Who said SketchUp doesn't need to be 64 bit?
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@Andrew, very much appreciated you took the time to write here.
I guess, the 64bit discussion will be over for now. My concerns about Sketchup's future direction and the steps being considered to help us meet our clients growing demands though are not over.
For a lot of people here, working with Sketchup is a big part of business and thus affecting our time and income. If the same wishlists re-appear after every new release of Sketchup, at some point people can't afford anymore to stick to Sketchup and will switch to another program.
Communication is key, so please if you can, come back more often and share some insight about Sketchup's near future direction and, if possible, post again about our biggest concerns.
kind regards,
Max
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@pixero said:
I know J. Bacus have said that: "Access to memory is not the bottleneck in SketchUp where 'more geometry' is concerned."
If it isn't then please tell us what the bottleneck is and fix it.The boring reality of this answer is that there isn't a single bottleneck. It's not as simple as just tweaking a single point in the code and everything runs in instant time.
There are many areas where performance can be improved, no doubt about it. But the discussions are much more fruitful if they are about "what is snow" instead of users discussion various guesses to what technical solution should be applied. Don't be blinded by buzz words as 64bit and dual-core - that's not the only thing that makes an application fast and responsive - far from it.
If you think that these two things (which very often come up) will fix everything then you will be forever disappointed.
If you experience that SketchUp crashes when it's memory usage exceeds ~3-4GB then you do have a real need for 64bit. So far, this really only happens when a third party process like a render engine is running inside of the SketchUp process instead of spawning a separate one.
But if anyone reading this thread thinks 64bit will have any performance impact, forget about it. It simply isn't.Dual core? Most modern computers these days have four cores. Now, for the sake of conversation, lets says that any operation could be split up and run in parallel, the max gain would only be a 4x increase. Consider how slow Explode is on a large terrain model. A 4x increase would not be enough to make that operation fast.
The real gain is made by improving the algorithms and data structures. Good algorithms are the true heros of performance. But there is no one-fit-all. There is no magic bullet.
Performance improvement is a continuous work and I can assure you it is of a high concern within the SketchUp team. But let us keep discussions at a higher level than low level technical level.
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@pixero said:
But why are you so secretive about the future?
It's not just friendly ears that listen...
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@tt_su said:
It's not just friendly ears that listen...
Spock is a member?
You know Spock had 3 ears didn't you? His left ear, his right ear and his final frontier
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@kaas said:
For a lot of people here, working with Sketchup is a big part of business and thus affecting our time and income. If the same wishlists re-appear after every new release of Sketchup, at some point people can't afford anymore to stick to Sketchup and will switch to another program.
Here is my personal take on this, we need to nurture a larger third party developer community around SketchUp using SketchUp as a platform to provide a rich range of tool suites. Given the incredible large and diverse user base the best way to get quality tools for the different user types is to have more professional developers catering to the market. Each free to run their own direction based on their specific target user base.
I wish we where there already, but we still got a good amount of work to do. -
@tt_su said:
@pixero said:
But why are you so secretive about the future?
It's not just friendly ears that listen...
Sorry but I don't buy it. Why can can so many other software companies have a more open relationship with their customers?
It's not like every other 3d software is trying to catch up with SU. Rather the opposite. -
Thomas,
Thanks for also taking the time to respond, but now I feel even more miffed than before.
So there are not a few things, there are many things wrong that is causing us not to be able to use SU like we use other software?
Can we concentrate on the issue of SU buckling and folding under minimal poly levels, is this caused by many little bottlenecks or just one?, can you tell us all the bottlenecks preventing me from having a medium sized model? (medium in in other softwares)
What ever happened to your quads crusade?, I too thought we'd be seeing them in SU by now.
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Oh for crying out loud.... I thought for sure we were past the same old smokescreens.
Look, if SketchUp is meant to be platform for other people to build on then it is a very poor platform that does not allows 3rd party developers the best tools to do thier work. 64-bit is simply a tool SketchUp (as a platform) should be providing to every 3rd party developer.
The idea that 64-bit is relevant to why SketchUp high poly performance is so poor is just misdirection. The real culprit there is primarily the video card and openGL... where if SketchUp were to embrace more advanced technologies the user could see real improvement. However as long as SketchUp is designed for users running cheap integrated graphics chipsets, instead of requiring dedicated workstation graphics like any proper modelling app, this will remain the case. All you need to do is load a heavy scene and disable the fancy viewing options to see dramatic performance improvement... this is all the proof needed to see this in action.
