure 7: Adaptive (BSD) Presets

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Two Unbiased methods: they don't require any settings and deliver renderings of the highest
quality. These are:
• Unbiased (TR1) engine: it is preferred in exterior renders and interiors where direct
lighting is the most dominant in the scene.
• Unbiased (TR2) mode: it is preferred when difficult indirect lighting is dominant in the
render or heavy caustics are present (such as a pool sun caustics).

1.5.2.2 DISPLAY TAB

Figure 8: Display Tab

Display Tab is a space where you can manipulate your rendered image and apply any post-
processing. First two sections are related to a render exposure and the following three to a
filtering. For a detailed description of all options, please refer to Thea Render Darkroom tutorial –
Section 2A.

1.5.2.3 ENVIRONMENT TAB

Figure 9: Environment Tab -IBL

Environment
Use Sky
It tells Thea to create a background for a rendered scene in a form of Physical Sky. It will look as a
clear sky which will be automatically adjusted to a position of the Sun. Turning this on makes
plugin disable the background image, if it is being used.

Use Sun
It tells Thea to create the Sun that will give same shadows as those present in a SketchUp model.

Edit Settings
At the Edit Settings drop down list we can see the options for IBL, Sun and Sky to appear, which
open the corresponding panels for editing.
IBL: Image Based Lighting
As seen in Figure 9 by selecting the IBL edit settings, the panel with the corresponding panel
appears where user can specify the Illumination, Background, Reflection and Refraction maps.

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Image-based lighting is a convenient way to add illumination to your scene, coming from captured
photos of the surrounding environment. Since a photo of a real scene can be used, the lighting is
highly convincing and enhances the realism of your renders. In most cases, the images used for
this kind of lighting need to be of high dynamic range in order to provide enough lighting for a
scene.
One can use an image for illuminating the scene, nevertheless, he can also set up different images
for background, reflections and refractions. This makes possible to use different source for
lighting and for reflections/background, which in most cases need more details in the image. This
is actually a usual render optimization, where the illumination source is relatively low-detailed
texture in order for the image to quickly “converge”, while background and reflections use a
detailed map for visually enhanced results.
To add one of image types select proper type and press 'Browse' button to select a desired image.
When proper bitmap selected its path will be displayed in the adjacent horizontal input box. One
can control intensity, rotation and a way the image is wrapped around a model.
Sun

Figure 10: Sun Settings

Manual Sun option helps to position the sun in an arbitrary

position regardless of model's geographic location. You are
able to adjust the sun Polar Angle and
Azimuth, either by entering the desired values, or manually,
by opening the Environment Preview (Figure 11) and clicking
preferred location in the preview.
Environment Preview can be opened by clicking a blue icon in
Environment Settings. This window shows a preview of
environment which is being automatically updated. When
Manual Sun is disabled and IBL lighting used, then the
environment map can be rotated by dragging the preview Figure 11: Environment Preview
image.
Sky

Figure 12: Sky Settings

By selecting the Sky at the Edit Settings list, the sky settings appear as seen in Figure 12.

7 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 1.5.2.4 CHANNELS TAB

Figure 13: Channels Tab

This tab is being used when an additional image is being required, other than a standard
rendering. This is mostly used when a post-processing is intended using external image
manipulation program.
Available channels are: Color (standard rendering) , Normal, Depth, Alpha, Object Id, Material Id
and channels specific to Adaptive(BSD) rendering mode: Direct, Ambient Occlusion, Global
Illumination, Sub-Surface Scattering, Reflection, Refraction, Transparency and Irradiance.
Luminance Analysis describe the luminance and illuminance distribution. Thea Render can
compute both of them. Luminance is computed out of the box for any image that you have
already rendered and for any render settings. Illuminance can be computed by the Adaptive BSD
engine.
To view the analysis of a rendered image select 'Photometric' from the drop down menu. 'Min Il –
Lum' and 'Max Il – Lum' parameters control a range of illumination the analysis is performed on.

1.5.2.5 ANIMATION TAB

Figure 14: Animation Tab

This tab contains animation related settings. Currently Thea for SketchUp supports simple camera
animation – walk-through style. Camera movement will follow exactly same path as it moves in
SketchUp. Field of view changes during animation won't be applied.
'Frames per second' parameter controls how fluid an exported animation will be.
Animation rendering can be only started by pressing 'Render Animation' button.

