1.6 is faster than previous version . Because Podium 1.6 now supports multi-threading. During the raytracing and anti-aliasing procedure of the rendering dual or quad processors will be used generating two to three times speed boost in rendering times in comparison with version 1.5. The speed increases depends a lot on the number of processors your computer has and the size of the image resolution. Cadalog, Inc tests have seen speed differences of two to four times. However it should be noticed that Geometry Process, Mesh building, Photon mapping do not support multi-threading so initially while starting rendering the speed may not be generating faster than 1.5. Once the raytracing and anti-aliasing process starts, variation of speed is visible.
Alpha Transparency . PNG images containing background and have alpha transparency are now supported in Podium. These images can be placed in SketchUp and will render with transparent backgrounds. There is no need for clip maps anymore.
Free Plants and Trees Library . Cadalog, Inc. has create a drag and drop plug-in for SketchUp which is comprised of dozens of components of plants, trees and shrubs. This is a web dialog based plug-in which simply allows you to drag and drop the various trees and plants. Each plant and tree image is contained in a face me component. Please download from the Registered User page. Download file size is 230 mb.
Render all scenes- batch rendering of scenes . When you choose Render all scenes from the Podium menu and then click Render, Podium will render each scene in the SketchUp model. Podium only renders the scenes with a camera view. The idea behind Render all scenes is that you can use a tool like SU Animate to create a SketchUp walk thru animation. Once you have all the scenes of your SketchUp animation, Podium will render each scene and save each finished image (JPG or PNG). You can then take all the rendered images and use a program like Microsoft's Movie Maker to create a rendered animation video.
Cadalog, Inc. also announces the availability of SU Podium 1.6.1 Beta, an updated version of Podium 1.6. Version 1.6.1 includes new wide screen resolutions options, support for SketchUp's parallel projections and also includes some significant bug fixes. The update to version 1.6.1 is free for Podium 1.5 or 1.6 users. Podium 1.6.1 Beta runs in both Windows and Mac OS 10.5 operating systems on Google SketchUp 6 or 7. |