The idea that "converting to 64-bit is too much work" is a valid excuse is beyond rediculous.... what have you actually done in the last 5 years that is so impressive that we should accept such a lame excuse? Stop wasting time designing websites and actually work on the software people are paying for!
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@jason_maranto said:
what have you actually done in the last 5 years that is so impressive that we should accept such a lame excuse?
May I point out that Trimble acquired SketchUp in 2012. During the six years of Google the focus was mainly on Google Earth integration and now much otherwise.
So what about the two last years with Trimble?
Turning the ship around. Changes are happening and as we continue to staff up there will be more noticeable improvements.@solo said:
Thanks for also taking the time to respond, but now I feel even more miffed than before.
Cheer up buddy! I know it's no fun being on the outside trying to peek in, but during the six months I've been on the SketchUp team I've become very positive on the future.
Just because the technical bottleneck is different that the initial assumption doesn't mean it's a bad thing. I only mentioned it because I didn't want people being perpetually disappointed by expecting a technical buzz-word in the release log. Focusing on assumed technical details is clouding the more useful higher level discussion. What are your goals with the tools you use?
@solo said:
So there are not a few things, there are many things wrong that is causing us not to be able to use SU like we use other software?
This is the entry to something that can be interesting. How is it that you use other software and what do you do? Then compared to SketchUp and how you use that?
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@tt_su said:
A 4x increase would not be enough to make that operation fast.
Quite the opposite, a 4x increase would be amazing!
@jason_maranto said:
Look, if SketchUp is meant to be platform for other people to build on then it is a very poor platform that does not allows 3rd party developers the best tools to do thier work. 64-bit is simply a tool SketchUp (as a platform) should be providing to every 3rd party developer.
I often disagree with Jason, but he's got a point here.
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- I have not seen one specific example of model presented showing the problem. I do not mean just the skp file, but all the other settings along with data on the target system showing RAM usage, processes running etc, what graphics, graphics memory and etc. There are many permutation and combinations that can contribute and until the problem is understood I am sure the developers feel they are in a undefined box.
- For the windows users there are many resources available but you have to be willing to take advantage of them. Many of these are same Microsoft uses in their resolution of problems.
- Those who think Trimble should have a nice road map of long range plans are not living in the real world, that info is usually closely help and you will not see any specific detail unless you are a level 2 manager or higher. Those many times will be in 3 to five year long range plans. Reading the base camp notes they have and the scan explorer, ruby begugger etc. release should give one some sense of what those are. With the statement they are staffing up the question in my mind is for what?
- For those rejecting off hand the thoughts John B and Andrew give makes one wonder why you are not working at MS or some other development company. They may not give the answer you want to hear but have the info base you should at least listen too. IMHO they are missing the boat not making better use of the employee badged folks showing on the forum to help answering some issues ,but that goes back to long range plan and man power use. IMHO I would think say a web type conference with a select user set often vs the 2 year base camp show and tell could help to establish what their long range plans should be or even what near term fixes are required.
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@jiminy-billy-bob said:
Quite the opposite, a 4x increase would be amazing!
hmm.. not really. you'd adjust quickly..
as in, i used to do renders which would take 8 hrs.. nowadays, i can do the same in 2hrs with better hardware..
2 hour render is not 'amazing'.. waiting 2hrs for a render to complete or waiting 2 minutes for a judge_able preview still kinda sucks when you're in the middle of a project.amazing is real time rendering.
if an explode takes 1 minute today.. and 15 seconds tomorrow.. that 15 second explode is still going to be annoying and i won't be sitting there going "wow! this is fast!"
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Warning! Irony ahead.
Sorry I just had to get it out of me so I made this quick drawing:[irony]
[/irony] -
@mac1 said:
- I have not seen one specific example of model presented showing the problem. I do not mean just the skp file, but all the other settings along with data on the target system showing RAM usage, processes running etc, what graphics, graphics memory and etc.
