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    Sketchup is so slow I will lose my mind.

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved SketchUp Bug Reporting
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    • D Offline
      dadeclan
      last edited by

      I am a landscape architect who mostly works in powercadd. I just taught myself Sketchup
      (could be the problem) and I have a model with plants and groundcover and it takes 6 minutes
      to add a person in the form of a component. MY GAWD!!! Not to mention the time it takes
      to move anything! I tried to group all of the plants
      thinking that could be why it is running so slow, but no luck. Does anyone have a solution?
      I have seen the models out there and they are so very complicated...a little landscape cannot
      max out this program...can it?

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      • AnssiA Offline
        Anssi
        last edited by

        @dadeclan said:

        a little landscape cannot max out this program...can it?

        In fact this is just what a little landscape can do, if you have filled it with 3D plants (with 3D branches and leaves etc). Those kind of components are very heavy. Using components helps to keep the disk size of SU files small, but when you are editing the file, SU has to keep track of every litle leaf edge. Look in Window>Model info>Statistics and check the Show nested components box. The count can be in hundreds of thousands or even millions. This is too much to handle even with the fastest CPU and an ultracool whizbang graphics card with the latest drivers, and SU running with OpenGL hardware acceleration on

        What you can do:

        • keep shadows off when modelling
        • use "cutout" type face-me plant components whenever possible
        • and/or use simplified components while modelling, and reload them with the full 3D componnets only for rendering
        • put your plants on layers that you turn off when doing other things
        • do not strive for photorealism. I have seen here beautiful landscape images with simple well-textured forms used to indicate plantings, that conveyed the designer's intentions very well.

        Anssi

        securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset

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        • P Offline
          pushpullartist
          last edited by

          I feel the same way - good to see your message. I am totally struggling with putting four chairs and a table in the scene - so slow! I registered for this website cause of your funny line. Revit and Autocad do not struggle with pieces of furniture the way Sketchup does! Still, I like Sketchup for other reasons.

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          • T Offline
            tonywilton
            last edited by

            @pushpullartist said:

            I feel the same way - good to see your message. I am totally struggling with putting four chairs and a table in the scene - so slow! I registered for this website cause of your funny line. Revit and Autocad do not struggle with pieces of furniture the way Sketchup does! Still, I like Sketchup for other reasons.

            This version 2014 is the slow one, insertion of components was a lot faster previously, I have used many versions since even before Google acquired it from Keyhole.
            I guess the current programmers have improved another feature without realising it had wider implications. (easily done when messing with someone else's work)

            I'm working on an I7 tower with 16g ram and a SSD C drive. Large component insert, even from disc, stops it dead.

            Quite like the old days when we spent most of our time wondering and waiting for the PC to react before bed time.

            Here's hoping for a fix.

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            • S Offline
              steveyeong
              last edited by

              Hi,
              i have the same problem too. download a file from extension warehouse sometime take forever. the download speed seem ok. but the loading time onto scene like never ending . the colour spinning wheel(mac os) is forever turning.
              hope there is a fix too!

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              • M Offline
                mac1
                last edited by

                Irrespective of hardware configuration it seems there is always a case where one can create a model to cause slow performance. It boils down to smart modeling but I have not seen in the above post any of the recommendations implemented.
                See these suggestions also https://sites.google.com/site/sketchupsage/faster.
                Many times slowness is caused by the rendering load on the graphics. The use of components and layers to reduce that is necessary. One of the first steps I'll try is to isolate the problem and the first candidate is to purge your model. If that does not help make a copy and then delete all materials. Use systematic steps to home in on what is causing the issue so it can be corrected.
                If possible posting you model would be helpful. It is difficult to trouble shoot with out it.
                If deletion of materials helps I have found saving you materials to a skm file ( make material library from the material browser) allows you use the windows explorer and ID the large ones quickly. Then challenge is to reduce their size.

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                • pbacotP Offline
                  pbacot
                  last edited by

                  Doing landscape you may want to move to a rendering program like Thea or Vue to handle the high poly trees and such. Yes SU is slow.

                  One method I used in SU was with trees that had different parts on different layers. I could turn off the leaves and other high poly, highly textured parts in order to move the trees around, then switch to a scene that shows how they look. Landscape layers need to be off in most cases, only on to view the final scene.

                  Use tricks like background images ( look for "Curved Tree Lines" in the store here) to avoid filling the file with 3d trees just to make a background.

                  MacOSX MojaveSketchUp Pro v19 Twilight v2 Thea v3 PowerCADD

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                  • K Offline
                    kaas
                    last edited by

                    @dadeclan said:

                    ..a little landscape cannot max out this program...can it?
                    I'm afraid, any program can be maxed out if you add too much detail and don't use smart modelling strategies.

                    Maybe have a look at some YouTube videos by Daniel Tal, a landscape architect who uses Sketchup for his projects. Also there's an 'old' (2008) Sketchup YouTube video called 'Working with large models'. Some of the strategies may apply.

                    good luck!

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                    • KrisidiousK Offline
                      Krisidious
                      last edited by

                      I was under the impression that Google acquired SketchUp from @Last, it's original creator. Now Trimble owns it.

                      Link Preview Image
                      SketchUp - Wikipedia

                      favicon

                      (en.wikipedia.org)

                      Back to point... Sketchup was never intended to work with heavy poly models. If you're going to use it for such, you need to hide heavy stuff while you work. using layers or just using the group and hide functions. You also need to be ever mindful of the "weight" of models and components that you add. As with any modeling, but more so with sketchUp, you need to make sure that the complexity of your work is as efficient as possible. A plugin called Goldilocks 2.0 will help you to this end.

                      http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31881

                      As a rule, I try to do any landscaping last.

                      By: Kristoff Rand
                      Home DesignerUnique House Plans

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                      • BoxB Online
                        Box
                        last edited by

                        I'm sure a few things have changed in the 6 or so years since this thread was started.

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                        • pbacotP Offline
                          pbacot
                          last edited by

                          @box said:

                          I'm sure a few things have changed in the 6 or so years since this thread was started.

                          HA! I got caught.

                          Well not enough if you ask some people.

                          MacOSX MojaveSketchUp Pro v19 Twilight v2 Thea v3 PowerCADD

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                          • KrisidiousK Offline
                            Krisidious
                            last edited by

                            lmao... I didn't notice either. lol

                            By: Kristoff Rand
                            Home DesignerUnique House Plans

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

                              Really hard to believe there have been 2008 SketchUp versions since this thread began.

                              Download the free D'oh Book for SketchUp 📖

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                              • pbacotP Offline
                                pbacot
                                last edited by

                                Maybe a number of us HAVE lost our minds in the intervening years. What's that about repeating the same thing and expecting different results?

                                (I kid, as I SU away on yet another project)

                                MacOSX MojaveSketchUp Pro v19 Twilight v2 Thea v3 PowerCADD

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                                • M Offline
                                  mac1
                                  last edited by

                                  Working with large models was from presentation from 2008 base camp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnhkei2dSrY%26amp;list=UU4r6qO9bZZXJ9WSqM7PcLBg

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