Who said SketchUp doesn't need to be 64 bit?
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@pixero said:
it seems they haven't even started converting to 64 bit to future proof SU. ... I would have thought that this process would be ongoing at some low level at least.
We're doing tons of work to try to shore-up and future-proof SketchUp. I just can't confirm or deny any specifics. See my previous point re: lawyers and Wall St.
@pixero said:
The first thing that I thought about when I heard Trimble had bought it was that they really have to ...
Good, more of that kind of thinking. Certain members of our team have been made into whipping boys because of the decisions people think they've made. Not all of the decisions come from the bottom like we sometimes wish. And luckily, not all of them come down to us from the top, either.
@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.OK, I'll tell you what it is. Ready?
Surprise, it's not just one thing. Certainly, not even a whole set of things we could very easily explain to our user community.
The biggest problem SketchUp faces is that it's an incredibly complex, legacy codebase. Having spent the last 13 years of my career working on legacy code, I can tell you that it's a whole lot harder and less glamorous than the preceding several years I spent working on brand-new code before that. Legacy code suffers from all sorts of problems you might expect with anything that ages. Sometimes you're dealing with cleaning up short-sighted decisions that should have never been made. Other times you're putting out fires caused by essentially random and unpredictable problems that no one can foresee at the time the offending elements are created.
As far as performance is concerned, just as with the 64-bit transition itself, you'll just have to trust me when I say, if there were a magic button, we'd have pushed it already.
Those who have used SketchUp a long time will remember the big performance boost we gave SketchUp with version 7.1. Well I'll tell you it wasn't for nothing. The gains we got there came from exchanging the entirety of our rendering engine for what we still use today--Intrinsic Alchemy. It was a massive, time-consuming insanely complicated integration to make that happen.
Some number of the big performance improvements will require really big investments like Alchemy did. As I think Thomthom mentioned, some other number of improvements, such as the increased zoom capacity of LayOut, faster vector rendering in LayOut, and 10x faster shadow rendering in SketchUp, will be realized by improved algorithms--getting something done in a new way that is fundamentally superior to the old method, which either wasn't available, or wasn't thought of, at the time the original element was written.
We continue to invest in both of those things. Unfortunately, they take time just like everything else, plus we just don't always get to predict the amount of improvement we'll be able to achieve before we begin.
@pixero said:
By the way, how many developers are they? Does anyone know?
I'm not sure if we're formally allowed to talk about this or not. At Google we were prohibited from revealing these details. I'll ask and see what our management says.
In the meantime, please consider something perhaps nobody on our team has stated clearly before: that there's a lot more going on in the "SketchUp Team" than just the SketchUp client app. I'm not listing everything or going into detail, but I think our resources are spread out across a lot more areas than people might have previously expected. Here are some examples:
- SketchUp desktop app
- LayOut desktop app
- Core platform
- Import/Export/Interoperability
- 3rd Party Dev: API/SDK/Ruby/EW Reviews
- Infrastructure/Tools/Build/Release/Installers
- Internationalization/Localization
- 3D Warehouse
- Extension Warehouse
- Mobile Viewer
- Intra-company Collaborations
- Trimble's DBO Platform
- Skunkworks/Secret Badassery/Mind Control
- QA for all of the above
@pixero said:
Is there anyway to run some diagnostics in the background that if SU runs out of memory makes a dump of all running processes and memory used at that point?
When these crashes appeared I didn't get a bugsplat I simply got that popup and another with "The application has unexpectedly closed". And it was gone.This has a bit to do with the way BugSplat is integrated with SketchUp and also how the memory became exhausted. Lots of unpredictable behavior results when memory is severely fragmented or exhausted, whether just within a single process, or on a larger scale. I've opened a bug about your observation.
Andrew
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@airwindsolar said:
But you'll never need more than 640k, applications will never be too big for a handful of 720k floppies, or manage to fill up a 40MB hard drive, or...
Obviously these sorts of statements seem ridiculous in retrospect, but the thing is that one never really knows which assumptions will hold true and which ones won't back when the original decisions are made.