..and on and on..
look at it from the opposite side.. let's imagine sketchup was 64bit.. do you think anybody - user or developer - would be saying "oh geez.. i wish it were 32bit"
i.e.- an attempt at trying to differentiate between "going 64bit is a heckuva lot of work" vs "going 64bit will not help anything"
i'm pretty sure if there were a magic button which the suTeam could press and sketchup were suddenly 64bit, they'd all push it.. without hesitation.
i get it that i might be wrong about that assumption but maybe i'm too hard headed to truly believe it.. i really think they would all push the button.so if that is in fact true, everything which comes afterwards "benefits are minimal" and/or "performance may actually suffer" etc.. it just comes off as excusey sounding because if there were an easy way to switch to 64bit, none of those explanations would happen.. sketchup would be 64bit.
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@jason_maranto said:
The idea that 64-bit is relevant to why SketchUp high poly performance is so poor is just misdirection. The real culprit there is primarily the video card and openGL...
Processes like import, explode, copy, save/autosave(!), etc. are not opengl related. And this is what really annoys me - simple operations that can take forever. And things like beveling should work in realtime (maybe not for 1 million polys, but for normal models) - watching this process bar is really laughable.
Sure, this is nothing where 64bit would help, and as i said before making SU 64bit would not help very much without increasing the overall performance - when working with objects/geometry AND the display performance, but i think the opengl performance is the smaller problem. But... if SU would be able to deal with bigger models, then 64bit would be needed very quickly. I'm currently working in Max on models with 20-30 million polys that need 10-15GB RAM. Applying a turbosmooth i can easily max out my 32 gigs...And btw. x64 doesn't have to be neccessary slower i think. I have seen tests with very different results for different apps - some slower and some faster (sure, some maybe RAM related, so maybe they were faster because of more RAM).
But almost every other 3D and 2D app i'm using has done the move without noticable performance decreases (maybe 2-5%) - so, why should it be so dramatically for SU?!? To get a reasonable performance gain in SU it has to be increased maybe 10-100 times for some operations - what would be a decrease of 5% if the overall process is much faster?!? -
Yes, I was talking specifically about viewport/real-time rendering performance in SketchUp as relative to OpenGL.
For the operations you are specifically talking about it is more likely that a combination of multi-core (this is the type of thing it was meant to address) and better coding would the solution.
One of the salient points they keep dodging around is the fact that overall performance would naturally improve by doing the 64-bit conversion. The reason being the whole code base would need to be re-factored and that means old parts of the code they haven't touched in a very long time would get full rewrites... that is always going to net alot of (perhaps small, but cumulatively significant) performance improvements.
At this point I suspect the real reason they are so hesitant to do this is they have code they simply do not know how to deal with, since the originators are long gone.
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@numerobis said:
And this is what really annoys me - simple operations that can take forever. And things like beveling should work in realtime (maybe not for 1 million polys, but for normal models) - watching this process bar is really laughable.
i think that's more along the lines of what thomthom was talking about regarding algorithms..
the actual formula which is being used to get from point A to B..then your mention of a progress bar suggests you're talking about a ruby plugin.. and my understanding is that ruby is by nature ,or by implementation(?), a slower way to execute code.. but realistically, a beveling plugin if written in C++ with optimum algorithm would/should fly when compared to a more poorly written ruby version.
(and in my experience, on mac at least, anything that required the progress.rb (or whatever it's called) is a zillion times slower than when the progress bar isn't being use.. i tried to bring this up to chris fullmer once during the shape bender development but i don't think he believed me.. now that he's no longer requiring progressbar, shape bender is way faster for me again.. maybe i'll make a little demo to show this.. i'll put in in a different thread though as to not steer this one too far off topic)
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Hi, Frederick and everyone else,
I'm responding to Frederick's message directly, but I'd like to be clear about the fact that in no way should anyone perceive the following message as pointing fingers at him. I'm using his quotations as a convenience to answer the questions he asks which I think are on most people's minds. But please keep in mind that everything I say here is directed toward the community in general and please no one take offense if something rubs you the wrong way.
@frederik said:
I'd challenge you and claim it's because they know zip about 16bit, 32bit and 64bit software...
You're talking about the average Joe who's using SketchUp similar to how they're using MS Word or Excel...I agree 100%. "Simple" Pro users of that type would consider SketchUp to be every bit as integral to their work as Word or Excel, and yet they may not come anywhere near using the vast array of capabilities of any of those programs the way power users would. But as such, those folks aren't pressed by problems with 64-bit, at least not in the way power users may be. And yet, those folks buy SketchUp in huge numbers, and have just as many other complaints, problems, and feature requests for it as the outspoken power users on this forum. We take very seriously our duty to pay attention to these users' needs just like we do our power users.
