SketchUp 2014 Wishlist

[John Sayers]

Thankyou Trimbale for fixing the construction lines colour problem when axes were switched on and off and thankyou for the engine changes I assume you've made.

Here's my list

1. Return the two column option for the large toolset - it fits on laptops left column. Not everyone is using large screens.
2. Get rid of scrolling on Layer select drop down.
3. Return all dropdowns (Scenes, Layers etc) to original size so they tuck up to top of screen - why someone would want to make them bigger has me baffled.
4. Windows version to have ability to have multiple projects open at once as the Mac version does.
5. cancelled.
6. Somewhere down the line Google screwed the zoom in. Now construction lines also disappear if you zoom in too far. This never happened in earlier versions.
7. Someone at Google changed it so you had to click a surface to push/pull it! it's stupid, worked perfectly well before where you just moused over the surface you wanted and it highlighted.
8. Similarly they changed the ability to mouse over surfaces behind other surfaces and the mouse changed to pushpull tool when you were over the active surface behind another surface that you can't see.
9. Have a box to check if you want the rotate factor when using the move option. If you want to move it, then move it - if you want to rotate it then rotate it. The rotate option switching on when you are trying to move something is annoying.

[tt_su]

@john sayers said:

6. Somewhere down the line Google screwed the zoom in. Now construction lines also disappear if you zoom in too far. This never happened in earlier versions.

Under Preferences there is a checkbox labelled "Disable pre-pick on Push/Pull Tool" which will return the behaviour to the old style.
Alternatively, hit Ctrl+T to quickly deselect and you can use hover over a face to push pull it.

[John Sayers]

Wow - thanks Thomas - I've never noticed that before

[smicha]

SAVING LARGE FILES IS SO SLOW!!!

I have a 150MB file (about 25m edges). When I hit ctrl+s it takes about 1 minute to save to file. I created a ram disk so speed up the saving process. The time was reduced to 25 seconds. But still IMO this is irritating. 25 seconds? I converted the model to 3ds max format and checked how fast it is saved under 3ds max. Ctrl+S and ... it's done. Not even a second.

SU TEAM please do something with speeding up the saving process.

[matt.gordon320]

I'm sure I'll have to edit this as I think of more "wishes", but here's one:

A more accessible way to work with large (100+) numbers of scenes. I frequently have to create views for lets say 10 different homes with a view from 4 different rooms. I typically export linework, shadows, textures, false Z-Buffer, and other maps separately so I can comp them in photoshop. Obviously, this leads to a LOT of scenes. Scrolling through the scene manager or the scene bar gets a little tedious.

[dukejazz]

In 2014 sketchup I want is see an animated gif as a texture, so essentially it will be a animated movie texture. just like we apply normal textures.

This would give much more action to sketchup

[Box]

Perhaps you'll find this layer plugin by jiminy-billy-bob useful.
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=53906

[matt.gordon320]

@box said:

Perhaps you'll find this layer plugin by jiminy-billy-bob useful.
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=53906

Hi Box, could you share what way you'd recommend using it to manage scenes? I'm mildly familiar with the the Layer Panel Beta, but I can't seem to figure out quite what you meant. I was more speaking to scrolling through either the scene bar/scene dialog box and updating scenes, but if there's something I missed or you have a cool tip, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!

[Box]

My mistake there Matt, I was thinking scenes but got layers. I'm sure there is a good scene manager somewhere, but I can't get my brain to it just now.

[jiminy-billy-bob]

I was thinking of adding a "scene" tab to my plugin, with the same sort/nest features than for layers. Now seeing that it could be usefull to some people is motivating

(Don't expect this soon, but maybe one day...! )

[JClements]

@aerilius said:

Undo scene changes/creations (especially to make plugin actions fully undoable).

++1

[Anton_S]

Currently on MS Windows web-dialogs use Internet Explorer Server, I don't know about Macs. It would be nice to have the user to decide which browser server should the WebDialog use when they create their own WebDialog. For instance, the chrome server, opera server, or internet explorer server (default).

[tt_su]

@anton_s said:

Currently on MS Windows web-dialogs use Internet Explorer Server, I don't know about Macs. It would be nice to have the user to decide which browser server should the WebDialog use when they create their own WebDialog. For instance, the chrome server, opera server, or internet explorer server (default).

I'm afraid it is not possible to let the user decide. To use other engines we would have to bundle frameworks for them. We cannot just pick up whatever the user has installed.

[notareal]

@kaliphegtu said:

why not replace photo match by video match !!
Ex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vda2RAEuW_g

+1

[Bob James]

For large projects, I often have multiple complex SU files open. This means I have multiple Layers, Entity Info, etc. windows open. But there’s no way to quickly tell which SU instance they belong to.
Would it be possible to have the file name appear in each window?

For example:
Layers - Airlock
Layers - Highbay
Layers - Transfer Tower

Entity Info - Airlock
Entity Info - Highbay
Entity Info - Transfer Tower

etc

[bigstick]

@unknownuser said:

More than one viewport is complicated? Really?!?

Yes, really. The single viewport principle employed by SU is one of the big reasons for its success. It's central to the way SU works. In fact it's the antithesis to the 4 view approach. If that's what you want, you are missing the whole point of the application.

@unknownuser said:

This simplicity thing is really a joke. You have to install a massive amount of plugins to make sketchup really usable.

No it's not, and no you don't. The main reason you need plugins is to improve productivity. It's true that plugins enable you to model things that would be extremely difficult without them. But this statement is kind of absurd.

My main wish list items are:-

1. Fix the distorted texture scaling issue in DCs
2. Implement much better texture/UV mapping in SU
3. Improve performance with large/complex models. Because it's so easy and so much fun, you find yourself adding detail to your models almost without thinking. This means you need a high end graphics card to work effectively. However, even then, performance is so much worse than an app like Maya, Lightwave or 3ds max.
4. Improved scene management. A means of organising scenes by tabs, or having a series of scene tab sets would be really excellent. Imagine a way of managing groups of scenes where you have tabs which act as hierarchical containers, so that you could have a tab which contains scenes for display styles, another for elevations, another for interiors, another for exteriors, another for sections, another for animations. So much more powerful.

[JClements]

For example:

1. when clicked, trigger the model animation.
2. a print this scene option

[dane.teegardin]

1. Improvements to export and import for CAD and Revit.
2. Generating faces. Often Ill attempt to break up a surface by drawing a box on it, but it doesn't form a face. I end up having to run the through the model using plug-ins to create the faces.
3. Support for working in small detail models. Trying to create a small detail like a door knob is nearly impossible in perspective view. The only way I can zoom in and create it is to switch to parallel, and that often cuts out much of the viewport.
4. 64 bit version and multiprocessor support. My models average 100mb, and using renders within SketchUp such as Vray, the memory reaches over 1.5gb and becomes unstable.

[Play404]

More functionality with the "Entity Info" window like:

1. able to change the volume or area to m2 or cm2 (mm2 has too many decimal places to be useful unless your designing jewellery)
2. adding height, length & width so I can see overall dimensions of group/component at a glance.
   3)Check boxes in preferences to add, subtract or change the functions of entity info.

Control of SU layers in Layout

Ability to delete multiple scenes at once rather than 1 at a time

Support in preferences to change anti aliasing on mac like on windows

[tt_su]

@play404 said:

Ability to delete multiple scenes at once rather than 1 at a time

You can do that in the Scenes tool-window.