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    Sketchup is Inacurrate???

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    • M Offline
      mac1
      last edited by

      @noelwarr said:

      Wow! Lots of posts. Think I've read through them all but I don't think the following has been pointed out... Sketchup is based on floating point data structure. These are inherently inaccurate. Try the following out in the ruby console

      (Math::PI).to_l
      => 3.14159265358979
      (Math::PI * 10**13).to_l
      => 31415926535897.9

      This means that the further away from the origin your entities are, the more inaccurate they are.

      Floats are a lightweight data structure ideal for a program like Sketchup. There are others that are actually capable of manipulating irrational numbers (pi, square root of two...check out GMP) without ever loosing accuracy but they are very heavy weight and only really necessary if you're, I don't know, sending a rocket to the moon or something.

      Sketchup overcomes this floating point inaccuracy by allowing for a little tollerance but as you can see the difference is still there

      point1.to_s + point2.to_s
      => (258,878708mm, 172,933835mm, 0mm)(0mm, 0mm, 0mm)
      point1.z == point2.z
      => true
      point1.to_a
      => [10.1920751212053, 6.80841870273468, 1.77635683940025e-015]
      point2.to_a
      => [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]

      Nonetheless Sketchup is a great tool and its inaccuracy (that is also present in those other "more professional" packages!) can be overlooked 99% of the time. Hope this was of use to anyone.

      See my 3-16 post above and has been addressed before. The reason some packages show more accuracy the spec allows for extened or extendable implimentations. The single float 32 is only good to 7.225 digits.

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      • jeff hammondJ Offline
        jeff hammond
        last edited by

        @unknownuser said:

        Well, thank god for construction industry standards allowing actual built accuracy to be 1/16" in ten feet or greater for different trades!

        that tolerance should be set aside for the builders though.. with framing, i generally give my crew an 1/8" before i start bching at them or start contemplating a redo..

        but, if i do that in the drawing.. say, give myself an eight in the model, then i'm looking at 1/4" errors onsite.. or, my crew has to be 100% perfect according to the drawing (i.e.-basically impossible)

        EDIT
        well, i already do cut in to the tolerance a bit when handing out a cultist.. everything is rounded to the 16th" even if the drawing calls for x/32" etc.. but yeah, there's definitely some allowable play in there.. i just prefer the drawing or calculations to be as close to perfect as possible (mainly because i think it IS possible.. we are dealing with computers here ๐Ÿ˜‰ ).. and as i said early in the thread, sketchup is highly accurate and 100% capable of fulfilling my needs.. the rest of my babbling about in this thread has be regarding one small situation which (i feel) is mistreated in sketchup.. and i can still draw those parts accurately in sketchup-- i just use a different approach than whats offered in the automated toolset (offset tool/followme tool)

        dotdotdot

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        • thomthomT Offline
          thomthom
          last edited by

          @unknownuser said:

          when handing out a cultist..

          ๐Ÿ˜ฎ ๐Ÿ˜ฒ ๐Ÿ˜•

          Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
          List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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          • Rich O BrienR Offline
            Rich O Brien Moderator
            last edited by

            You dare judge Brother Jeff?

            Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp ๐Ÿ“–

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            • pilouP Offline
              pilou
              last edited by

              These 1/4", 1/8", 1/16", 1/32" are for me perfect obscurantist measures from occultism ! ๐Ÿ’š

              Frenchy Pilou
              Is beautiful that please without concept!
              My Little site :)

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              • thomthomT Offline
                thomthom
                last edited by

                @unknownuser said:

                These 1/4", 1/8", 1/16", 1/32" are for me perfect obscurantist measures from occultism ! ๐Ÿ’š

                ๐Ÿ˜†

                Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                • TIGT Offline
                  TIG Moderator
                  last edited by