1.5.2.6 CONSOLE TAB

Thea For SketchUp uses the console to send you messages informing you about current state of
rendering, time in which rendering was finished and warnings. In general visiting the console is
recommended if something doesn't work as expected. It can help you finding a source of problem
- no light in a model or missing texture.

8 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 1.6 THEA TOOL WINDOW
1.6.1 CAMERA TAB
Resolution
The 'Width' and 'Height' settings control resolution of a
rendered image. Please note that interactive rendering
modes use full area of plugin's main window and render
exactly at same resolution. The Plus & Minus buttons
increase or decrease current resolution two fold.
(H)orizontal \(V)ertical toggle button changes orientation of
the rendered image.

Aspect ratio
This setting control proportions of a final rendered image.
When "SU Window" option is selected the resolution of a
rendered image will be adjusted to be same aspect ratio as
model view in SketchUp. When "Thea Window" is selected
the resolution is adjusted to reflect current proportions of
main render view. A typical proportions of 4:3 is
characteristic for old type of monitors with resolutions of
800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200. Wide screen proportions of
16:9 is more common in new monitors with resolution of
1600x900, 1920x1080. When creating a panoramic spherical
or hemispherical image a correct ratio is 2:1.

Lens
Thea can project a rendered image on the screen in a
standard manner – perspective or orthogonal, depending on
a current view in SketchUp or using Spherical or Cylindrical
projection. The spherical projection allows creating
renderings of virtual panoramas that can be viewed in
external programs. Correct aspect ratio of such an image is
2:1.
Shutter speed controls a motion blur which appears in an
animated scene. Thea gives you control over a diaphragm of
Figure 15: Thea Tool – Camera a camera. It can be circular or polygonal defined by a
Tab number of blades. This influences a look of a 'depth of field'
effect and a motion blur.
Depth of Field
The depth of field can be controlled in the plugin in two ways. Either by 'f-number' of camera
lenses or by percentage of a "blurriness" of a rendered image.
When Auto Focus is enabled plugin automatically adjusts focus distance to keep what is visible in
a camera 'in focus' when possible. Focus distance displays a manual distance at which a camera is
focused at. To set that value click 'Set' button and select a point in a model. The distance will be
calculated automatically. The value is disregarded when 'Auto Focus' is enabled.

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Level Camera
This button levels camera without changing its' position. It is helpful especially when setting-up a
camera for a panoramic shot.

Scene Settings
This section allows associating Thea Render settings with SketchUp scenes/pages. It works same
way as it is done in SketchUp with scene settings except they are not loaded automatically when a
scene is selected, but it has to be done manually by clicking "Load' button. To save settings select
a scene name from the list, mark setting types you want to store and press 'Save' button
Available options are: Camera Settings, Display Settings, Sky/IBL Settings, Render Settings.

1.6.2 MATERIAL TAB

Introduction
Before explaining in detail the Material Tab of the Thea Tools Window, we need to give a quick
description of the available ways of adding a Thea material inside SketchUp.
As we will describe below, you can now choose between three available ways:
1. Double click on a painted face with the Thea tool cursor, open Thea Material Lab (see Figure
16), create your material or choose one from the available libraries (or your own folders) and
apply it to your SketchUp face. You can choose to Accept the changes or Reject them (and return
back to the material without any changes applied to it).
2. Click once on a painted face, with the Thea cursor tool, and see its details at the Material tab
(see next paragraph and Figure 17) and then choose one of the existing presets for the material
and edit it according to your needs.
3. Find Thea materials (converted in *.skm format) inside SketchUp Paint Bucket (see Figure 18)
and apply them directly to your SketchUp surfaces. Conversion tool is also available for making
your thea materials being converted into SketchUp materials and see them at the Paint Bucket
(more details can be found at the Tools tab).

Figure 18: Thea Materials

Figure 16: Thea Material Lab inside SketchUp Bucket

Figure 17: Material

Presets

10 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 Material Tab
With the use of the Material Tab we can either select a
preset for one of our materials or see its preview, if edited
with Thea Mat Lab.
Material tab, as seen in Figure 19, displays a name of a
currently edited material and a preview of Thea material (if
the material has been already edited in Thea). To select/edit
a material one has to open Thea Tool and while the tool is
active, click/double click on an already painted face in
SketchUp. Thea Tool is active when a cursor changes it's
appearance as seen in Figure 20.