@frederik said:
I know huge architectural companies who are using SU professionally on a daily basis, but where no-one are part of either the official SU community nor do they know about the existence of this board...
Exactly my point. Those people have myriad other ways of getting in touch with us beyond the forums--particularly the enterprise customers, who work with dedicated support and sales personnel. So just because they're not part of this community doesn't mean we don't have ways of gauging their interest and finding out what they need.
As an example, would you believe that the most important thing enterprise organizations want is for us to completely rewrite the licensing engine and provide better in-product identity management? We've spent a ton of time examining how we might improve licensing, and I'll bet almost no one in this forum would care. While it isn't something the average Pro customer with a small firm would care about, by sheer numbers of affected Pro users, it dwarfs the 64-bit proponents by many orders of magnitude.
And as for those categories of users who aren't getting in touch with us in any way? Well, an awful lot of complicated mathematics and heuristics go into classifying our user sets and extrapolating what features are (or will be) needed by those groups, even if they can't speak up directly. Yes, this is something we very much pay attention to!
@frederik said:
I'd say that less than 2% of the multiple millions of active SU users in the world cares about joining such communities...[i](As an example, I'm quite certain that there's a huge customer base in the Far East, who would never join this board...)
This is absolutely true. Mainland Chinese is the second-most-popular language of SketchUp besides English. And as such, we've dedicated tremendous resources to the Chinese market. The Sophie character who loads with SketchUp 2014 is a member of the SketchUp team, a native Chinese woman who leads our business development, support and outreach endeavors in China. By virtue of both the program running in another language and the people there using it for different things and under different regulations than elsewhere, Sophie has her finger on the pulse of an incredible number of issues that aren't even on the radar for our English users.
@frederik said:
The SCF community has grown to more than 250.000 users... As a software developing company, you should embrace every input you can get from here... Positive as well as negative...
Believe it or not, trust me or not, WE DO LISTEN! We love SketchUp and want to put out the very best product we can. We are also very keenly aware that without the income we earn from selling Pro, there wouldn't be a product at all, so of course we're interested in hearing every suggestion we might use to make the product better--to get new customers and keep existing customers as happy as possible.
If we didn't care to hear about the problems and criticisms, none of us would be here. Most of us don't have the time to ever post in response, but user suggestions and conversations such as those in this thread are read, passed along, and distilled by our team all the time! We don't ignore any of this stuff. All of it goes into the bug tracking and feature request systems. Maybe we've not reiterated this fact enough, but maybe we just took for granted that you all would know that since the people on our team are all the type who really do listen carefully when we say we will.
I'm not sure this community on the whole understands well enough that just because we don't implement every single suggestion we read here doesn't mean that we're not listening. Some of those suggestions are things that are in the works, or which are on our radars to do "someday". Others are those which we have considered, but ultimately dismissed. While we may not explain every decision and folks might not agree with our reasoning even if we did, our eventual dismissal of certain ideas doesn't mean we're completely oblivious or unconcerned about what our users have to say.
To reiterate what I said at top, I'm not directing everything right at Frederick, but at the whole community--especially in this case. Something I think a lot of people need to be reminded is, "you are not our only customer." While we work diligently to make everyone as happy as possible, the simple fact is that we have too much going on to pursue every single thing requested of us, and many times, keeping one set of users happy means consciously making choices that dissatisfy another group. We do the best we can.
Also, I know it's easy to forget or not to notice, but if you take a look back over the years and years of SketchUp development, there are plenty of examples of huge things we have done in response to user feedback.
@frederik said:
Solo have a great point with his statement:
@unknownuser said:
...especially folks that use 3rd party integrated software...
Jeff also has a great and very legitimate point:
@unknownuser said:
won't it have to go 64bit eventually?
We're very much aware of those folks who are using third-party software or running into problems with the 32-bit setup for whatever reason. We're also in agreement that SketchUp will have to go 64-bit someday. We've never said otherwise. It's just that, for myriad reasons, we haven't done it yet.
