Softened and Hidden Lines problem getting ridiculous
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I've mentioned this here before, but it was within another topic (dumb move on my part, I know), so I thought I'd bring it up again in it's own thread.
I'm referring to the problem of SU suddenly unsoftening all my softened lines and unhiding all my hidden lines. For no reason suddenly my model looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory, and it can easily take an hour or more to get it back to it's original condition.
It is driving me nuts! And it seems to be happening more and more frequently. It's not a problem with my computer or a specific SU installation, happens on both my desktop and laptop. It's not model specific, it's more than happy to chew up and vomit out whatever model I'm working on.
All the while I'm working to unscrew everything it's screwed up I'm asking myself "why bother, it's just going to do it again", but unless I do correct everything my model looks like crap and I can't judge how it actually looks, or how any changes I make affect the overall appearance of the model.
This used to be an occasional problem, and mainly happened when I copied and pasted a model, or parts of the model. Still frustrating as hell, but at least I could sort of predict when I might happen and take some steps to minimize the damage. But, like I said, for whatever reason it is getting worse and worse. It's now happening when I just open a model, and sometimes while I'm just doing normal work on a model. It is totally destroying any enjoyment of working on a project.
It's reached the point where I have started checking out alternatives to SU. I don't care if costs me to go that route, because, while I know that no 3D modeling program is going to be completely free of problems, I think there would be a much better chance of getting problems solved when their bottom line depends on keeping their customers happy.
Anyhow, while I think I already know what the answer is, I'll ask anyway --
Is the Trimble team aware of this problem?
Are they working on it?
Do they even care? (at least more than Google did) -
It appears that all you have to do is hit ctrl-z to undo the de-smoothing. You might try that to see if it works for you.
Chris
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@chris fullmer said:
It appears that all you have to do is hit ctrl-z to undo the de-smoothing. You might try that to see if it works for you.
Chris
Does this work only immediately after the model becomes screwed up? In other words, if I'm working on a small area of the model, and only when I zoom out do I discover that at some point it became a disaster, will ctrl-z work? Or will it only work if nothing has been done to the model since the de-smoothing occurred?
And also, does it work with the hidden lines that have become unhidden?
And, are any attempts being made to solve the problem, at any level?
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It only works immediately after the problem occurs. I think Thom mentioned he has brought this up with the team and they said that its remarkably difficult to fix and its not high on their priority list, something along those lines. I could be wrong,
Chris
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@chris fullmer said:
It only works immediately after the problem occurs. I think Thom mentioned he has brought this up with the team and they said that its remarkably difficult to fix and its not high on their priority list, something along those lines. I could be wrong,
Chris
Well, thanks Chris. Even if it does work as you describe above, it won't be of much help to me. I can't be zooming out everytime I draw a line or do something else to my model. And that's what I would have to do to catch it immediately after it happens.
So Trimble is placing it low on their priority list because it would be too difficult to fix. That pretty much says it all as far as I'm concerned. SU is useless to me as it stands right now. I can't expect to make any progress on a model if I spend half my time just trying to get back to where I was.
Guess I should have expected this when I first discovered SU. Sooner or later everything good turns to crap.
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Don't quit man! You are too good to give up.
Take a breath, crush a grape or take a long walk.I have been where you are (No where near your talent) then started reading post from other S/W sites.
User paying 2-7 thousand and having the even bigger problems, version after version.I rant & rave and go looking for the better SU and eventually come slithering back here.
I got jumped on for my comments that printing in SU is like a leap back to the 80's.
Hang tough!
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Need a plugin that watches for the event. If it cannot tell it apart from an intentional de-smoothing (one from a user command) then perhaps it can warn the user when more than a pre-set number of edges change state.
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In our last discussion on the subject, we isolated the occurrence to having something selected, while you save the file. I've made a habit of deselecting before I save, and I haven't run into the Susie since.
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@pbacot said:
Need a plugin that watches for the event. If it cannot tell it apart from an intentional de-smoothing (one from a user command) then perhaps it can warn the user when more than a pre-set number of edges change state.
That would probably make SU very slow - watching and inspecting every edge.
@unknownuser said:
In our last discussion on the subject, we isolated the occurrence to having something selected, while you save the file. I've made a habit of deselecting before I save, and I haven't run into the Susie since.