Figure 20: Thea Tool Cursor

When you double-click the face, Thea Mat Lab window will
appear, allowing you to modify the material properties or
apply another material from a library (see Figure 16). For
more detailed information on Thea Material Lab and its
options, please refer to Thea Render Manual.
When user clicks just once the material, the Material tab will
display the name and a preview of a the material - if the
material has been already edited in Thea Mat Lab- otherwise
the panel will show like we see it in Figure 19, where the
available presets exist.

Tip: In interactive mode cursor changes to a cross-hair and

allows selection of a material directly in a rendered image.
Figure 19: Thea Tool – Material Single click shows material properties and settings while
Tab double click maximizes render window.

General Notes
The custom color by default is linked with SketchUp material color. By pressing the SU button, you
are able to use a custom color instead the one already selected in SketchUp and change your
material accordingly. By pressing the SU button once again you can decide to choose SketchUp
material again or an external texture.

Figure 21: SU Button

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The external texture once specified can be imported into SketchUp by right-click > Import texture.
The imported texture size will be automatically reduced.
When texture type is 'EXT'ernal with a right-click one can import a downsized texture into
SketchUp.
Additionally as seen in Figure 46 for the Emitter, SU button has the option of specifying a
temperature(K) for the emitter.
All material types except Emitter have option of using bump map. The map can employ same
texture as SketchUp material has or an external texture.
All material types except Mirror can use as a base: SketchUp material, an independently defined
color or an external texture.
You can remove also a Thea material, by doing a right click on the preview area and press
“Remove Material” button.

Below we can see a table with all the materials presets that exist at Material Tab, along with their
available options, description and an example preview.

Material Preset Description Available Options Example Preview

Default This default type is a pure diffuse
material.

Figure 22: Default

Material options

Figure 23: Default

Material preview

Matte This material type represents a very

rough surface. It provides control
over Reflections and Sigma
Roughness, which influences how
well an object accepts light from all
directions. It makes the material to Figure 24: Matte
appear more flat. Material options
Figure 25: Matte
Material preview

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Plastic This type of material behaves as
plastic. It provides Roughness and
Reflections parameters. It is a good
base for a whole range of plastics
from very rough and dull to polished
and shiny. Figure 26: Plastic
Material options
Figure 27: Plastic
Material preview

Thin This type produces a single sided

Translucent translucent material which is perfect
for curtains and other non-
volumetric objects. One can control
its transparency percentage. Figure 28: Thin
Translucent Material
options
Figure 29: Thin
Translucent
Material preview

Lacquer This type represents a lacquered

surface typically seen as a finish of
timber floors. It provides Reflections
and Roughness parameters. With
the roughness set to 0 it resembles
polished material and with higher Figure 30: Lacquer
values a satin appearance. Material options
Figure 31: Lacquer
Material preview

Ceramic This type describes a ceramic

material with a glossy finish.

Figure 32: Ceramic

Material options

Figure 33: Ceramic

Material preview

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Car Paint The material using this preset will
resemble a car paint. When
'Metallic' option is enabled, the
paint will behave as it would contain
uniformly spread metallic flakes. Figure 34: Car Paint
Material options

Figure 35: Car Paint

Material preview

Colored Metal This type is designed to give a metal

appearance with pronounced
reflections.
Figure 36: Colored
Metal Material
options
Figure 37: Colored
Metal Material
preview

Mirror The material will behave as a mirror

surface. This type overrides
SketchUp material color.
Figure 38: Mirror
Material options

Figure 39: Mirror

Material preview

Thin Glass This type describes an architectural

glass with a control over Metallic
reflection it may posses due to
applied coatings. This material
doesn't require a volume of a Figure 40: Thin
geometry and is especially suited for Glass Material
non solid, thin face objects. options
Figure 41: Thin
Glass Material
preview

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Thick Glass This type produces a volumetric
glass which takes into account the
refractions within object volume.
Roughness of a surface and intensity
of Reflections can be controlled.
Figure 42: Thick
Glass Material
options Figure 43: Thick
Glass Material
preview

Emitter This type turns a painted face into a

light emitter. Its power is specified
in several units. Temperature can
also be specified instead of default
color/texture. There is an option to
make emitter not visible in a
rendering or to make it “passive” - it
will have a luminous appearance, Figure 44: Emitter Figure 45: Emitter
but will not cast the light into a Material options Material preview
scene.

