3D view is blurry on Retina / HiDPI screen

[ragulka]

Hi there!

I have reached out to Chief Architect support with my issue, but did not receive any help whatsoever during 10 months of emailing back and forth, so I decided to reach out to the community to see if anybody else is experiencing this issue.

I've been using Home Designer Pro 2018 (the little brother to Chief Architect) on a Retina Macbook Pro and my issue is that the 3D view is just awfully blurry. I never experienced this issue on my regular Macbook Air. It seems that the 3D image is not rendered on the pixel density of the Macbook Pro display, but rather at a lower pixel density, and is then scaled up. I noticed that Home Designer Suite 2017 does not seem to have this issue, where the image is sharp.

Here's a quick video demonstrating the difference: http://cloud.skyver.ge/1s1U330h1b1O - note that I switch between the two programs in the video (I am using an external 4K display on the video, but the same happens on the internal Retina display).

I tried changing the Hardware Edge Smoothing setting to High, but it only makes the image appear softer, but still blurry. I don't really see any options that might affect the resolution for 3D views. FWIW, it seems that Home Designer Suite 2017 works simply out of the box on both regular and HiDPI screens.

I also noticed that while most of the UI elements seem to be scaled for HiDPI screens, some of them are not - notably the Close buttons (black round circle with X in it). Attached is a screenshot. To be fair, this also appears to be the case for Home Designer Suite 2017, not just Pro 2018.

I also ran a quick test by switching my external monitor from HiDPI to 4K ("more space" in Mac Display options), and the 3D view was now sharp as expected. However, text and controls on the screen were now so tiny that it was very hard to see. This definitely seems to confirm there is an issue with HiDPI modes. Interestingly, this was not the case with the internal display.

I don't think this is a "camera" issue, but the application is simply failing to render the full resolution image when using a 4K (3840x2160) display scaled to HD (1920x1080).

Has anybody else experienced the same issue? Is there anything I can do? CA support have been utterly unhelpful, they do not seem to even understand what a Retina screen is (they suggest me to use the "native" resolution... when the retina resolution ("looks like 1440x900" in display settings) IS the native, default resolution.
 

[Kbird1]

You may have more luck posting this on the HomeTalk Forum which Supports the Home Title,s most people here are using CA Premier which has other view Option like the PBR view and Raytracing, they are propbably more likely to know of any settings than Premier Users. There are a few Users here using Macs , so you may get lucky with some other responses too though.

 

Same password and ID over there : https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/

[glennw]

I'll throw this in for what it is worth - which is probably nothing.

It is something I discovered whilst messing with my 5K mac screen.

If you go to Preferences...Displays...

I am assuming you have Scaled selected and then Default.

You can access a greater range of resolutions by holding the Option key and selecting Scaled.

 

Have a look here

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/imac-aluminum-tapered-edge-faq/how-to-run-imac-retina-5k-at-full-resolution.html

and scroll down to the Default Display Options heading.

Just before that there is an interesting note about "pixel doubled" and native resolution.

 

Although, are you saying that the only real problem is with a 3D view?

 

Do you have Edge Smoothing When Idle checked in your camera dbx?

 

 

 

[ragulka]

Hi glennw, thanks for the tip - yes, I've tried that! But here's the issue - when you set the resolution to "native", or 1:1 pixel mapping, the text and icons are really tiny so they're barely usable. That's the point of doubling the pixels - to get ultra-sharp images at the same scale...

Edge smoothing has no other effect other than making the edges of cabinets and such appear smoother. Yes, this is an issue with the 3D view only.

[glennw]

You can always increase the Button Size in Preferences.

But I can't see that as being a solution for you.