Parallel projection is default camera?

[McGyver]

I just downloaded SU Make 2015, a few days ago, and one thing that has been annoying the hell out of me is that it appears the Default camera now is for some reason "Parallel Projection" instead of "Perspective" as it was for many years.

Is there some odd way to change that preference that I'm not seeing?... It does not seem to be in the preference choices.

Or will I have reset that every single time I open a file? It's a bit of a pain in the butt.

[Box]

Set the camera to Perspective and any other setting you want and Save as Template.

[Dave R]

When you first opened SketchUp 2015 you had to select a template. Evidently you picked one in which the camera is set to Parallel Projection. As Box indicates, change the camera setting to Perspective and save it as a new template. Or you can just pick one that already has the camera set to Perspective.

It's kind of surprising that for as long as you've been using SketchUp, you weren't already aware of this template setting thing. I wonder why that wasn't already known. Maybe others have never found it either. i know I've written about it here and elsewhere many times. Hmmmm.....

[McGyver]

Hmm, now that you mention it I very hazily recall having heard of that feature, maybe in one of the sketchup books I bought...
Which I can't find at the moment (since I recently built a new computer/assorted crap desk, nothing is where it should be)....
I never would have come to that conclusion on my own.
I've never customized a template and for years have been using the default feet and inches similar to the default setting in SU6... Or 5 or whatever version I first started using.
But to be honest I never thought templates did more than change modeling measurement and background style settings...
I wonder what other settings you can change for a new template...
Now I must read up on this...
Thank you Box and Dave R, you have helped me greatly!

[Dave R]

A template contains things like style settings, dimension units and precision, camera location, zoom setting, focal length, text settings like size,font, and color arrowhead style and so on.

For possible newbies who might come along, templates do not contain anything related to toolbars or keyboard shortcuts.

[McGyver]

Sorry to be a bother, but I looked it up, followed the instructions and it's not saving any changes to the camera... It does save style changes... But not camera.
Is there something I'm missing?

Open SU, makes changes (to change camera go to Camera > choose: Perspective) then go to File > Save As Template... Give it a name, description, choose "set as default template" and click save...

When I close out and then open SU again, the camera should still be "Perspective"... Right?

Any ideas?

[Dave R]

Are you picking the new template when you open Sketchup?

[McGyver]

Yes.
Actually, additionally I have opened all the templates SU came with to see if any open in perspective... Not one, all are parallel projection... Could this be a bug?

I have an older computer running SU 8... If I were to create a template on that, and bring it over to the new computer, there is no reason it should not work... Right?

[Dave R]

That's weird. I wonder if you have either an installation problem or a graphics issue. I've never heard of anyone else being stuck in Parallel Projection before. Are you sure you've got both eyes open?

You should be able to open an SU8 file in SU15 with no problem but if you open an older file, does it show in perspective view?

Out of curiosity, what do you have the camera's angle of view/focal length set to? If it was high enough, it would look like Parallel Projection. Click on the Zoom tool on the tool bar and report what the Measurements box shows.

[McGyver]

It's not stuck in parallel projection, I can choose perspective and it will change to that... It just won't remember it or save it.

I tried the trick of making a template on the other computer... It works there, but in SU 2015 Make, on the newer computer, it won't recognize the camera setting and opens in parallel projection, instead of perspective.
Changes to styles, units etc, all carry over... But not the frikin camera...

I'm gonna have a couple of beers... Maybe that will solve the problem.

[Box]

Could be an Opengl issue, try turning off hardware acceleration or fiddling the other settings and see if that makes a difference. Opengl can be different on the same computer with different su versions. Also check your graphic card driver is up to date, and that your best card is being used for SU if you happen to have 2 cards.

[Dave R]

Beer usually fixes everything.

Box is right. OpenGL settings under Preferences>OpenGL might be where the fix lies.

[McGyver]

I tried turning off hardware acceleration, but it still opens in parallel projection.

This computer is fairly new, two months maybe and to the best of my knowledge everything is up to date... It's a Dell XPS 8700 i7-4790 with 16 GB RAM...

I have the trial version of SU 2014 Pro with about two hours left on it on this same computer, I opened up some files in it, that in 2015 Make, open up in parallel projection, but in 2014 Pro, they open in perspective as they should...

2015 is not stuck in Parallel projection... It just insists on using that as the default camera when SU opens... After SU loads I can change it to perspective... Or any other camera view... It's just that it's a (sorta) minor pain in the butt to do it every time.

The beers are helping to change my eyeball camera settings... I think I'm in Isoextroangularmetric now... It a new alcohol based eyeball setting...

[Dave R]

Weird. Maybe a repair installation of SU2015?

New computers can come with out of date drivers so it might be worth checking for new graphics drivers.

Is it 64-bit or 32-bit SketchUp. Shouldn't matter but those things that should aren't panning out.

Slow down on the beer before the eyballs fall out.