SketchUp 2013 Gripes & Bitchin' ONLY ;)

[jeff hammond]

[bmike]

@unknownuser said:

@jason_maranto said:

Wow Dan, I thought I was throwing out some bombs -- but you just set some demolition charges

Best,
Jason.

nah.. it's cool.. it's always a bit of fun trolling people that can't afford a real computer

yeah, not to mention i have essentially 2 machines if i need, and can run both at the same time.

[pbacot]

er I think the Mac HAS been all but ignored by SU if you look at the UI. As I said before SU makes me want to get a PC.

[Alan Fraser]

Yeah! The other advantage of macs is that they provide excellent training for becoming an upgrade whore...complete with a handy in-house istore where you can purchase all kinds of shiny new toys.
Mac fan-boys ought to feel right at home with the new SU.

[jeff hammond]

@pbacot said:

er I think the Mac HAS been all but ignored by SU if you look at the UI. As I said before SU makes me want to get a PC.

grasshopper makes me want to get a PC.. it's not working in mac rhino yet.
for whatever reason, it's such a daunting task for me to get bootcamp + windows + rhino hooked up on my computers.. on a few occasions, i've considered hiring an IT guy to get everything up and running for me just so i can use grasshopper..

but for now, i'm just rolling with the typical adhd plan of "procrastinate long enough and you'll get what you want"

[Frederik]

@pbacot said:

...I think the Mac HAS been all but ignored by SU if you look at the UI...

I'm getting more and more confused, cause if you look at "darling's" profile, you'll notice that the OS is set to... drum roll ... MAC...

[jeff hammond]

@frederik said:

@pbacot said:

...I think the Mac HAS been all but ignored by SU if you look at the UI...

I'm getting more and more confused, cause if you look at "darling's" profile, you'll notice that the OS is set to... drum roll ... MAC...

i don't think they have anyone onboard that actually uses the app in the way it's supposedly designed to be used.. because if they did, they'd definitely be ironing out all the pesky little UI pitfalls that become apparent when working in a production environment.

(but hey, chris f. has joined the team and i know he used sketchup in a working environment.. hopefully he'll be able to have some say in this stuff)

(and yes, this is a back-handed stab.. the suTeam probably does have a lot of people that know the app).. i don't really know so i'm just making stuff up now

[bmike]

@unknownuser said:

@frederik said:

@pbacot said:

...I think the Mac HAS been all but ignored by SU if you look at the UI...

I'm getting more and more confused, cause if you look at "darling's" profile, you'll notice that the OS is set to... drum roll ... MAC...

i don't think they have anyone onboard that actually uses the app in the way it's supposedly designed to be used.. because if they did, they'd definitely be ironing out all the pesky little UI pitfalls that become apparent when working in a production environment.

(but hey, chris f. has joined the team and i know he used sketchup in a working environment.. hopefully he'll be able to have some say in this stuff)

**(and yes, this is a back-handed stab.. the suTeam probably does have a lot of people that know the app).. i don't really know so i'm just making stuff up now
**

yeah, hopefully trimble will keep the mac version going, and maybe even make it look and work like most other OSX apps.

starting to peak at rhino and formz (used it along time ago in grad school... on a powerbook 1400cs! - man has it changed!)

i do need layout solution though, might have to download some trials and play around.

[Aerilius]

Ohh... not again platform wars.
Standards, virtualization and app-streaming make platforms irrelevant anyways. Make one application that works really well, not many that only complement each other's issues.

[arail1]

@bmike said:

starting to peak at rhino and formz (used it along time ago in grad school... on a powerbook 1400cs! - man has it changed!)

i do need layout solution though, might have to download some trials and play around.

Just starting w/ Rhino. What can SU Layout do that Rhino Layout can't? (I'm a real newbie at Rhino - haven't even set up a title block yet so my question is sincere.)

[jeff hammond]

@arail1 said:

Just starting w/ Rhino. What can SU Layout do that Rhino Layout can't? (I'm a real newbie at Rhino - haven't even set up a title block yet so my question is sincere.)

fwiw, i'm the wrong person to ask.. i build all the stuff i design so i don't generally have a need for 2D drawings with details etc.. i'm from the mindset of 'draw it in 3D to begin with.. how much more detailed can you get ? "

i used to use layout to try to communicate with engineers but it was always so boring to me instead of the 'fun' i get from 3D modeling.. and i like trying to keep things fun and interesting-- otherwise, i start to feel like i'm working

just this morning, i sent some .3dm files to a new (to me) engineering firm and told them i'm only going to be distributing 3D files and if they need to translate to 2D, go ahead and do it..
(but they seem to be pretty cool with the idea of "look.. let me do my thing and you do your thing and we'll get along great")

anyway- i guess that's going off topic but i don't have much of a clue regarding layout vs rhino.. i do know that in rhino, it would be as if layout&sketchup were one app instead of two.. that alone gets a from me.

[jason_maranto]

@unknownuser said:

i do know that in rhino, it would be as if layout&sketchup were one app instead of two.. that alone gets a from me.

This is pretty much true for form.z as well -- which I also like.

One thing I would remind anybody who is looking into form.z is that the Layout features are still a WIP -- a good example of this is the fact that you don't have the ability to use regular colors/materials right now (only color via hatches/fills and lines). Which could work fine for construction drawings, but will likely not be the best for snazzy presentations.

