Reference model vs paste in place

Bob_CP

Hi All

I was hoping one of the sages could let me know their thoughts:

I build my models across a number of partial constituent models, following Nick's workflow. (I'm sure others developed a similar method on their own, but I became aware of the concept through his book with Matt.) Many times I find myself saving out smaller and smaller subsets of model, so that working on them is quick and easy, then re-incorporating them into the consolidated models. I do a copy / paste in place operation to keep everything where it should be.

As you may suspect, I sometimes get a little confused as to which model has the most recent iteration of any particular aspect. Maybe that's just me.

I've been giving some thought to and testing importing the constituent models into a consolidated file as maybe a better workflow with less tendency to to forget where the latest iteration of an object is. We'll see.

But I find that reloading models via right-click > reload to be very slow, as in several minutes. Vs paste in place with is very quick.

And advice or comments on the relative pros and cons of each method would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Bob

pbacot

I don't find reload to be that slow (and there are other aspects of SU that I find too slow on my computer). I like the Save As / Reload approach. I keep all "save as" components from a model in one folder. The computer tends to look in the right folder next time I go for to reload or save as--most of the time. I often rename the file by date and it seems that when I reload the component SU just uses the original component definition without the date. One thing I like is the model axes of the Save As file are the axes of the component. So I have a building on the site and no matter how it is oriented on the site, the building axes are important to me to be square with the building. As long as I don't mess with the component axes between versions everything seems fine. It seems to be fewer steps than paste in place replacement methods.

I don't know why reload is slow for you. Sometimes "paste" is slow for me. Either way update the main file and keep the current version of the component there as much as possible. Date the other "sub" file and save them all in one folder.

TIG has an "XREF" plugin. Maybe you'd like that.

Bob_CP

Thanks pbacot.

The last reload operation I did was 7 minute 17 seconds! It was bringing changes on a 50 MB file. I like the concept, if only to were fast enough to use. Or, even if I could work on an different open model, but the whole SU program is lost until the reload is complete.

db11

You could try the 'EditinPlace' plugin. I've been using it for a couple of years and it works well, even in 19.2 (it's an older plugin, but so far no apparent compatibility issues.

With a context click 'Edit in Place:Open' it opens a new SU instance with the component you want to edit. Once you're done you save, return to the main model, right click and choose 'Edit in Place: Update'. I've never noticed any delay / slowness in updating — it's pretty much instantaneous.

Maybe worth a try. You can find it here: http://suplugins.com/edit.php

JQL

I also use Save As/Reload and it's also much faster for me, but also less troublesome as it requires a single right-click reload.

Also I can keep working with colleagues on separate parts of projects and sync within computers with sync/backup software.

You might have something there that gets particularly slow. Do you have high definition textures?

EDIT: Edit in place is a great tip. I used another one that doesn't work on 2019 anymore, but the function was the same. Thanks!

Bob_CP

Actually, I remember trying that before. i gotta give it a go again.

Thanks!

@db11 said:

You could try the 'EditinPlace' plugin. I've been using it for a couple of years and it works well, even in 19.2 (it's an older plugin, but so far no apparent compatibility issues.

With a context click 'Edit in Place:Open' it opens a new SU instance with the component you want to edit. Once you're done you save, return to the main model, right click and choose 'Edit in Place: Update'. I've never noticed any delay / slowness in updating — it's pretty much instantaneous.

Maybe worth a try. You can find it here: http://suplugins.com/edit.php

Bob_CP

Yea, all my models use ridiculous textures. I use shaded at times, but the file sizes are pretty large.

@jql said:

I also use Save As/Reload and it's also much faster for me, but also less troublesome as it requires a single right-click reload.

Also I can keep working with colleagues on separate parts of projects and sync within computers with sync/backup software.

You might have something there that gets particularly slow. Do you have high definition textures?

EDIT: Edit in place is a great tip. I used another one that doesn't work on 2019 anymore, but the function was the same. Thanks!

JQL

@bob_cp said:

Yea, all my models use ridiculous textures. I use shaded at times, but the file sizes are pretty large.

Why do you need such large textures?

I need them for rendering but I use Thea render. It allows us to have a high resolution texture in the material while it is able to generate a low resolution texture for use in the Sketchup material.

I also need them for photogrammetry and terrain data, but I also use Thea to reduce their size.

Thea will use textures stored in disk ,that do not weight on SketchUp model.