The people who wrote computer BIOSes 30 years ago assumed somebody would come along and eliminate their use of two-digit years before 1999, but then nobody showed up to do it.
A lot of people saw the explosion of CPU clock speed from 1990 to 2000 and thought it would continue forever, but then one day we suddenly hit a barrier.
I once got to speak in-person with Vint Cerf when he came to Boulder for a lecture. He told me a funny story about the use of IPv4 addressing on the internet, essentially saying that at the time the original specs were drawn up, although there were a few folks on the engineering team who wanted 64 or 128 bits of address space, when push came to shove, since not a single device had been built yet and the whole thing was experimental anyway, he decided there had been enough arguing and just put his foot down, saying 32 bits were plenty--especially since he didn't think anybody would take his research seriously if the proposals asked for anything greater. Of course, just like with Y2K, nobody came along to fix the shortcoming it until the last minute.
Like I've alluded to throughout this discussion, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Andrew
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My God...
This is early Saturday morning here in Europe and I'm completely blown away... (in a very positive sense)
I've only had a quick cup of coffee... Perhaps I need a few more to digest all the post and information written here within the past 24 hours... (keeping Pixero's note in mind about this thread having taken off 5 days ago - it seem that it gained momentum and reached warp speed during the past 24 hours...
)@andrews said:
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.
Don't worry, I don't perceive any of your answers like that you are pointing fingers directly at me... On the contrary... I really appreciate that you've taken all this time to post all these comments...
I only have a huge respect for that...!
@andrews said:
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.
I've never questioned this, but it's comfortable to have the confirmation...
@andrews said:
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.
Great point, Andrew...
This is the nature within software development - and in many cases other kinds of development as well - for sure...
It's impossible to please everybody... That's a fact, it's understandable and pretty straight forward...@andrews said:
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.
I know this isn't aimed at me, but I just want to let you know that I DO acknowledge and if you take a look at some of the posts I've made previously (not in this thread but on the board in general) you'll also notice that I continue to be very positive about the development of SU in general...
I don't want to point my finger at anyone in particular (it's kind of obvious who they are and I still don't understand why they bother posting anything here... IMO they should leave SketchUp and play somewhere else...), but I completely disagree with those claiming that development have come to a halt within the past 5 years...
It's simply not true and I do acknowledge the progress...Having said that... Whenever this 64 bit discussion arise, I do feel partly uncertain about the future of SU...
@andrews said:
We're also in agreement that SketchUp will have to go 64-bit someday.
I certainly appreciate this statement...
If you hadn't written anything else but this, I'd still be very happy...
@andrews said:
We've never said otherwise.
Sorry to say, but it's the first time I (personally) have seen such a clear statement... Perhaps I haven't paid enough attention previously, but it's the first time I see such a clear statement...
I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling like this, cause why would we have this discussion in first place otherwise...!?!
Personally I feel that you (not you in personal, Andrew, but the SU Team in general, with John Bacus leading the crusade) have done an incredible job for not being particular clear in this matter...
Perhaps it's obvious that SketchUp eventually would need to port to 64 bit, but I have to admit that the smokescreen have worked and hidden a lot of the "obvious" parts - at least for me...@andrews said:
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.
I fully understand all of this...
Once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking the time to write these comprehensive answers, Andrew...
Much appreciated...!!
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What a positive outcome.
The thoughts and comments posted on SketchUcation by some members don't reflect the common thought process of the community in general.
Trolls float in with negativity and both the mods and admin are desensitised to their negativity.
Policing such comments is fruitless.
I think what is evident here is that their seems to be 'situation' regards SketchUcation and SU staff that is entirely false. Or at least misunderstood.
I think it is fair to say all SU staff are very welcome here and anything negative said personally about SU staff by members doesn't reflect the true feelings of the community.
Thanks for taking time out of your day to address members concerns and suggestions.
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Is it just me or has a huge chunk of yesterday's discussion disappeared from this thread?