Here's a direct link to the form.z Layout feature documentation: http://www.formz.com/manuals/formz7/!SSL!/WebHelp/03021_Layout.html

My advice would be to download the demo, use it for a while, and then drop by their forum to let them know what features you want added... you'll be surprised by how easy they are to work with.

That said, Layout (for presentations) remains the one redeeming quality of updating SketchUp 9 Pro at this point.

Best,
Jason.

[pbacot]

@jason_maranto said:

That said, Layout (for presentations) remains the one redeeming quality of updating SketchUp 9 Pro at this point.

Best,
Jason.

True. It is also sad that without LO you don't have decent printing from SU. Everyone has to figure out the workarounds for themselves.

[bmike]

@unknownuser said:

@arail1 said:

Just starting w/ Rhino. What can SU Layout do that Rhino Layout can't? (I'm a real newbie at Rhino - haven't even set up a title block yet so my question is sincere.)

fwiw, i'm the wrong person to ask.. i build all the stuff i design so i don't generally have a need for 2D drawings with details etc.. i'm from the mindset of 'draw it in 3D to begin with.. how much more detailed can you get ? "

i used to use layout to try to communicate with engineers but it was always so boring to me instead of the 'fun' i get from 3D modeling.. and i like trying to keep things fun and interesting-- otherwise, i start to feel like i'm working

just this morning, i sent some .3dm files to a new (to me) engineering firm and told them i'm only going to be distributing 3D files and if they need to translate to 2D, go ahead and do it..
(but they seem to be pretty cool with the idea of "look.. let me do my thing and you do your thing and we'll get along great")

anyway- i guess that's going off topic but i don't have much of a clue regarding layout vs rhino.. i do know that in rhino, it would be as if layout&sketchup were one app instead of two.. that alone gets a from me.

i get to do that with a few builders i work with... i just send off 3d files and they take it from there.
unfortunately some folks want PE stamped shop drawings for permits, etc... and some folks don't bring a laptop to the shop or the site.

i really need to do stuff like this:

i don't doubt that there are better modelers out there... just need a good presentation tool too.
rhino can?
formz - maybe in time?

one issue i have now is that sketchup doesn't produce true solids, so when i work with folks that CNC, i can't get them easy to use autocad 3d solids. unless i'm missing something... i've tried some hack conversion techniques, but things get just screwy enough that they always rebuild things.

[arail1]

@jason_maranto said:

That said, Layout (for presentations) remains the one redeeming quality of updating SketchUp 9 Pro at this point.

Best,
Jason.

Maybe it's because my 2D presentations are done in AutoCAD LT and the weak point of my workflow is 3D dimensions that I don't see the excitement about LO. I see Rhino as a way forward for me but even in Rhino dimensions on 3D geometry in Layout mode are troublesome. Clearly this must be a difficult challenge for programmers otherwise the problems wouldn't be quite so universal.

[jeff hammond]

@bmike said:

i really need to do stuff like this:

really nice looking

[jason_maranto]

@bmike said:

i don't doubt that there are better modelers out there... just need a good presentation tool too.
rhino can?
formz - maybe in time?

For those nice presentations you are going to be somewhat disappointed by your options outside of SketchUp/Layout.

Currently in form.z the missing ingredient is the perspective views and SketchUp (rendered) Styles. By that I mean all the dimensioning/notation functionality is in place, and floor plans and such are easy to do -- but those nice presentation "detail shots" would have to be brought in as images... which defeats alot of the purpose (this is why I refer to Layout as a perfect render engine for SketchUp Styles).

I imagine many people would adopt Layout if they didn't have to work in SketchUp (and they knew it existed).

Best,
Jason.

[arail1]

Those are nice looking drawings.

I've tried that - a 3D thumbnail on the page but all the annotations on a 2D view.

Unfortunately, there are lots of occasions where I want to pop out a detail (a corner, a joint, whatever) in 3D with dimensions so the shop can see what I want them to do. I don't see any of these programs being able to do that without some downside. Rhino can do it but the output is raster and annotation scaling can get suddenly wonky (annotation scaling seems fine in all modes other than perspective), LO has vector output and a nice raster / vector hybrid but there is essentially no usable dimensioning in 3D space. What I can say about Rhino is they're aware of the issue and have made some noise about addressing it but so far, no love.

Still wandering in the desert ...

[fluffy82]

@unknownuser said:

buy a mac.. then you can figure out why we tend to have more issues with our plugins.
thanks in advance

We know what the problem is: it's because you're on Mac
I've been using PC for over 20 years and in all that time I've had far less problems with it than with my MacBook in the past 2 and a half years.

SketchUp on PC is much faster and easier to handle than on Mac, for me anyway (just to stay on topic )

[jason_maranto]

@arail1 said:

Maybe it's because my 2D presentations are done in AutoCAD LT and the weak point of my workflow is 3D dimensions that I don't see the excitement about LO.

That would come down to 2 things -- the fact that AutoCAD is an Autodesk product, and price.

Of course Trimble is rapidly moving SketchUp/Layout in the same direction -- so it may not make any difference soon. At which point people will choose based on actual features offered.

BTW, feature-wise AutoCAD LT is missing some of the things in Layout that make presentations so nice... like the perspective views and rendering (that are also missing in form.z).

Best,
Jason.