Instancing

Instancing is a feature which allows many instances (or copies) of a mesh to be represented in the scene, while only actually storing the mesh once (thereby saving a lot of memory compared to straight-forward duplication).

There are two ways this can be achieved in SkIndigo:

1. Proxy Instancing

   A proxy is a reference object that references a more complex object with a usually simpler copy, in order to keep the overall scene geometry low, while allowing the render geometry to stay high.

   1. Create the object you wish to copy, create a component out of it (right click, select 'Make Component') and name it “objectname”
   2. Create a new object to use as a proxy (a cube will do) and create a component out of it named “objectname_dummy”. It is important that it has the name of the original component followed by “_dummy”
   3. Copy and manipulate these dummies around the scene and on render they will be replaced by the original component.

2. Component Instancing

   Copies of components in SketchUp will export using Indigo instances.

   1. Create the object you wish to copy, create a component out of it (right click, select 'Make Component'), with any name
   2. Copy and paste the component object.

   Component copies will be exported as Indigo instances - each component copy will only use a small amount of memory.