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I didn't notice it bit I'll checks the logs to see if post were deleted.
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Those were some of the most helpful responses I've ever seen from a SketchUp team member on the topic. I wouldn't say that I personally find the answers completely satisfying, but the reality of it is your reasons (as finally explained) are actually plausible. Whereas Bacus has always been combative and dismissive, particularly on this issue... which strikes me as a combination of arrogantly self-confident that he knows best, and at the same time equally ignorantly confident that SketchUp users are all idiots.
To me a good analogy for the situation is American football -- in football when things go bad, and a team is losing consistently, the head coach and the quarterback are the ones who take the heat. Right or wrong, they are the face of the franchise and the buck stops with them. Usually the end result is the head coach is fired, and a large amount to the team is replaced when a new head coach is hired. Alternately sometimes the head coach will replace the quarterback to save his own job. Sometimes this is for the best, and sometimes things don't work out -- however at the end of the day a change is always made when things go bad for too long... there is simply too much money at stake to allow the negativity to continue.
I have spent the better part of the last year working in an advisory role to another software that is converting their (much older) legacy codebase to 64-bit. I personally know the frustrations users have with them are somewhat unfounded from working closely with the developers. However, I also have to keep reminding them the ways the users are going to perceive the decisions they make, because they often get so lost in their situation that they loose sight of how the outside perceives the results. I'm sure they don't always like me raining on their parade -- but they are going to dislike the reactions of the general public even more when the results are released (if somebody honest doesn't speak up beforehand)... and unfortunately there do not appear to be many other people who are willing to endanger their position once they have achieved "insider" status. To me that may my best attribute... I will say what I really think no matter how unpopular, and no matter how personally unfavorable the outcome of that honesty may be.
I am a generally positive guy -- if you look back, almost all of my posts up to a certain point you would see that I was always trying to be helpful and positive. The way Bacus handled the issues (at least publicly) turned me from a good friend of SketchUp into a bitter enemy. And that is the issue more than the results -- the things he said and the way he said them turned me off -- and the lack of tangible results he delivered did not make up for his personality. (A good example of a football coach who has a similar off-putting personality, but manages to still be respected, because he actually gets results would be Bill Belichick).
Ultimately the bottom line is this: if you don't want the negative attention, then deliver results.
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Rich - I'm sure there were a batch of posts prior to Andrew's much appreciated input.....specifically talking about quads and UV mapping.
Maybe I've been Sketchuping in my sleep again (wouldn't be the first time) and simply imagined posting about why I think quads and proper UV mapping are essential to making SU competitive and standards compliment with other 3D software.
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Thanks Adrew for taking the time to explain all of this.
Transparency is always appreciated! I just wish it won't stop here
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@hieru said:
Is it just me or has a huge chunk of yesterday's discussion disappeared from this thread?
it looks as if one post were removed (though rich might see that i deleted one of my posts-- but thats because i quoted myself once instead of editing the post
)last night. that developers button image was the first post on this page.. now it's the last post on the previous page. so everything shifted up one slot.
@hieru said:
Rich - I'm sure there were a batch of posts prior to Andrew's much appreciated input.....specifically talking about quads and UV mapping.
Maybe I've been Sketchuping in my sleep again (wouldn't be the first time) and simply imagined posting about why I think quads and proper UV mapping are essential to making SU competitive and standards compliment with other 3D software.
one possibility-- you did type up that response.. pushed 'submit'.. someone had posted something while you were typing.. the message board gave the 'someone else posted while you were typing' message.. it looks like you post submitted properly.. but you didn't push submit again ?
dunno- that happened to me 2 days ago.. made a post on the way out the door and it never showed up.. but when i returned to the original computer.. there it was. not submitted
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@jason_maranto said:
To me a good analogy for the situation is American football -- in football when things go bad, and a team is losing consistently, the head coach and the quarterback are the ones who take the heat.
