Help...file size to big

thomthom

Does the crashes happen often? Only with Sketchup? Only with this model?

laura_aut

I gues the Warehouse. She (?) mentioned "10 Mb" as limit, also "through the program" and that's the WH (here of course, even 10 Mb would be big)

Laura, did you also try to decrease the file size of the textures? Did you use external images at all (or just plain SU materials)?

How about using components?

Maybe the problem is that my model contains a lot of external images and components (all made by me, only few are SU components like the door, the armchairs, the bad)... here is an image (4 different points of view of my model) just to make you understand of what I'm talking about: Sorry I used Imageshack

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6687/bedroomq.jpg

The problem is that my model is too heavy for my pc, even if it'is not complete, there is an empty room (which should be the bathroom), there are no doors for the two rooms (bathroom and the closet) and the big window is missing.
So the solution is to resize the texures and the images?? Is it possible to resize the single components I've drawn??
Thanks

Gaieus

Turn on hidden geometry (View menu) and see what I suspect; your model is rather "mesy" loaded with a bunch of hidden/softened edges that shouldn't be there (unless the faces are not coplanar but then that causes the mess).

Now if you've used external images, again (Thom and me already asked) have you optimised them? If you decrease the file size of the images, the whole model will decrease as well. Also, if your video card is not very good, those heavy images could explain the frequent crashes.

laura_aut

@thomthom said:

Does the crashes happen often? Only with Sketchup? Only with this model?

My pc hates this model, when I say that it crashes I mean that to open the file it takes almost a minute, when I want to rotare the model, just to change the view, the rotation is very very slow, the model moves in jerks or it appears the notification window which says that the program doesn't work. (I use the program and the pc in Italian language, so I don't know exactly how is written in english that notification windows, this is a personal translation, I don't know if it's right ):D
Sometimes happens that with other models (of similar size) the program have the same problems, sometimes happens (rarely telling the truth) that the pc restart again...alone....a sudden black screen and then the windows loading message as if I'd have just switch on the pc
For this reason I need the model to be more "light", because it's quite hard to work in this way
Laura

laura_aut

@gaieus said:

Turn on hidden geometry (View menu) and see what I suspect; your model is rather "mesy" loaded with a bunch of hidden/softened edges that shouldn't be there (unless the faces are not coplanar but then that causes the mess).
Now if you've used external images, again (Thom and me already asked) have you optimised them? If you decrease the file size of the images, the whole model will decrease as well. Also, if your video card is not very good, those heavy images could explain the frequent crashes.

Yeah it's true, there are lots of hidden/softened edges, I don't lke all that lines, so I hide or soften them....maybe I do wrong

No...another mistake, I take the images (in internet or personal ones) with their original size (I don't decrease them). I put the image into my model and then I resize it in the materials menu, following the size of the component (ex. 85 mm x 123 mm)
Yes...my video card is absolutely far away from being good
Thanks Laura

Gaieus

@laura_aut said:

Yeah it's true, there are lots of hidden/softened edges, I don't lke all that lines, so I hide or soften them....maybe I do wrong

Surely nobody would like them but they mean that during modelling, there were a lot of mistakes made and of course, those edges add to the size of the model.

As for image sizes and a fix (and I don't mean the "physical" size as they appear in SU but their pixel size, compression - generally speaking their file size), first of all we need to know what SU version (number) you are using. (Although it cannot be SU 7 yet as you are saying you use the Italian version and it hasn't come out yet).

thomthom

You should only need to smooth the lines if they are part of a curved surface. If they are between on a flat surface you should be able to delete them. However, if you end up with holes when you delete the edges it means the surface isn't planar and you got something out of alignment in your model.

(Btw, you can upload images directly to the fourm by using the Upload attachment below the reply textbox.)

laura_aut

@gaieus said:

@laura_aut said:

Yeah it's true, there are lots of hidden/softened edges, I don't lke all that lines, so I hide or soften them....maybe I do wrong

Surely nobody would like them but they mean that during modelling, there were a lot of mistakes made and of course, those edges add to the size of the model.

As for image sizes and a fix (and I don't mean the "physical" size as they appear in SU but their pixel size, compression - generally speaking their file size), first of all we need to know what SU version (number) you are using. (Although it cannot be SU 7 yet as you are saying you use the Italian version and it hasn't come out yet).

I hide the lines of curved surfaces, and as you can see in the small picture I posted in this thread, in my model there are lots of curved surfaces. I've hidden/softened also the curves of forniture components (like the beside tables, the chest in front of the bed, but also the stairs, the banister etc.) Compared with my very first models, now I made less mistakes, so my models are enough precise (but not perfect ), so when I hide lines or edges is because I consider that part of the model complete. I didn't think that those edges could give my model a bigger size....I thought that components made the model heavier. Thanks to you, I've learned something new
Oh my SU, I wrote it to ThomThom, version 6 (the free one, not pro). Consideing that I put in my models pictures with their original pixel size...i suppose my model is going to explode

laura_aut

@thomthom said:

You should only need to smooth the lines if they are part of a curved surface. If they are between on a flat surface you should be able to delete them. However, if you end up with holes when you delete the edges it means the surface isn't planar and you got something out of alignment in your model.

