Export Hi-Image

Hi guys!

I'm trying to export a Hi-Image from a GH file but it does not work because the file is really heavy. Does somebody know how to export it by parts?

If not, I think I ought to export it erasing some blocks and then join them on Photoshop...

Any idea?

Thanks in advance!!

Those are some of the errors

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Pieter Segeren on July 15, 2011 at 5:32am

you could create a bunch of printscreens (without changing the zoom factor of coarse). Good luck:)

Permalink Reply by Chichizola10 on July 15, 2011 at 9:27am

Hi Pieter

you mean by myself or is it an option in GH?

I've calculated how many screenshots I do have to make by myself and then join in photoshop and it is almost a million!! :,( and the quality could be really bad, right? I do not know....

thanks!!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 15, 2011 at 6:38am

I already write out the images as tiles. In the Rhino command history you see those png file paths scroll by. Find the folder where they are and then you can stitch them in photoshop from there. Still a crapload of work, but at least the tiling has been taken care of.

How large is the final image supposed to be?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Chichizola10 on July 15, 2011 at 10:08am

Hi David!

Are you saying that I could join the several .png images that I've exported in Photoshop afterwards, right? The problem is that I do not know how to export the GH definition in parts(in several .png). When I want to export a Hi-Res Image; Grasshopper takes all the file (nor smaller parts of the GH definition) and the file is 110.000 x 50.000 pixels large (I think it is really big)...but I do not want to be that large, maybe 5 metres large could be nice to see the definition!!

I’ve tried to erase some branches but it makes an error in the following block that it is attached.

That is why I wonder if it is possible to export (and HOW) the entire GH definition in smaller .png images and then join them in photoshop.

Thanks you very much!!!

PS: for instance; I've uploaded the file to megaupload because it is 100 mb weight. If you are interested, you can download it and see how much is the file large!!

>>>>>> http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZPLKJO5W

thanks a lot!!!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 15, 2011 at 10:22am

Ok so that 22 Billion bytes of uncompressed image data. Sure the image is way smaller when saved as a png or jpg because Grasshopper screenshots tend to compress really well, but in memory the image needs to be uncompressed.

22 Billion bytes = 22,000 MB = 2.2 GB

Won't fit in the memory of 32-bit Windows.

Read my post again, I DO export image tiles and you can use the Rhino command history to find where these png's files are located. Also if you delete (or rename) the GrasshopperImageStitcher.exe application Grasshopper will open the folder with all the image tiles automatically.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 15, 2011 at 10:12am

The reason it fails is because a single image requires 4 bytes per pixel (one byte for red, one for green, one for blue and one for alpha) in a contiguous fashion. In other words, it's not enough to have the bytes available, they also need to be adjacent. All 4 frikkin trillion of them (assuming you need a million 1000x1000 pixel tiles). That's just not going to happen.

It could be that Photoshop has very clever memory management that allows it to store image data in non-consecutive chunks, but .NET does not allow this.

In fact this can be a real problem with much smaller images as well. In 32-bit Windows you're allowed 2GB of memory per application (sometimes 3). If Rhino+Grasshopper are already using up 1.5GB it's not like you can fit in an extra 0.5GB image before running into problems. Memory is almost never used in a consecutive fashion.

Rhino uses a clever memory manager (not the default Windows one) that results in less memory fragmentation and Grasshopper uses the .NET memory allocator and garbage collector which is capable of defragmenting memory usage. But even with these two optimizations memory fragmentation will occur (and the longer Rhino runs the worse it will get) making it less and less likely that you'll be able to find large consecutive areas of free memory.

The Grasshopper hi-res image exporter creates image tiles of 1000x1000 pixels and saves these files immediately. So it never requires more than 4MB while running. Once it's done making the images, it will start a different application that will stitch these images together. That's what the GrasshopperImageStitcher.exe in your screenshot is. Since this is a new app, it has 2GB of absolutely pristine memory to play with so it's a lot longer before it runs into problems. And when it does run into memory problems it won't bring down Rhino with it.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 15, 2011 at 10:17am

ps. on a huge file like this you can improve redraw significantly by hiding the Compass widget.

Permalink Reply by Chichizola10 on July 15, 2011 at 11:19am

your help is always welcome!!

thank you very much!!

I will try to redraw it as you say. I think I can convert it to a smaller size file and then, get those images from the path!!

sorry but I did not understand the first time!! now I get it!!

thanks a lot!!

PS: I will let you know!!!

Permalink Reply by Chichizola10 on July 15, 2011 at 4:08pm

done with the 1000x1000px images!!

thanks!!

Permalink Reply by Dieter Toews on July 17, 2011 at 7:54am

would it be possible to have an option to turn off the compass after a set FPS level (or some proxy measurement thereof) has been breached? (and conversely back on again)

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 17, 2011 at 12:11pm

I need to rewrite the compass so that it actually is fast. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Dieter Toews on July 17, 2011 at 7:46am

I am about to confront this problem as well. I will be tying to output an image of a 18+ mb GHA file. I remmber when this feature was added and there was a request at the time for .pdf or .svg output (These file types would dramatically reduce the size of very large, print resolution, files). I'm sure this feature is still on the back burner but i wonder if changes made since the original discussion took place have made it easier to do (i remember that the display pipeline has be rewritten since then.)