maybe not so good analogy because we're talking about business here (well, we're not but that's what really is going on).. and in business, it's even worse than football.. CEOs get dumped or find scapegoats at lower ranks and they get dumped etc.. managers are wiped out on what appears to be whims.. layoffs all day long etc etc.
in football, there's a score and it's the bottom line in whether or not a coach is successful.. in this topic, not so much of a score but more of a user opinion that sketchup is failing.. we don't have access to the real score card information but you gotta believe there is one.
meanwhile, if sketchup were actually failing.. i'm pretty sure john b. would have been canned by now.. either by google or by trimble during the transition.. instead, he's held his position at two giant corporations and one smaller one so he's obviously doing something right as far as 'winning' goes..
i get it that you have a personal vendetta against him and you're not a fan.. but the problem is that you're talking as if what you're saying is actually true without considering the fact that maybe your interpretations of the situation are wrong -or- even completely opposite of the truth?
do you really think john bacus would still hold his position if sketchup were failing?
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That all obviously depends on how you define failing, and we simply don't know what criteria is being applied. At Google the criteria was catering to Google Earth and he obviously did that... to the point where those were the only parts of SketchUp proper that saw any real growth.
Trimble is a big question mark -- all I can gather at this point is that they don't care for SketchUp to be a mainstream modeling application (even in the Pro iteration). Otherwise I would have to assume something would have been done in the last 2 years. It does not take 2 years to implement new modeling tools no matter what the circumstances.
So, I guess a more accurate assessment is that he is failing to lead SketchUp to anywhere I find worthwhile. I would say from many of the comments (yours included) that many other people are disappointing in the directions it is going as well.
So at the end of it, he is losing hearts and minds of the users (at the very least) to the competition. There is certainly some inertia that has been propelling the product forward based off what happened a long time ago (already implemented or in progress features of the software from before). But I really can't believe that any recent moves have netted significant amounts of new users.
Really what I have seen is alot of promises of cool stuff to come, without any specifics given, and without anything of merit materializing. It is easy to make promises, but you have to deliver something eventually, or the credibility of those statements becomes suspect as simply being delay tactics.
I mean of course Trimble is happy with the financials -- even if you only count existing Pro version users, they are paying double what they used to pay for upgrades... and Trimble doing (or perhaps releasing) hardly any work to get the increase in revenue. So I am sure the financials look spectacular.
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@jason_maranto said:
So, I guess a more accurate assessment is that he is failing to lead SketchUp to anywhere I find worthwhile. I would say from many of the comments (yours included) that many other people are disappointing in the directions it is going as well.
in the past, i was hugely disappointed in where sketchup was heading.. i wanted it to do things which were important to my work (i needed curves- real curves/smooth surfaces).. i finally realized that if sketchup were what i wanted, it would be an entirely different program- it would be freaking awesome but it wouldn't sketchup anymore- that's for sure.. it wouldn't even be a poly modeler.
i spent the last 4or so years learning a new app.. i put in the hard work in order to get the functionality i wanted (and that was already available) and i quit armchair quarterbacking the su developers to make my life easy by doing the things i say while they put in all the hard work.
here's the thing and maybe it's not so obvious-- nobody in this thread (and barely anywhere else in any of the wish threads) is suggesting anything new.. nobody is showing any innovative ideas.. everything is "i see xxxxx in this.app and i want it in sketchup"
if you need subD modeling, i mean- if you really need it, learn modo.. if you need nurbs surfaces, learn rhino.. etc. there are people -in this thread- that should be using other software as their bread&butter but they're not doing it because it's too much effort to learn.. people have spent a lot of time learning sketchup and are burnt out on the idea of going through another learning processes.
there isn't a true all around modeling package yet.. we're 10-20 years away from that still and it's not going to be one of the apps which are currently available.. advanced modelers use more than one software and if you're expecting all of the capabilities of all the modeling applications to coalesce within sketchup then you're setting yourself up for a let down..
recognize what sketchup does.. recognize it's advantages and use it for those advantages.. recognize what it doesn't do and very likely never will-- and quit expecting it to do that.. instead, learn the tool that already does it.
