Trying to define SketchUp Limitations
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Thanks everyone for this great feedback. I'm still pumping it into my document and rolling along. I'm blown away by the 8.7m edged model and and am happy to hear that you're still a fan of SketchUp while working at that size! Most users (as has been seen since that post) don't approach that size and get frustrated well before they get there. In your case, Jopsa2 it looks like avoiding materials for as long as possible is a win, and then patience as you allow SketchUp to render. I'd think Sandbox tools could benefit from Multi-Core if you allow that it still has to bake, and of course the same for output to video or raster.
The changing over time in this thread really illustrates that its a hard question to define and to answer. The tips for modeling smarter are further proof to that and in their own way define limitations as well. Every post has been helpful so far (even those that wander into dislike of SketchUp.
Right now I'm looking at 3 key areas that need definition to help new users:
File Limitations, these are things like file imports and exports, what you add to or take away from the process.
Usage Limitations, things that are generally handled with smarter modeling. You might call it the educational limitation as not everyone has these problems and many power users find a way to overcome them.
Functional Limitations, SketchUp just doesn't create circles without segments, it won't model well under 1mm, and it really doesn't like models that are miles in scope.
Some of these are constant problems that we're aware of and constantly trying to fix, some of these are the result of SketchUp being so useful that people want it to do more than it was ever intended to do, and some of it is new information that its hard to see in a QA lab. I'm hoping to build some test case files based on this feedback and may do a new post in the near future with those files to see about getting a performance test from users of varying computational power or skill sets.
Until that time, I'm still reading and still quite appreciative of this data. Thanks everyone for your feedback so far. (c:
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I was just thinking... Wouldn't it make sense to some degree to create or choose three files/models(medium, large and very large) for people to download and test and then report the results. Would this not create a control group by which to gauge performance, since there probably is a great deal of difference on how different machines and setups would handle those models? If this is listed somewhere in this thread or was asked already, I missed it so sorry if this is redundant.
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Define "large"
Large file size?
Lots of geometry?
Large in size - width,length, depth?All these has their different restraints in SketchUp.
A model with little geometry can be much slower to handle in SU if you have lots of big textures.
And Style effect also has a great impact on the performance of a model. Shadows, transparency, Edge Profile and edge colours all contribute to a model that's slower to handle.
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@thomthom said:
Define "large"
Large file size?
Lots of geometry?
Large in size - width,length, depth?All these has their different restraints in SketchUp.
A model with little geometry can be much slower to handle in SU if you have lots of big textures.
And Style effect also has a great impact on the performance of a model. Shadows, transparency, Edge Profile and edge colours all contribute to a model that's slower to handle.
Well, I suppose I did say that in a profoundly stupid manner. As to how to quantify the "size" of a model I would not know... perhaps I should of said:
"Models that would appear to someone who possesses extensive professional knowledge of the workings and capabilities of SketchUp and is also capable of taking into consideration the general capabilities and general computer hardware as possessed by the average to professional user, and in light of such consideration so judge said models as being inherently of Medium, Complex or High Complexity based on a reasonable predefined set of characteristics such as file size,number of faces,number of groups,layers,textures of moderate size or other criteria based on whatever reasonable characteristics and or model statistics would allow some method of quantifying or allowing to establish a general frame of reference by which to judge the performance of computers of different operating systems,set ups and general capabilities all using the software herein known as SketchUp."
or something like that.... I don't know... I only have about 15-20 brain cells working at one time and they can be pretty lazy at times.
I just figured it might help to some degree if one could use "clean" pre-made models of different predefined "levels" to judge their system's performance and thus contribute those findings to whatever database is being used to establish average or reasonable performance limitations...
I now realize that was a pretty dumb idea. -
Not dumb, no. It's just that defining a "large" model is a bit unwieldy and not an easy thing as there are so many factors in play. And I find that asking that question brings forth different answers for different people.