It happens when SketchUp is minimized/restored and when SketchUp "whites out" (Save, Autosave, heavy processing - such as Sandbox tools etc.) You will see the window becoming unresponsive then flicker back into a reactive state again. That's when this happens.
Due to this bug I've also gotten into the habit of deselecting. I never keep a selection for any longer than strictly necessary. Ctrl+T
And when I notice the window has become unresponsive - for whatever reason - I always check my selection and open the Edit menu to see if there's a "Undo Soften Edges" item there. -
As this issue seems related to having a selection when you do a save, can't we devise a ModelObserver that with onPreSaveModel remembers the current selection as an array, then clears the selection; and with onPostSaveModel adds that array back as the current selection ? Something like
class SoftEdgesSaverModelObserver < Sketchup;;ModelObserver def onPreSaveModel(model) ss=model.selection @ss=ss.to_a ss.clear end def onPostSaveModel(model) UI.start_timer(0.1, false){model.selection.add(@ss)} if @ss[0] ### wait a little to ensure it's done end end ### then... Sketchup.active_model.add_observer(SoftEdgesSaverModelObserver.new())We'll also need an AppObserver to ensure that newly opened models etc have this new observer attached - meaning we need an enduring reference to the 'SoftEdgesSaverModelObserver' ...
I know some observers are flaky -
As I mentioned in my previous post - it's not just by save. (It's not even on every Save. It's any operation that makes SketchUp "white-screen". Drape will also trigger it.
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A ToolsObserver might trap a 'white-out-making' event, but I must agree that it's going to be difficult to resolve, unless it's properly resolved in the base app code itself...
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I tend to use Control-T a lot for deselection, but not for the conditions being described. It is usually when I need to move or copy move some item and something else is still highlighted.
I agree, for the conditions described in the posts above, some preventative would be very advantageous. -
Its interesting to see all the things you list Thom. This is a problem I RARELY have and I typically work on large terrains and cities. I find that I almost never ever leave things selected. I always deselect things by clicking on open space, or ctrl-t occasionally if its hard to see open space where I'm working. I never realized it might be a habit saving me from serious headaches. I also turn my autosave off because my models are always so large it takes a long time to save them so I only do it when I want to, typically before I run a script or close SU. So I think I happen to get around the problem by sheer coincidence.
Chris
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Thanks TT.
I guess I thought an "observer" would snooze up in a tower and when a "mass un-soft" occurred he'd hear the commotion and ring a bell!
Peter
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The mount of times I reopen my project at the office, only to find someone has made changes to it and not noticed the soften bug... x_X
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Phew! Like Chris, I think I've probably avoided this one by developing fine de-selection and CTRL-S reflexes (years of practice having to use CorelDraw! he he)
Maybe a little off topic, but personally, I find SU's selecting habits rather bit-and-miss in general, in a way that would seem to encourage this kind of unwanted behaviour. Pretty much all drawing software that I've used defaults to leaving the most recently drawn item selected - i.e. using a tool that creates new geometry, by default, clears any selection made prior to using the tool. This often catches me out when I've just drawn some small detail, and then go to use a selection-dependent action or the entity info box, without noticing that unwanted items are still selected - but not the one that I just drew, and would expect to be selected.
I'm not trying to suggest that the problem discussed here isn't a bug - just that an overhaul of how SU handles selections is probably overdue anyway, lending the opportunity to get this issue addressed too. -
Thom, what about a set of tools that could overide some of the basic SU functions that are nown to cause the problem? we could rewrite save, and explode for example to always deselct everything before doing the operation.
I wonder if that would actually help solve the problem in most cases.
sel = Sketchup.active_model.selection
exploder = sel[0]
sel.clear
exploder.explode -
I've got the same topicstarter issue (relatively rare thanks god)
My partial workaround is to use 'hiddenlayer' ruby by Jim (so unwanted edges will be constantly hidden in all scenes). The trick is to set up the one constant layer name for hidden stuff (via your default starting template) -
@chris fullmer said:
sel = Sketchup.active_model.selection
exploder = sel[0]
sel.clear
exploder.explodeWhy explode stuff?
@chris fullmer said:
Thom, what about a set of tools that could overide some of the basic SU functions that are nown to cause the problem?
It can be any operation. Not any specific one. Just as long as the operation takes long enough for SketchUp to white-out. It can happen to plugins as well.
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