Figure 46: Enabling Emitter Temperature

Thea Material This type uses full Thea Material

(Mat-Lab) editor from the Studio and allows
full control over material properties
(such as Clipping that we see in the Figure 47: Mat-Lab
example preview). Any of previous Material options
material types can be also edited
this way.
“Remove Thea Material' button Figure 48: Mat-Lab
removes all Thea material settings Material preview
associated with SketchUp material.

15 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 1.6.3 LIGHT TAB
SketchUp doesn't have its' native light sources. Thea for SketchUp uses components with a special
names to define position and orientation of lights. There are thee light types available in the plug-
in:
• Point Light: a regular omnidirectional spherical light.
• Spot Light: a directional light that allows focusing of a light cone on a chosen area in a
model.
• IES Light: a light based on scientifically measured real life values, provided by light-bulbs
and fixture manufacturers in a form of *.ies files.

One can also paint a face with a material using emittance and in this way create an area light.
Front side of the face will be emitting light.
Creating Lights
Light tab allows a creation and editing properties of
light components. To create a light open Thea Tool
Widnow and select 'Light' tab. At the bottom there
are three buttons responsible for creation of three
types of lights. On the start of light placing tool user Figure 49: Create Lights Options
is asked to show in SketchUp model a location of a
source of light by right clicking and subsequently a 'target' of the light. In case of a point-light only
the distance from the source to target is being used to calculate a sufficient light power to reach
the target. It is important to place light sources in a distance to an adjacent geometry higher than
a radius of the light. Failing to comply with that rule may produce undesired "noise" in the final
image. Once light component is created its name and properties will be displayed in the Light tab.

Editing Lights
Light properties can be invoked by selecting a light component or clicking a component while
Thea Tool is active. On a top of the Light tab a name of currently edited light component is being
displayed.
Pointlight & Spotlight properties
Point-lights and spot-lights share several properties:
Emittance
A colour of a light is controlled by a color of material the
light component is painted with. When a temperature is
enabled it will be used instead of the color.
All lights have flowing parameters:
Power expressed in multiple units, efficacy (lm/W),
attenuation and light temperature (K).

Figure 50: Emittance Properties

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Spotlight properties
Spot-lights have additional Hot Spot and Fall Off
values that control a shape of light cone. 'Hot Spot'
describes the inner angle where the light is emitted at
a full intensity and 'Fall Off' is and angle the light fades
completely at.

Figure 51: Spotlight Properties

IES Light properties

By default an IES light have a sample.ies file loaded into it. It
is possible to load a different description of light distribution
by selecting it from a dropdown menu and pressing 'Load'
button.
To use an IES file not present in Thea Studio IES files folder,
select from the list 'Other file' and press 'Load'. You will be
asked to select a file you want to save into the light
component.

Figure 52: IES Light Properties

General Properties
A light component can be 'Enabled' which means it will be casting light. 'Shadow' controls
whether the light will be casting shadows. 'Soft Shadow' specifies whether the shadow will be
soft, based on a imaginary radius of the light source expressed in meters.
'Min Rays' and 'Max Rays' parameters are used only by the Adaptive(BSD) engine. Those are used
rarely. For a detailed description, please refer to Thea Render Manual.
'Container' lets you assign a container-material in which the light is placed. Setting this material is
valid only for a situations when a light is submerged in a water or placed inside a material
congaing properties of a medium. It can be also used to force a light to show a volumetric
projection of light.

17 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 1.6.4 TOOLS TAB
External Model
Thea For SketchUp allows an insertion of complex, external Thea
models in a form of a bounding box, which will be replaced by the
original, detailed model inside Thea rendering window when a
rendering starts.

To insert a model press “Browse” button and select a *.mod.thea

file from a Library or from your own collection. Once the model file
selected a preview of the model will be displayed right below the
button.
Press “Insert Model as Proxy” button to insert the model into
SketchUp.
If the folder where the file is located contains more then one
model, then all models names will be added to a selection box.

Note: *.mod.skp can be written in the same folder as *.mod.thea.

The SketchUp file will be used instead of bounding box only when
inserting external models as a proxy.

The basic steps to create correctly a Sketchup model that will

correspond to the Thea model can be seen at the next example,
where a tree from Birch Trees library is used.