idk, there's a point in there that i'm trying to make but i'm not doing such a good job at it.. just rambling.. i do feel there are 'bad' things within sketchup.. it's not perfect even within its own purpose.. those are the areas where my gripes these days lay.. make it do what it does already even better.. sketchup is the 'easy' modeler right? well some stuff still isn't so easy or fluid etc..
but even then- that's not what i'm meaning to say to you personally jason.
i get it that you hate john bacus.. when you first called for his head last year, i thought you reached a boiling point and just sort of lost it for a minute and said some lame stuff.. or- it was decently understandable for you to of gone off like that.. but it's starting to look more and more like it wasn't a moment of passion.. every single post you make now talks shit on him.. it's become boring and trite.
at first i was like:
now it's more like:
just lay off it already, ok?
[for clarity- i'm saying that for two reasons.. one is in defense of john bacus as a person.. i've never met him personally but, everybody who has and talks about him speaks highly.. i havent seen someone speak negatively in that scenario and i can respect that.
the other reason is speaking as a moderator of this forum-- this place is generally a very laid back area of the interwebs and it's a place you can hang out at without being on your toes at all times.. it's a rarity online- especially for a community with such large numbers.. let's keep it like that. there are plenty of other places you can go to spew such personal attacks]
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Maranto, its becoming tiring!
Jason, I imagine the above statement may not sit all that well with you. Possibly because of the 'Maranto' address. I imagine you would have no problem with the suggestion of you being 'tiring' as you are more than capable of arguing your point
'The Friendly Place for Your SketchUp Needs' is SketchUcation's slogan even though it no longer appears in the header ..... maybe it should be brought back?
We have an expression over here, 'Play the ball not the man'. Its a 'sporting' phrase and one that is held in high esteem also a trait well respected in footballers and hurlers.
By all means please feel free to argue your point but also please play the ball, not the man!
Mike
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@jeff hammond said:
one possibility-- you did type up that response.. pushed 'submit'.. someone had posted something while you were typing.. the message board gave the 'someone else posted while you were typing' message.. it looks like you post submitted properly.. but you didn't push submit again ?
That's probably what happened - it wouldn't be the first time
I was fairly sure that there were other posts that have gone missing as well. I thought someone had made a good point about the need for native non-destructive bevelling.
I'm probably mistaken though, so just ignore this rambling old fart and continue with the great discussion
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@andrews said:
Hey everybody,
This is my last response to this thread. The discussion of 64-bit has once again completely exhausted me. Don't expect any more updates on this topic from me.Perfectly understandable Andrew and THANKS for your input. I am sure all vast majority appreciate your forthright responses.
@andrews said:
After reading back through the whole thread though--and actually, not as much this thread as several others--there's something I think is very important to get off my chest.
While not directing this at any one poster, I want to make it clear how fed up I am with the finger-pointing and brow-beating that's been allowed to happen way too much on some of these threads. Sure, I'm a fan of free speech. I'm also a big fan of grace and civility in a professional setting.
In particular, I'm just tired of how often people post negative, derogatory, or otherwise inappropriate messages about the people involved in the engineering or decision-making processes of the SketchUp team. I don't think users have taken to doing this to each other, but trust me I'd be just as disgusted about that if it were the case.
Just like all of you, those of us on the SketchUp team who participate in these forums do so on our own time and don't find it motivating, fulfilling or helpful to put up with child-like outbursts or general incivility, particularly in what I'd consider to be a community that was created for the express purpose of professional exchange, and especially not in a context where people behave that way while simultaneously trying to get me or my team to listen to or help them in some way.
Well, I think we probably all know who you are in particular referring to in your post and I feel pretty much the same. Its now becoming a regular 'rant' after each SU release. Fair enough, we, the users / customers are entitled to bitch but there is most definitely a line that should not be crossed. As I have said in another post, play the ball, not the man. I hope this will be the case from now on. If not, a FOUL will most definitely be called and the red card used.
