What is SU Podium V2.5+

1. Summary of new features in SU Podium V2.5+
2. Process scenes - new and super fast
3. Panoramic VR
4. Many material distortions and problems fixed
5. Podium Image Editor - Updated DOF features/ HDR support
6. New Podium Tools Analyse
7. Sections now included in the SU 2015/ 2016/ 2017/2018/ 2019, 64 bit versions
8. Language support
9. No cast shadow option
10. V2.5 Bug fixes
11. All other previous V2 Plus features included

1. Upgrade to SU Podium V2.5 Plus for SU 2019, 2018,2017 or 2016

Windows SU Podium V2.5.x only supports Windows 7,8 and 10. Read the install guide here.

Mac OS-X SU Podium V2.5.x only supports Yosemite, El Capitan, High-Sierra, Mojave. Read the install guide here.

Where to get support? Visit the forum:

• Forum
• Contact Support

2. New features in SU Podium V2.5+:

• V2.5.x's major new feature is the result of months of R&D to employ a C++ method of processing scenes which make the overall Podium processing scenes in SketchUp up to ten times faster. In larger models, you will notice even more speed gains. In fact, V2.5.x is up to 50% faster than the blazing speeds of V2.5. What is processing scenes and why should I care? Please read below.
• Panoramic VR is now supported in SU Podium V2.5.1 and above. This is a new feature that only comes with the introduction of V2.5.x. Please read about Panoramic VR here.
• V2.5.x solves many of the texture mapping distortion in a rendered image such as distorted textures on flipped components. Also, it is able to process .tif files and has much fewer "unknown symbol" messages. Also, the problems with materials that has names like "h" or "m" are gone.
• V2.5.x has a better Tools, Analyse method, helping you to quickly identify problems.
• PIE has a new DOF feature and now supports HDR images.
• Section Tools has been included in the SketchUp 2016, 2017, 2018 64 bit versions.
• V2.5.x - SketchUp 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 users please read about what's brand new in SU Podium V2.5.x here.
• All other SU Podium V2 Plus features are retained. For a summary of V2 Plus features in addition to the new items in V2.5 Plus, please read here.
• V2.5.x supports SketchUp 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and V2.5.1 is for 2014 Win/ Mac, 64/ 32 bit. If you are using SketchUp 8, please use V2 Plus.
• V2 Plus will continue to be available for SketchUp 8 and SketchUp 2013.

3. Processing Scenes - Super fast C++ method

SU Podium V2.5.x Plus employs a significantly improved Podium Exporter that is written in C++.

Previous versions used a very efficient ruby code to export SketchUp geometry, textures, camera and sun position to Podium's raytracing engine. However, the C++ Podium Exporter can export geometry and materials to the raytracing engine much faster. In many cases 10 times faster. In fact, V2.5.x is 50% faster than V2.5. As you know, with large models, processing and parsing scenes can often be the longest stage in the entire rendering process. So for large models, the speed difference can be several minutes or more in rendering time.

For example: This Lake House model from has 768,000 faces and 145 materials. On a very fast Windows 7 machine (Intel i7 4960X), with V2.18.972, processing scenes and parsing UV maps took 2 minutes. On the same computer with V2.5.x the geometry and materials exports took 43 seconds. We expect this speed performance will increase even more in the next free update.

4. Panoramic VR

Panoramic VR has been introduced with SU Podium V2.5.x. SU Podium includes an option to create equirectangular images and convert these into spherical Panoramic VRs where the camera is inside the sphere and can be rotate on it's axis in 360 degrees by your clients. Creates a powerful presentation. Please read about Panoramic VR here.

5. Flipped textures and other material problems that are fixed

1. Flipped component textures problem - Fixed.
2. Tiff files crashing the Mac version - Fixed.
3. Material that are named "m" or "b" or other single letters.
4. Other UV mapping problems - Mostly fixed.
5. Unknown symbol message - Fewer incidents.

6. Podium Image Editor - DOF Improvements

Podium Image Editor has an improved DOF (Depth of Field options) that lets you fine tune the in focus and out of focus areas.

Read the detailed web documentation about PIE here.

7. Tools    Analyse has been updated:

Analyse Tools has been updated in V2.5 Plus with additional options providing more information about your model and how to fix problems.

As you can see in the adjacent image, there are many new items reported in Analyse. Now there is a summary section for Alerts which provide information why Podium may be crashing or is not rendering as expected. The list of materials now links with both the SketchUp Materials Editor and the Podium Materials Property. In other words, when you click on one of the listed materials in the Analyse Report the particular material is linked to SketchUp's Material Editor and Podium Material Properties UI so you can make edits quickly. Read about all of Podium's tools here.

Rendering Sections included in SU 2016, SU 2017, SU 2018,SU 2019 64 bit versions

An oft requested feature for SU Podium has been to support SketchUp sections. SketchUp sections simulate section cuts by hiding parts of the model that are behind the SketchUp section plane. But SketchUp does not actually trim or cut the faces from the model, to make sections as you might see in a solid modeling 3D program. SketchUp section feature does not remove geometry behind the section plane. Therefore Podium's rendering engine can not distinguish between what is in front or behind (hidden) the SketchUp section plane.

To deal with this, Cadalog has a has a new section tool plug-in for SU Podium V2.5 Plus users, that cuts and removes the SketchUp geometry that is behind the section plane. To ensure that you do not lose geometry from your original model, the SU Podium Section Tool first makes a copy of your model and renames to a unique name. Then the tool creates a new face where the section plane is and removes the geometry that is behind the section plane. The result is a real physical section which you can then render with SU Podium.

Section Tool is now installed with V2.5 Plus for SketchUp 64 bit. This is because SketchUp 64 bit has improvements in memory management and Section Tools works well. However, we have not included Section Tools in the older SketchUp 32 bit because it will often crash due to lack of memory. plugins page.

9. Support for more languages:

SU Podium V2.5 Plus adds support for Japanese and Korean with more European and Asian languages coming soon.

10. Turn off shadow casting on a per-material basis:

Cast Shadows is a new material property accessible via a checkbox at the bottom of the materials dialog:

There may be times that you do not want a specific material to cast a shadow. One example shown below is Podium Browser's background clouds. At times the cloud background image needs to be scaled up to produce a realistic effect. But this will cause the cloud background image to cast a shadow over much of the scene. In this case, you may want to turn off the material property, cast shadows.

11. SU Podium V2.5.x Bug fixes

1. Out of camera view LEM will not render - Fixed.
2. LEMs on textures create distorted textures - Fixed
3. Spot lights have no fall off - Fixed
4. PLS icon when pressed twice makes the PLS dialog disappear - Fixed
5. Face reflected in a mirror displays back face, not front face - Fixed
6. Geometry caching was causing problems, needed to be removed - Removed
7. RenderAll removed and put back into Beta

12. Includes all other SU Podium V2 Plus features.

SU Podium V2.5 Plus retains all other V2 Plus features that were introduced one year ago. For a summary of what other features are included, such as Podium Image Editor, Podium Preset Editor, the new advanced metallic materials, EditInPlace, hidden LEM, please read here.

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