SketchUp 2013 ;)

arail1 · 28 May 2013, 02:01

@jgb said:

When you start seeing near field clipping, BACK off a lot, then TURN OFF Perspective. No need to monkey with FOV.

If you don't zoom out first, turning off perspective will zoom you out by a very large factor.

Now you can zoom back in as close as you want, and there is NO clipping no matter how close you zoom in. You can see a line segment or gap smaller than .001 inch fill the screen.

One tip though, if what you want to zoom in on is very small (natch, why else?) then select it or an adjoining entity (a face is best) so that when you are zoomed out you can find what you want easier.

After, zoom back out again before turning perspective back on.

===============

I know this is an aside from the real contest between those wanting to burn at the stake anyone who doubts this upgrade vs those of us who believe the upgrade signals The End of Civilization as We Know It but this is such a big deal for me! I should give you my $95 instead of Trimble. I go back and forth between AutoCAD LT and SketchUp all day and the clipping / zooming issue is a continual PITA. Wherever lines intersect arcs or circle coming from AC into SU is the source of the problem. Depending on where they fall on a chord they are either too short and need to be extended or they cross over the chord and need to be trimmed. Often these errant segments are very small and thus cause clipping problems.

Your solution works! Civilization is, temporarily, restored again.

Thanks, sincerely.

numerobis · 28 May 2013, 08:52

But you know that the clipping problem is caused by geometry being placed very far away from the origin, yes?
Even if it is only an autocad block that has been created at great distance to the autocad zero point.

arail1 · 28 May 2013, 11:19

@numerobis said:

But you know that the clipping problem is caused by geometry being placed very far away from the origin, yes?
Even if it is only an autocad block that has been created at great distance to the autocad zero point.

That's not correct. Clipping issues are exacerbated by distance from origin but that's not the only clipping problem SketchUp has.

Draw a line 1/32" long at the origin and zoom into it. The clipping you'll experience is what's being discussed.

jgb · 28 May 2013, 17:29

@numerobis said:

But you know that the clipping problem is caused by geometry being placed very far away from the origin, yes?
Even if it is only an autocad block that has been created at great distance to the autocad zero point.

What we were referring to is more correctly called "Near Field" clipping and is a direct result of the Field of View angles from the SU perceived camera (your eye) distance to the object. It has no direct relationship to the Su Origin point.

When the camera gets so close that the FOV angle becomes less than the angles to screen edge, the clipping occurs. SU has no "display computation" of any part of the drawing outside the FOV, so it disappears (clipping). Think of looking through a paper towel tube versus a cone.

Making the FOV very narrow alleviates this to a certain extent, but distorts the view when the camera/object increases to more normal distances, unless you keep changing FOV to suit.

A similar thing will happen if you zoom out from a very large object, you will also see clipping, but in this case you need to widen the FOV to avoid clipping.

Also this zoomed out clipping does have a relationship to the origin point as SU "assumes" a large distance equates to a very large model space.

Since AutoCAD has (or at least had, way back when I used it) no specific origin point, unless specified, it can fool SU into computing a very large model space and zoomed out clipping becomes more common with these imported drawings.

jo-ke · 29 May 2013, 09:02

I am a SU7free user. I plan to upgrade to the pro version. I installed SU2013 and wanted to buy SU2013pro but since there are so many problems at the moment, plugins that doesn't work properly and so on, I still use the stabile SU7 and wait for the solutions...

May be I come back in month or so to buy the full version.

Alan Fraser · 29 May 2013, 09:44

@jo-ke said:

I am a SU7free user. I plan to upgrade to the pro version. I installed SU2013 and wanted to buy SU2013pro but since there are so many problems at the moment, plugins that doesn't work properly and so on, I still use the stabile SU7 and wait for the solutions...

May be I come back in month or so to buy the full version.

My experience is that 2013 is rather more stable than V8. I'm still waiting for a bugsplat...no, I tell a lie; I had one yesterday when just playing around and undoing a Ruby action on heavy geometry for the umteenth time...something I've had in every version since Ruby was introduced.
Most of the Ruby issues seem to be connected to incorrect permissions on individual's systems...something that any maintenance release is not likely to fix.
Currently, I don't have any problems...and I'm using most of TIG's TT's, Fredo's, Chris Fulmer's, the new TreeMaker...as well as V-Ray and Twilight.

You can run both versions side by side (or beta testers would be in a real mess, wouldn't they?) Together with their full complement of plugins.

danb · 29 May 2013, 12:01

Sorry, just a quick question, does anybody know where the styles folder has gone, I usually keep one in my sidebar to add style and I cannot find it under the application support in users or on the hard drive. I am running OSX and have just installed 2013 pro.

many thanks

Dan

TIG · 29 May 2013, 12:18

@danb said:

Sorry, just a quick question, does anybody know where the styles folder has gone, I usually keep one in my sidebar to add style and I cannot find it under the application support in users or on the hard drive. I am running OSX and have just installed 2013 pro.

many thanks

Dan
In the Ruby Console, type:
Sketchup.find_support_file('styles')
which returns the full path.
This works for all of the default SketchUp folders ?

danb · 29 May 2013, 12:24

Tig

Thankyou very much, I couldn't find it anywhere using spotlight or past paths. Many thanks and also thankyou for your plugins and general support and help on this site

Dan

jo-ke · 29 May 2013, 18:07

@alan fraser said:

@jo-ke said:

I am a SU7free user. I plan to upgrade to the pro version. I installed SU2013 and wanted to buy SU2013pro but since there are so many problems at the moment, plugins that doesn't work properly and so on, I still use the stabile SU7 and wait for the solutions...

May be I come back in month or so to buy the full version.

You can run both versions side by side (or beta testers would be in a real mess, wouldn't they?) Together with their full complement of plugins.

that's what I am doing at the moment. I think SU2013 is quite OK but I'm waiting for some problems to be solved to change my models to the new version. For the moment I leave them at Vers. 7

gtalarico · 16 Aug 2013, 00:43

I am ok with not a lot of new features as long as there were some under the hood improvements (toolbards, api?)

But what is really bothering me are the icons... why change them?
They were intuitive and clean. The new ones look poorly made... Kind of pixelated...?
It feels like I am using a 1998 version of Sketchup.
Even the face-style buttons in the style panel... I can't believe someone there spent time making it worse.

But with that said, I do like the new SU branding... I have come to really like the new logo.

numerobis · 22 Aug 2013, 18:52

@jgb said:

Since AutoCAD has (or at least had, way back when I used it) no specific origin point,

autocad (or dwg files) always has/had a clearly defined 0,0,0. How should it work without it? Everything is based on these coordinates. And the same applies to acad blocks that you're loading into sketchup. If they were created far away from the acad 0,0 you will get clipping in sketchup and will have to fix every single imported block/component. The best thing is to explode them.

The clipping is an opengl problem and related to the model size. So i don't know why you prefer to switch to ortho and zoom out and in instead of fixing the model. Maybe i've missed something...

RUSSANDERSON5 · 2 Dec 2013, 16:10

@unknownuser said:

Toolbars that stay in place and collapse as you re-size the application window...Yes finally!

There is still a problem with not being able to save the toolbar positions. If you disable ruby scripts for testing, or any other reason, and then enable them, they all show up on your screen as floating windows. It sucks to have to remember where all of them went.

It would be great to have the save toolbar position option available for this reason.