(Btw, you can upload images directly to the fourm by using the Upload attachment below the reply textbox.)

That's what I did, I've smoothed lines of curved surfaces, I know there are too much of them, but I like soft lines and hate squared things.
Talking about curved surfaces, look for example to the pillars of the banister....they are all curved

and these are the links of two of the several components of my model:
The beside table: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=2cba43cc26f174a8f9a65dcd8ee605f

The closet: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=ec60504ef6ae3d27d33ad267b2b14c28

I don't want to "plug" my models, it's just to make you understand how I use curved lines and how I hide them

Oh thanks for the advice about images
And thanks for all your advices

thomthom

I do wonder if you have some fault with your graphic card or other hardware. As 17MB files shouldn't be a problem for SU. I often end up with 100-200mb files...

laura_aut

@thomthom said:

I do wonder if you have some fault with your graphic card or other hardware. As 17MB files shouldn't be a problem for SU. I often end up with 100-200mb files...

Infact...that's what makes me get very angry
My pc is an assembled one....recently I've changed the ram (now is 2 Gb), I put two new hard disks (a sata of 150 Gb and one of 500 Gb), but for what I remember the graphic card is old, but I don't remember its model. My pc is not modern, is not powerful, that's why I need to resize my model..or I will never end it up

thomthom

It could be worth finding out the graphic card model. It could very well be that you need to update your drivers. Sektchup, and any other 3D modelling applications, are very sensitive to the drivers used. It could make or break your experience.

laura_aut

@thomthom said:

It could be worth finding out the graphic card model. It could very well be that you need to update your drivers. Sektchup, and any other 3D modelling applications, are very sensitive to the drivers used. It could make or break your experience.

I've tried to find out the model through the "System" window into the "control panel", but the only things written about my pc are: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80 GHz, 2.0 Gb of RAM.
In internet I found a program "Everest Home" which should tell me all the components of my pc....is an .exe file...shall I trust in it or not?

thomthom

Right-click your Desktop
Choose Properties from the menu

Then go to the Settings tab and it should say your graphic card name under the monitor image.

Gaieus

I was not talking about hidden/softened lines on curved surfaces but the ones that keep appearing here (and that Thom also noticed in other pictures, too).

So back to your textures (again); you need o decrease the file size of them. And please, do it.

go to your texture file in your comp[uter and open it in an image editor
edit the image;

decrease pixel resolution (resize/resample)
increase compression (find out how to do it in your editor)
save the image

now open your Material browser in SU > Find the texture you've just edited and click on it
go o the Edit tab (or how it is called in Italian)
and use the "Texture image" > "Browse" button to find your edited texture and reload it in your model

Load Texture.png
What I marked with yellow, is not available in SU 6 only in SU 7 - you can load your image eitor straiht from SU. Quite handy in fact.

meister

Hi Laura!
I send for you Private message.
You can see it on the top of page: control panel.JPG
meister

thomthom

@gaieus said:

increase compression (find out how to do it in your editor)

While that decreases the file size - it does not decrease the amount of memory SU must allocate. When it loads the compressed files it needs to decompress it in order to use it. So a 100x100 image will take the same amount of memory no matter how much it's compressed on disk. Some times it might be better NOT to compress it as the images can be loaded directly in without decompressing.

laura_aut

@thomthom said:

Right-click your Desktop
Choose Properties from the menu

Then go to the Settings tab and it should say your graphic card name under the monitor image.

Ooook I found it: ATI Radeon 9200 pro family..... oh god it's not old..it's jurassic

thomthom

I got an ATI Radeon 9800 on my old computer at home. Still handles SU very well. Though, I'm not sure the difference between the cards.

Sketchupis known to have issues with certain ATI cards. And especially older drivers. You could be suffering from a bad driver.

Gaieus

@thomthom said:

While that decreases the file size - it does not decrease the amount of memory SU must allocate. When it loads the compressed files it needs to decompress it in order to use it. So a 100x100 image will take the same amount of memory no matter how much it's compressed on disk. Some times it might be better NOT to compress it as the images can be loaded directly in without decompressing.

OK, it may be correct and thanks for that insight, Thom. Yet it would definitely decrease file size which is the basic issue here so that Laura can upload the model to the Warehouse.

(Compressing for Google Earth can be crucial however but of course that's a whole different issue).

However decreasing pixel size ("physical" size) of the images - i.e. resizing them - should still help both performance (if the card is crappy) and file size so I'm eagerly awaiting any results from that.

Edit: I have this model (mae for GE) in the warehouse (please, don't look at the quality of it - it's only a kmz anyway so thank God you cannot download as an skp and criticise it):
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=6a240c06f08e3ed1ee286df8eafd81ba
Anyway, when I finished building the model and texturing, it was about 12-13 Mb. Then I edited the texture images (this workflow is much easier in SU 7) and it went down to 2Mb altogether (still big IMO) without any noticeable quality loss both in SU and GE.