@frederik said:
I'm not saying that if you take the 64bit route, all issues will get cured, but I really don't understand why you cling to 32bit, when everyone else go the 64bit route...
By now, I've answered this in other messages that have come since. I'm just reiterating that I have indeed directly answered this question. Even so, I'll say it again, this time in a more succinct presentation.
Yes, we know SketchUp must go 64-bit someday, and in fact, all of us on the SketchUp team very much WANT it to. However, nothing is ever as simple as just wanting; if it were easy or free, we would have done it already. The technical endeavor of migration to 64-bit will be very difficult, expensive and time-consuming, requiring tremendous investment of skill and care to ensure the quality and performance of SketchUp do not suffer. Although there are some serious limitations of the current 32-bit system for some users, we believe the community greatly mischaracterizes the issue and sees a 64-bit binary as a silver bullet that it simply is not. The reason a 64-bit version has not yet been released is a business decision that stems from careful consideration of the the costs of the endeavor and the true benefits to be had, in light of our other priorities. Those other priorities come from several sources, including not just customer suggestions and wish lists, but those tasks which are found to be of critical importance to growing our customer base and the promotion of Trimble's strategic vision for our product and the company.
Andrew
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@krisidious said:
@hieru said:
What would SU be without all the great plugin developers here at SCF?
I doubt I'd be using SU if not for the developers here at SCF.
We made the decision a very long time ago to actively promote the extensibility of SketchUp through use of the Ruby API. We continue to believe that the developer community is a crucial part of the SketchUp ecosystem and we are pleased that we are able to continue our part of the vision to provide a powerful and flexible, but easy-to-learn and easy-to-use, 3D modeling application that fulfills critical needs for everyone from students and hobbyists to professionals and enterprises.
Andrew
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Hi, Jason,
@jason_maranto said:
Same song and dance -- and you know I bought it, but that was when I though you guys were actually going to do "something" (anything) with the resources saved.
If your mind is made up, then so be it--there's no need to be swayed by a real person giving an honest and forthright explanation of the situation. You're welcome to find your own reality if you'd like.
Five years ago, we were owned by Google, and as is the case for all assets of a corporation--product, personnel or otherwise)--they had the final say in charting the direction of all of those things until the acquisition by Trimble in June 2012. An awful lot of your anger could be saved by reading between the lines of so many messages posted to this forum about those times and by simply considering the fact that SketchUp was eventually sold to someone else. If you want to blame someone for whatever happened for the few years before the Trimble acquisition, take your complaints elsewhere.
Once you get past that and focus on only the last 22 months of our time at Trimble, you'll have the opportunity to get a more realistic perspective of things. I think it would behoove you to consider the reasons why Trimble made the SketchUp acquisition, how they would hope to make back such a major investment of capital, and what sorts of plans they would have for it in the future under their control, before making any claims about what we've been able to accomplish in these circumstances, let alone what role 64-bit compatibility should play in our long-term plans or how concerned we should be about whatever company X has done. I'm not saying you'll agree with it all, and that's OK; not everybody will. But I think if you were to assume good will on Trimble's part rather than ill, the rest of us here on this forum who are trying to build a helpful and uplifting community of users of this product would meet with enthusiasm the positive change in attitude and outlook that might result.
@jason_maranto said:
However, in light of the fact that you have done essentially nothing for the last 5 years, I would say that all you have shown is that you in fact fully intend to keep doing nothing for as long as you can get away with it.
You'll have to excuse my saying so, but to judge that the SketchUp team members or Trimble on the whole are intent upon doing absolutely nothing with SketchUp--despite the welcome reception of the work we've done at Trimble by many other of our users; without consideration of any long-term or strategic goals of the company we work for; without accepting the need for us to spend 18 months of our time on the difficult and resource-intensive contractual obligations we incurred upon splitting with Google; and without taking the time to get to know any of us personally--seems tragically misguided.
@jason_maranto said:
Try selling your misdirection to somebody who is foolish enough to actually buy it.
Again, the only thing you're ever going to get from me is the truth, as absolutely clearly, and fully, as I'm permitted to give it. I'm not some machine in a PR factory. I'm just a guy who loves the team I work with and is passionate about creating something awesome for our users.
Like I said before, I'm powerless to stop you from embracing an alternate reality if that's what you desire, but it doesn't seem terribly fruitful from where I sit.
Andrew
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