Decal preview in viewport?

[it_dept1]

Good morning,

I love decals, simplifies texturing objects, but it would a billion times better if there was a way to see them in the viewport rather than leaving the frame buffer rendering constantly. I do work with pool mosaics and lining them up is a bit of a chore.

Is that possible and I've just missed how that works? Is that in the works already?

Many thanks,

[bbergem]

I have been adding a plane with the texture assigned and sizing it to match the bounding box of the decal and placing it inside the decal bounding object (have to unlock it). It doesnt render when inside that component. And it functions as a form of preview inside sketchup.

Though I wish it more natively would do this.

[iva_mancheva]

Hello it_dept1 and bbergem,

Thank you for your request. With the current SketchUp versions showing the Decal with its material and textures in the viewport would be technically possible only via a tool which when activated shows the Decal preview in the viewport (similar to the Scatter viewer tool). This means that when you move the Decal in the viewport you will activate the Move tool and deactivate the Decal preview tool and thus you need to activate it again in order to see the texture. You will be able to see the texture while adjusting the Decal in Asset Editor though. With SketchUp 2023 we will be able to make this implementation in a more flexible way.
If you find it convenient enough I will log a feature request. Keep in mind that meanwhile you could use the Viewport Render.

Kind regards,
Iva