I would like to know how can I change the colors assigned to my constructions so I could see them in Sketchup.
Unfortunately the proposed procedure only works if the colour is already different and it’s not possible to change the colour by construction and only replaces one colour to another. Very preliminary OS versions where more flexible in this question
If you are in "Render By Construction" you can use hold down the "alt" key to turn the Native SketchUp "Paint Bucket" tool into an "Eye Dropper" tool to select the current rendering color. Once selected you can edit the color in SketchUp's material tab using Color wheel or by entering HLS, HSB, or RGB values for the color you want. This color change will be saved with the OSM model. Screenshots below provide additional detail
Note the text at the bottom of SketchUp indicates that the alt key can be used to sample a material
Once you see the eyedropper, click on the color you want to sample
If not already on it, switch to the "Edit" tab in the "Material dialog" and change color.
This seems to be for older versions of OpenStudio. Any update for OpenStudio 2.3.0? Using the above, the Materials -> Edit tab items are all grayed out and cannot be changed?
@Matt Koch, what version of SketchUp are you using and what operating system. I think this has changed a bit across versions and platforms but should still be a way to edit. This is native SketchUp functionality, not OpenStudio.
OK, I should have taken the time to read and understand the above images when I first saw them in a forum. However, your added explanations above did help a great deal making sense of these. So, yes, I can change construction colors now. The reason I wanted this is that I noticed the colors for two different window constructions were the same in my model, so I wanted to change one of them to be able to distinguish them. However, as it turns out, using the above method, both constructions change to the same new color, not just the one I wanted to change. How can I resolve this?
@Matt Koch or @David Goldwasser, are there any updates on this topic? It would be nice to see different constructions as different colors and I agree that using the paint bucket and dropper change all wall type colors, so it does not help in OS 2.5 / SU 2017.
No updates from my side, sorry. Not high enough on my priority list.
Also, manually editing the OS text file to create a unique Rendering Color for a specific Construction is pretty quick. Assuming the Construction was created as a modified duplicate from a pre-existing Construction, then they will both have the same Handle to a single Rendering Color. I copy-pasted the Rendering Color and changed the handle of the new Color by a single character. Then I modified the corresponding Handle that is an attribute of the Construction that I wanted to re-Color. Save, and voila, I get a unique color in the Sketchup Render by Construction view mode.
Now that I know that if I "duplicate and modify" a construction I won't get a unique color, I will start to create my unique constructions from scratch: seems to be the fastest way to get a unique Rendering Color.
I never reached to modify directly the text file. ¿can you explain better how to do it? I agree the west way is to define constructions from scratch and not use other constructions as a basis. It will be great if in the openstudio application colour could be applied to constructions in a similar way than can be done for SpaceType or ThermalZone.
I cannot post a detailed reply within the character limit. Open .osm file using text editor. Search for OS:Construction which requires a unique color. Find, {...} !- Surface Rendering Name. Rename this to be a unique character string. Search for OS:Rendering:Color that has the OLD name. Copy this and paste a duplicate just below. Edit {...}, !- Handle to the new, unique name. Now your OS:Construction, Surface Rendering Name, refers to a unique OS:Rendering:Color, Handle.
.png "Tim Johnson")
Comments