We import at first, with the Insert Model as Proxy tool, the

mod.thea inside Sketchup (bounding box) in an empty scene. We
switch to the Parallel projection, and we select a view (front for
Figure 53: Thea Tools Tab example) and we set up the Thea camera so that it will fit the
bounding box height and width. We then enable alpha channel and
we render the model (by using only the sun and not the sky). Once
we are satisfied with the rendering, we save the image as a *.png
file (its alpha channel will be saved automatically at this image).
We repeat the same procedure for another side of the model (its
right side for example) so that we can have more correct (double
sided) preview.

In this way he have 2 images for 2 of the models sides, which we can then import inside
SketchUp, place them one into the other, so that our preview will be created, and make them a
component. We then save this component as a *mod.skp file inside the same folder with the
initial thea model and with the same name. For our example, we will end up with the following
files:

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Birch_Tree_03_6m.mod.skp and Birch_Tree_03_6m.mod.thea
From now on, once we import the Thea model inside SketchUp, its preview will be used, so that
we can easily move/rotate it in our SketchUp scene.

Figure 54: setting up the camera and render the model Figure 55: import the rendered
images inside SketchUp and create
a component

Convert Thea material(s) to SKM

This button can convert a selected Thea material to a SketchUp material (in SKM format). The
created materials can be placed in a model by using regular Paint Bucket. It automatically
optimizes the texture of the SketchUp material and adds the same preview as Thea material has.
So apart from the existing Thea material libraries that can be found inside SketchUp Bucket (as we
have seen in Figure 18), you can have any Thea material converted and applied to faces in the
same way as all other materials.

Technical note: Paths to textures which are stored within 'Thea Render/Materials' folder will be
written inside SKM file as relative to that folder. This makes SKM libraries system independent. All
other texture paths will be stored as full. In a case a path to a texture changes, the conversion
process has to be repeated.

Export
Saves model as Thea scene in *.scn.thea or *.pack.thea format.
Note that when pressing the Save Thea Scene button with ALT pressed at the keyboard, the
current selection is only been saved.
By enabling the Export Animation option, your created animation path (scenes included in
animation) is also exported and can be then seen inside Thea Studio.

19 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

 Preferences

Language: By clicking on Preferences button, a new window

appears as seen in Figure 56. From here, you can change the
Language of the plugin. In order to do so, you need to follow the
next steps:
There is a TheaForSketchUp.po file in the folder:
Figure 56: Plugin Preferences Thea4SU_file/languages/
Window
This file needs to be translated using Poedit program. The program
will generate a TheaForSketchUp.mo file, that has to be copied to
the corresponding folder of the selected translation language.
If the language is already set in the system then it will be
automatically used when SketchUp starts. If it has not been set
automatically, user can open Thea Tool/Tools/Preferences and
select the language manually. The language modification will be
active after SketchUp will restart. If for example you have placed
the TheaForSketchUp.mo file at the folder with name es (Spanish)
Figure 57: Selecting another at the drop down list of the Language window you will see the
Language Spanish language too.

Typical Country Codes are: de (German), es (Spanish), fr (French), it

(Italian), ja (Japanese), pt (Portuguese), pt_BR (Brazilian
Portuguese), ru (Russian), zh_CN (Chinese Simplified), zh_TW
(Chinese Traditional).

Use Back face material when Front absent: This option helps dealing with models where multiple
faces are painted on a back-side only (whereas the front face has no material). By enabling this
option Thea for SketchUp plugin will use the back face material for rendering instead of the
default white material.

1.7 LICENSE TERMS

Solid Iris grants to You a personal, non-transferable, and non-exclusive license to download, install
and use “Thea for SketchUp” and associated printed and/or electronic documentation
accompanying the Software, in accordance with this agreement. This license does not under any
circumstances grant ownership of the Software to You.
A single copy of the program can be installed and used by You, on one machine. You can install
the application on up to two more machines, provided that the plugin is not used or executed
simultaneously on any machines. If You wish to install the Software or use the Software
concurrently on additional machines You must purchase additional licenses.
Demo version is provided for evaluation only and its use for commercial purposes is prohibited.

20 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies

1.8 DISCLAIMER
“Thea for SketchUp” is provided "as-is" and without warranty of any kind, express, implied or
otherwise, including without limitation, any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose. In no event shall the author of this software be held liable for data loss, damages, loss of
profits or any other kind of loss while using or misusing this software. The software must not be
modified, you may not decompile, disassemble. Any kind of reverse engineering of the software is
prohibited.

21 Copyright © Solid Iris Technologies