                  [off:2hxvcf0c]In the UK at least no one uses the arcane 'pounds, shillings and pence' any more!
                  The UK dragged itself into the 20th century when I was a lad...
                  12 pence = 1 shilling
                  20 shillings = 1 pound
                  There were even coins as ha'penny [ยฝd] and farthing [ยผd]
                  [somewhat illogically 'd'=pence ๐Ÿ˜’ ]
                  We had other coins worth 1d[penny],3d[joey],6d[tanner], 1s[bob],2s[2-bob/florin],2s/6d[half-crown] and banknotes for 10s[10-bob],ยฃ1[a quid],ยฃ5[a fiver]...
                  There were also olde coins for 5s [crown] and guinea [ยฃ1/1s]***
                  So something would be priced as "ยฃ1/10s/4ยฝd"
                  Nows we have decimal pounds/pence and coins up to ยฃ2.
                  So it is now approx. ยฃ1.53.........

                  *** The 'guinea' was an interesting idea.
                  If you were doing a service like an auctioneer you priced/charged the buyer in guineas and paid the seller in pounds - thereby keeping the standard 5% commission [1s is 1/20=5% of ยฃ1].
                  Having a base-12 shilling [like the feet/inch system!] allows you to divide it up into 1/4,1/3,1/2,2/3,3/4 and 1/6ths [and with ยฝd you jumpp to base-24 so 1/8ths are possible - 1ยฝd was 1/8th of a shilling; using ยผd even allowed 1/16ths !!], but not 1/10ths ! Of course we still use 12 hours, 60 minutes/seconds etc [and obscure 'degrees'] for that very reason...
                  ๐Ÿ˜ฒ[/off:2hxvcf0c]
                  I can still 'conjure' with the olde fractional feet-and-inches - but 'metric' IS so much easier...

                  TIG

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                  • jgbJ Offline
                    jgb
                    last edited by

                    @thomthom said:

                    @unknownuser said:

                    when handing out a cultist..

                    ๐Ÿ˜ฎ ๐Ÿ˜ฒ ๐Ÿ˜•

                    Yeah, I saw that too. You posted faster than I could. ๐Ÿคฃ

                    Handing out cultists.... what a concept.


                    jgb

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                    • jeff hammondJ Offline
                      jeff hammond
                      last edited by

                      @thomthom said:

                      @unknownuser said:

                      when handing out a cultist..

                      ๐Ÿ˜ฎ ๐Ÿ˜ฒ ๐Ÿ˜•

                      haha. good catch!

                      (I think i need a context checker on my computer as opposed to a spell checker ๐Ÿ˜„ )

                      dotdotdot

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                      • TIGT Offline
                        TIG Moderator
                        last edited by

                        At least you weren't handing out a cutlass [pirate theme...]

                        TIG

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                        • jeff hammondJ Offline
                          jeff hammond
                          last edited by

                          .

                          ok, so here's a real world scenario showing why the offset tool w/ arcs is a no goโ€ฆ inferencing doesn't work because if i inference for the arc, everything else goes sour & viceversa..

                          wall_offset_error_.skp

                          the attached .skp shows me trying to draw this wall with the offset tool.

                          โ€ฆand that's a basic slice of a real world drawing.. this perimeter wall would actually be a lot bigger and possibly more complex in a full drawing.. the whole process has to be done manually where as if the offset tool worked properly, it'd be a big timesaver..

                          EDIT ugh.. that uploaded version of my skp didn't have any of my notes on there.. ?? i'll sort it out soon..

                          EDIT #2 -- ok.. fixed ๐Ÿ˜„

                          dotdotdot

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                          • jeff hammondJ Offline
                            jeff hammond
                            last edited by

                            @tig said:

                            I can still 'conjure' with the olde fractional feet-and-inches - but 'metric' IS so much easier...

                            my daughter is learning length & volume in school right now..
                            her homework the past two weeks has been all metric stuff.. (you know.. how to move a decimal point around ๐Ÿ˜„ )

                            i just wish they were teaching her metric as 'the way things are' as opposed to 'here, you might see this stuff occasionally'.

