Significant Issues with Exporting 2d Graphics
-
I've been a SU user for probably 15 years now. I'm currently on SU2015 Pro, on a Windows 7 PC 64 bit, (Intel Xeon(R) CPU ES-1620 @ 3.70 GHz, with 16 GB memory, Nvideo Quadro K4000. I'm routinely working with models that are plus or minus 100 megs. Usually, but not always, I will have problems exporting jpegs, tiifs and pngs with high resolution. For example, my latest job is around 90 megs, I can export jpegs and tiffs at 2500 pixels without issues, pump it to 5000 and it get's pretty slow...like maybe 5-15 minutes per image. go to 7000 pixels and it could take and hour, or just endlessly process and never complete. The can happen with normal default styles like Simple Style. Obviously adding shadows makes the job harder. The real problem comes in when I have sketchy styles on (there's on in particular from Competition Winners...sketchy watercolor (or whatever). If shadows are on and THAT is on...I'm in for a world of hurt.
Problem is, a lot of my work needs to be exported using sketchy styles. Last week I spend around 10 hours trying to export four images (already pre-set as scenes).
I ran Cleanup several times...without any effect. I eventually broke the model into two separate submodels and attempted it that way, without much success. the other issue is that jpeg exports look weak and anemic...all the line quality gets thin and feeble. it's just not acceptable. I've also tried opening in Layout but while processing is generally faster, Layout cannot produce tiffs. I'm really tired of making excuses to the production team and management and I really need to solve this. Any help or resources to check out would be most appreciated. Lately I've been taking screenshots and pasting into Bluebeam PDF! THAT's not right! -
the SU display and print ouput as well as the raster export is done by the OpenGL stack of the used video driver by default.
For testing if the GPU of your Quadro K4000 is the bottleneck rendering high resolutions, disable the hardware based raster image processing of SU under "Window > Preferences > OpenGL" before exporting to a raster format.
Be aware, that doubling the image resolution (width/height) squares the amount of raster data to calculate.
-
@sketch3d.de said:
the SU display and print ouput as well as the raster export is done by the OpenGL stack of the used video driver by default.
For testing if the GPU of your Quadro K4000 is the bottleneck rendering high resolutions, disable the hardware based raster image processing of SU under "Window > Preferences > OpenGL" before exporting to a raster format.
Be aware, that doubling the image resolution (width/height) squares the amount of raster data to calculate.
Thanks. So what does Hardware Acceleration do? Is the graphics card handling the generation of raster images either way? I've never understood what role the CPU and the GPU play in sketchup operations.
UPDATE: I don't really notice any significant difference with HA turned off.
-
CPU should handle calculations while GPU should handle display of viewport, where geometry complexity, styles, shadows, textures will play a huge role.
GPU rendering should be faster than CPU and distributing the load is a must. However CPU's and GPU's have limited resources.
On the CPU side you have speed and RAM amount.
On the GPU side you have speed and Vram amount.
If Ram or Vram have reached the limit, your model will stall. Maybe that's what's happening.
-
@jql said:
CPU should handle calculations while GPU should handle display of viewport, where geometry complexity, styles, shadows, textures will play a huge role.
GPU rendering should be faster than CPU and distributing the load is a must. However CPU's and GPU's have limited resources.
On the CPU side you have speed and RAM amount.
On the GPU side you have speed and Vram amount.
If Ram or Vram have reached the limit, your model will stall. Maybe that's what's happening.
How can I tell if investing more $$$ into a better card will have the desired effect...and which card to go with?
Obviously I'm not WORKING with these styles and shadows on, and generally working display is not an issue. (yeah, sometimes the model is slow, but I can deal with that generally). It's at the end of modeling where I have a large model, complex building with textures, landscape with entourage components and textures, etc. where I want a sketchy graphic style and shadows that I have the issues. I need the horsepower to get that through the GPU.
One last question...in all the years I've been working with Sketchup, I've never contacted the company...and I really cannot see how to do that. Can anyone point me to Sketchup tech help? thanks.
-
@blackdogsketch said:
How can I tell if investing more $$$ into a better card will have the desired effect...and which card to go with?
you can't... go with a nVidia Geforce GTX 960 or better (Asus Strix or MSI TwinFrozr are fine). Check the wattage of the power supply (>= 350 W) and the available space of the case before doing that.
@blackdogsketch said:
Can anyone point me to Sketchup tech help?
-
@sketch3d.de said:
@blackdogsketch said:
How can I tell if investing more $$$ into a better card will have the desired effect...and which card to go with?
you can't... go with a nVidia Geforce GTX 960 or better (Asus Strix or MSI TwinFrozr are fine). Check the wattage of the power supply (>= 350 W) and the available space of the case before doing that.
@blackdogsketch said:
Can anyone point me to Sketchup tech help?
Thank you.
-
@sketch3d.de said:
@blackdogsketch said:
How can I tell if investing more $$$ into a better card will have the desired effect...and which card to go with?
you can't... go with a nVidia Geforce GTX 960 or better (Asus Strix or MSI TwinFrozr are fine). Check the wattage of the power supply (>= 350 W) and the available space of the case before doing that.
@blackdogsketch said:
Can anyone point me to Sketchup tech help?
So when I disable hardware acceleration, is the GPU still doing all the graphics export work?
-
I believe GPU is out of the equation when you disable hardware acceleration.
I'm using a Titan X, wich has 12Gb. If you want to share your model I'll try exporting your image and see if that works. Just tell me what your style is.
-
-
@blackdogsketch said:
So when I disable hardware acceleration, is the GPU still doing all the graphics export work?
no, the rendering is then done in software by the CPU. Depending on the horsepower of the CPU this may not be much slower (or faster) than the GPU, especially in connection with integrated/shared low-end solutions like the intelHD series of many notebooks.
Advertisement