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SU has a magical UI. But the truth is that it produces terrible topology. Have a map there and be in trouble sooner or later.
I imported (as 3ds) some heavy sculpt models from blender with UV textures (2048x2048). So I had a 800k scene in SU. No beach ball on a mac pro, shadows on, orbiting was real time animation like. Because... these meshes had good topology and UVs. I tried a ~400k modeling in SU, some arches, holes etc. I use my own components only. Orbiting became heavy, beach ball now. I also noticed that thomthom's UV toolkit made my life easier, especially this frontface to back etc. Especially when exporting. Still waiting a ruby for loopcuts, or I missed something here?
And please google team, you can't ask some one to pay for an obj exporter. This is not a pro element.
An idea: Start modeling as in other 3d apps. Stop this continuous push pull, do as many individual components as you can. One texture to one component. The wrong use of pushpull and paintbasked is killing SU in the end. -
Hi Jody
Just to keep it simple.
CPU Multi-thread and GPU processor upgrade would be a good start.
Shadows and textures just kill speed of access.
Poly count seems to need just more threads to think faster.Cheers
dtr
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Michalis, could you provide an example of a large model with good topology etc? Im intrigued as to the differences it makes. thanks.
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I can do this remus, when I say good topology I mean good UV mapping too which is not always easy to do. I suspect the chaos after some resizes and stretching in SU tex editing system. Especially using large (2048x2048) textures. The holes, arches is not a SU only problem, difficult again. A good example is durant harpe's thread about exporting topology from SU. Zbrush can't handle it for example. A loop cut plugin could be useful for those who have some modeling to VG in mind. A "snapping" on, off could be nice too.
Support of multi threading and huge poly meshes is always welcome . -
Thanks for the info, i'll have a look in to it.
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These are not complains remus, we're talking about limitations. SU is a fine app as it is. Others may suffer from lot of bugs.
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Oh no, i wasnt suggesting it was a complaint, its just something i havent considered would affect the performance of SU before, so thought itd be interesting to investigate further.
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So, I don't know how I missed this last summer but its great...
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=20076
Maybe we can find a different model though, or a way to report out some system specs while also grabbing this data. Sadly I'm no Ruby guru so it might take some time. I do like the idea of any sort of benchmark tools like this so we can have an absolute value type response for different systems. (Incidentally my Core2 Duo MacBook Pro gets about 14.7 FPS from that test.)
I might re-phrase this question (which as I've said is very valuable and still is) in a new post as soon as I better define how people can gather information. This is great for general speed, I need to figure out a test for exports and for imports. (What am I forgetting that we want to test on for a whole-view of performance in SketchUp?)
Cheers,
Jody -
Hi Jody
I'm pleased you are reviewing sketchup! It's a great program, and I can't wait for the new improved version!Largest file I have created is 59.8MB, using over 10,000 2D plants with textures. It takes about 20 minutes to render shadows on my Mac Pro 8-core. I too would love to see SU using more of my available power!
One of the biggest issues I find is faces - especially large ones made with circles/arcs. This constantly causes frustration and often crashing, when trying to make a face re-establish.
For LO the biggest file I have is 298 MB, which contains several copies of the 59.8MB SU document from above, with various annotations, etc. It loads relatively quickly, but is slow to change pages (up to 2 minutes), even on my big machine.
If you are really looking to put out new version, I beg you to read SU and LO wishlists - there are so many things we'd love to have - and personally, I'd pay for an upgrade if they had them.
Thanks.
Shannon (Landscape Architect) -
I typically create files in the 10-70 meg range, with anywhere from 250,000-4,000,000+ edges and 50,000-1,000,000 faces. I usually experience slowdown when using shadows, textures, large numbers of components (in otherwise small models), more than a certain number of layers (I'm not positive how many it is, but it seems that 10 is about the safe limit), and styles.