@andrews said:
If you've ever wondered why so many of us continue to work on the SketchUp team through transitions from @Last to Google and now to Trimble, the reason is because of the people. I'd trust my teammates with my life, let alone with guiding and nurturing a software product. Can you say the same about your coworkers?
I fully believe this and have found it to be the case since the early days of @Last. The SketchUp Team are a tightly knit bunch of guys and gals and I am proud to know them. In fairness the same could well be said about Team SketchUcation's Mods, TSs and Regulars.
@andrews said:
Regardless of whether you believe me--and if you don't have coworkers like this, then you probably don't believe me--please hear this.
Levying personal criticisms--those that are aimed at people instead of the product--is a sure-fire way to make me and the rest of my team ignore anything else you have to say.
Those of us on the SketchUp team want to make the best product we can. We also want our users to have the best experiences they can, and to have a fair bit to do with guiding the future direction of the product, within the realistic constraints of us needing to balance the desires of a great many different stakeholders in this endeavor.
Concerns, suggestions, bugs, problems, and questions about SketchUp? Keep them coming all day long. That's how we get better.
Implications, complaints, criticisms and commentary about the character of the individual people on the other end of your keyboard? Keep them to yourself.
If you wonder why so few of us still actively post on SketchUcation, look no further than this. Too many of my friends got tired of having to sort through character assassinations and tirades questioning the motivations of their coworkers, which they took as a sign that their participation was no longer desired. If it keeps up, I'll assume the same.
Let's all be better to each other. Thanks for your consideration.
I truly hope that you will continue with your much appreciated comprehensive input and that others on Team SketchUp will feel confident enough to jump in as they see fit. I give you my personal guarantee that only the ball can be played and not the man!
Mayor Mike
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Thank You Andrew for the detailed answers!
I can understand that rewriting major parts of a 15 years old program isn't something that can be done over night.
But i really hope to see some real improvements in a not too distant future after almost 4 years of stagnation (from my point of view) since the release of v8 and alreay two (for me useless) trimble releases.
I'm looking foreward to the "ipod-like" features - i hope it's something i can use too, i never was a friend of (apples) closed money making schemes and never used itunes.@jeff hammond said:
here's the thing and maybe it's not so obvious-- nobody in this thread (and barely anywhere else in any of the wish threads) is suggesting anything new.. nobody is showing any innovative ideas.. everything is "i see xxxxx in this.app and i want it in sketchup"
if you need subD modeling, i mean- if you really need it, learn modo.. if you need nurbs surfaces, learn rhino.. etc. there are people -in this thread- that should be using other software as their bread&butter but they're not doing it because it's too much effort to learn.. people have spent a lot of time learning sketchup and are burnt out on the idea of going through another learning processes.
I use Max since more than 10 years in addition to sketchup for the more complex modeling tasks and scene objects like trees or cars, but there are mainly two (or maybe three) things that hold me back to switch completely:
I really like the navigation and snapping system in sketchup and the direct access to groups and components (and the display style). I think if Autodesk or someone else would add these functionalities - or at least the snapping - to Max i would jump the ship.And i don't get why asking for new unknown features is better than asking for things that are useful in other apps (or almost standard). I don't need the revolutionary new feature - i need things that make my work in sketchup easier/better.
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@tt_su said:
You mention import, of which file types? SKP or other formats?
Import was just a short word for several options to add geometry to a skp file - if it is importing a 3ds or copy/pasting skp content from another file - sometimes i can go and make coffee in the meantime.
@tt_su said:
Beveling? We're talking about a plugin here, right? Performance for the Ruby API is high up there on my personal list. I've been spending a great deal of time poking into the performance of Ruby extensions and it's clear we need to improve this area as well. We have some ideas that we are exploring. On top of improving the API we also need to improve how we provide guidelines back to the developers of our API so they can utilize best practices that we've discovered over the year.
sure, this is the only option in SU at the moment to add bevels or round corners and i really don't understand why such basic features are not already implemented into the core if it is obvious that the slow ruby code is the main problem here.
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