                            dotdotdot

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                            • Rich O BrienR Offline
                              Rich O Brien Moderator
                              last edited by

                              That's a very good example Jeff ๐Ÿ‘

                              Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp ๐Ÿ“–

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                              • TIGT Offline
                                TIG Moderator
                                last edited by

                                The USA is already quite 'metric'... ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

                                You have had 'decimal' money forever.
                                You buy coke/pop in 'liters'.
                                Your cars have 'cc' engine data.
                                The US Army measure horizontal distances in 'meters' [but then heights in 'feet' - as do aircraft the world over!].
                                Most complex science in conducted in 'metric'.
                                So I expect that much of the US space-program is 'metric' too...

                                Now if only we can get you into using a few 'metric lengths'... ๐Ÿ˜‰

                                I find it surprising that given the US's break with the UK just as the French were pushing their newfangled 'metric' system, that the US didn't adopt it too, much of the rest of the world did...
                                We are not trying to get you to adopt a decimal time or calendar system ๐Ÿ˜ฒ

                                TIG

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                                • pilouP Offline
                                  pilou
                                  last edited by

                                  Remember the Mars Climat Orbiter ๐Ÿ˜’
                                  Some millions $ in smoking vapors for error between unities in translation! ๐Ÿ’š

                                  Frenchy Pilou
                                  Is beautiful that please without concept!
                                  My Little site :)

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                                  • jeff hammondJ Offline
                                    jeff hammond
                                    last edited by

                                    @tig said:

                                    So I expect that much of the US space-program is 'metric' too...
                                    :

                                    right. much of it is. unfortunately, not all of it.
                                    we crashed a probe into mars by accident due to some imperial/metric conflicts ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

                                    re:length.
                                    all of our official land surveys etc are metric as well.. it's just the tradesmen that won't switch. I think most of us would be into switching but most of our materials are still sold imperial only.

                                    it's pretty much the govt and manufacturers of building materials that need to lead the way.

                                    Edit. well, I see frenchy has beaten me to the mars thing ๐Ÿ˜„

                                    dotdotdot

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                                    • jeff hammondJ Offline
                                      jeff hammond
                                      last edited by

                                      @unknownuser said:

                                      That's a very good example Jeff ๐Ÿ‘

                                      maybe one of these days I'll get the point across that I've been trying to ๐Ÿ˜†

                                      dotdotdot

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                                      • jeff hammondJ Offline
                                        jeff hammond
                                        last edited by

                                        @arcad-uk said:

                                        I can see the argument from both sides for arc offsets because in the past I've wanted both results. Ideally SU will be given true arcs at some point. But from this thread I now understand why things are the way they are and on balance from an architectural perspective I prefer to have any offset from an arc create a consistent (wall) thickness which is what happens now rather than tapering the arc section to maintain a vertex offset.

                                        I guess I'm now flogging a dead horse but the way it works now doesn't give a consistent wall thickness. see my last upload in this thread which shows an example using an actual wall.

                                        dotdotdot

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                                        • andybotA Offline
                                          andybot
                                          last edited by

                                          Hey, what's better than a dead horse to beat! Anyhoo, wouldn't you use follow-me in a case such as the one you show? That way you are certain to have a consistent profile along the path.

                                          http://charlottesvillearchitecturalrendering.com/

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                                          • jeff hammondJ Offline
                                            jeff hammond
                                            last edited by

                                            @andybot said:

                                            Hey, what's better than a dead horse to beat! Anyhoo, wouldn't you use follow-me in a case such as the one you show? That way you are certain to have a consistent profile along the path.

                                            it would be nice if I could. but if I were to put a 2x6 profile at the end of one of those perimeter edges (in my latest example skp) then run follow me, it would produce the exact same (bad) geometry as offsetting the perimeter then push/pulling the face upwards.

                                            these two tools (offset/followme)use the same brain..

                                            dotdotdot

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