One file I'm looking at is roughly 10 megs, but has 4.33 Million edges and almost One Million faces, with 550,000 component instances, 1000 groups, 350 separate components, 10 layers, 263 materials, and 8 styles. It takes awhile to load, sometimes freezes up, but if it loads up works fine as long as I've got "working" settings on, which turn off most of the components, shadows, and uses shaded mode.
Another is 60 megs with less than One million edges and works fine with shadows on. I'm pretty sure that anything can make a model slow, but that it really takes an absurd upper limit to hit that- it's not necessarily file size or number of textures or faces or any one thing in particular.And I'm running a relatively old Dual-core HP workstation with 2 gigs of RAM.
I believe therefore that the biggest problem for new users is 5 fold:
1) They don't understand or know how to use components properly.
2) They leave shadows/textures/xray on all the time
3) They import from cad and don't purge unnecessary data (esp. layers)
4) They don't use scenes to control styles and cameras.
5) They don't use styles properly- and this is the most important part- because the Sketchup default settings are not the most efficient.What I mean by #5 is that the 'default' Sketchup style is something that uses profiles, has a colored background, and maybe takes advantage of some other rendering options (I'm not sure what all it's got going on because I NEVER use it). I use one of the last templates- "plan view- feet and inches" or "plan view- metric," because they are the fastest and most efficient. For me, the profiles and other edge effects are KILLER on any file, and will quickly make it impossible to get any work done. However, you can use those "style" settings, you just have to load up the file in a plain view and then turn them on.
Long story short: Make a tab without any style options (shadows, profiles, depth cue, edge effects, x-ray, textures [shaders are ok], or sky/ground colors) turned on for working in. Also disable (by making groups or components and then placing them in layers) any high-poly count objects, such as trees & foliage, cars, possibly the ground, people, etc.. Save the model with this tab open, and make additional tabs for rendered views and cameras and everything should be ok.
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if any one has used autoCAD, then sketchup layout is way behind in working drawings. something should be done
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@unknownuser said:
I believe therefore that the biggest problem for new users is 5 fold:
1) They don't understand or know how to use components properly.
2) They leave shadows/textures/xray on all the time
3) They import from cad and don't purge unnecessary data (esp. layers)
4) They don't use scenes to control styles and cameras.
5) They don't use styles properly- and this is the most important part- because the Sketchup default settings are not the most efficientYou are right that these are things that most new users are unaware of - I've been using sketchup for around 2 years and I only found out about these techniques a few months ago.
It strikes me that these techniques are necessary workarounds that allow you to circumvent the limitations of the software. Doesn't this amount to treating the symptoms rather than the disease?
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@hieru said:
It strikes me that these techniques are necessary workarounds that allow you to circumvent the limitations of the software. Doesn't this amount to treating the symptoms rather than the disease?
These things are valid of all software. Keeping a clean model or drawing is essential for a good workflow. AutoCAD drawings becomes a nightmare to handle when people don't purge, use block etc.
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I'm using Sketchup to do mechanical drawings, and the size of my files is inconsequential compared to what you guys are doing. I currently have 2610 edges, and 1372 faces.
I have 22 layers in use at the moment, but that seems reasonable considering that I'm doing a mechanical drawing. If 22 layers is a problem, perhaps we need a fix.
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@thomthom said:
These things are valid of all software.
I've never had to do this sort of thing with any other software.
Learning good layer management in Photoshop or Illustrator is the closest I've come, but this has never had anything to do with software performance.
@unknownuser said:
Keeping a clean model or drawing is essential for a good workflow.
Well it's one thing to keep a clean model, but another matter entirely if you have to jump through hoops in order to prevent SU from grinding to a halt whilst navigating.
Even if you implement all of the measures mentioned by Meaker VI (all good advice by the way), you are only delaying the inevitable.
If I have an architectural model with lots of landscaping, plants or trees I have to place these elements on a separate layers and keep them hidden if I want to make basic modelling alterations. That doesn't feel like a natural way of working to me - it feels like a workaround.
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