Eliminate delay or on/off "flashing"

[pbacot]

Are there some techniques to lessen or eliminate delay in refresh of shading or shadows, or the on-off flashing when clicking in the application? Usually, in a drawing with a fair amount of polygons, any click in the drawing space causes shading or shadows (and endpoints & profiles) to disappear-even when no complex groups are in view--which is very distracting. I hide layers etc. all time, but sometimes think I am seeing more on-off flashing and delay of the image than I should.

Is it my MacBook Pro?:D I wish I could see SU perform on other machines in person.

I ask this because sometimes there is little delay. For example take a simple model with a complex group in it that causes a long delay of refreshing the shadows when selecting or changing view. Hide that group. When you unhide again, the complex shadows redraw without a long delay, even if you have orbited in the meantime. Again, sometimes I can draw in a view and there is no on-off action of the shadows or lighting. Then I stop drawing,just clicking in empty space causes shadows(and profiles etc) to blink off momentarily. Often selecting a tool causes it, other times not.

[Dave R]

That behavior was setup to make it easier to navigate especially with larger, more complex models, shadows, and materials. Basically the display is simplified momentarily while the camera is being adjusted. As you've discovered, simpler models don't tend to exhibit this as much. I think if you had more graphics RAM, you wouldn't see it quite as much but I suspect there's not much you can in that respect with a notebook computer. Leave shadows and textures turned off as much as possible.

[Gaieus]

There is a ruby console command you can use to modify those delays but I cannot remember. Maybe someone can.

[pbacot]

Thanks. This also means for more complex (moderately complex) models, the animation won't have shadows within SU.

But you know it's not only navigating. Just a click in the drawing causes it.

[Jim]

@pbacot said:

re there some techniques to lessen or eliminate delay in refresh of shading or shadows, or the on-off flashing when clicking in the application?

I'm not sure I can tell you anything that you do not already know, but here are links to more detailed information. Maybe there's something in there that can help.

Making SketchUp render faster
Making SketchUp run faster
How do I make SketchUp run faster?

@gaieus said:

There is a ruby console command you can use to modify those delays but I cannot remember. Maybe someone can.

The commands are not well documented, and I don't have a good understanding of how they are meant to be used.

But, here are the Ruby API methods, and default values on my system:

Sketchup.full_detail_render_delay_max (5.0 seconds)
Sketchup.full_detail_render_delay_max=
Sketchup.full_detail_render_delay_min (1.0 second)
Sketchup.full_detail_render_delay_min=
Sketchup.max_draw_time (0.1667)
Sketchup.max_draw_time=

There are also a few methods dealing with lod which I assume is short for "level of detail"; but these are completely undocumented.

required_camera_lod required_camera_lod= required_tool_lod required_tool_lod= use_lod= use_lod?

Update: I made a quick plugin if anyone wants to play with these settings: Render Settings Lab.

[nikus_knx]

Hey Jim how do you find Sketchup.required_camera_lod???? I'm looking for some not documented method in Sketchup and I need some help.For exemple I'm lookink for a method to Include a scene in animation. Thanks

Nico

[pbacot]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll look into all of them and see if there is a tweak or two I need to make.