@chrisjk said:

SU 2018 appears to be available in Oz.

http://www.sketchupaustralia.com.au/sketchup-pro-2018/

Dunno if this is spoof or real...

Is that really all that is new in 2018? Just new types of sections? Seriously? There's gotta be something I'm missing here. If that's the only change, why bother upgrading? There were so many things requested in the 2018 wish list forum post on the Sketchup forums. Did they even look at it?

Hey Peeps!

I was curious how the raffle for the Oculus Rift is going to work. I noticed that you need to buy a Sketchucation membership to enter the raffle, but my worry is that Sketchucation could get into trouble with the way it's set up, at least in the United States.

I know Sketchucation is hosted outside of the USA, but you may want to add a disclaimer that US residents aren't allowed into the raffle. I'm probably completely wrong since I know jack squat about how raffles outside the USA work, but maybe someone who knows more can chime in.

Since you are required to make a purchase to enter the raffle, a lot of states may cry foul if Sketchucation isn't a non-profit organization.

This page actually does a good job of explaining the problem:
http://blog.rafflecopter.com/2015/04/no-purchase-necessary-giveaways/

I just wanted to toss that out there just in case. Since Sketchucation isn't in the USA, maybe it doesn't even matter at all. Like I said, I'm mostly clueless on the whole thing.

The only way to fix the clipping issue is to zoom way out and then switch to parallel projection for your camera. Now you'll be able to zoom back in without clipping. Turning off layers/hiding objects has zero effect on the clipping plane issue. The only way to fix it is to completely remove all objects on those layers.

I set my F12 key to be my switch between parallel and perspective camera views and it's helpful.

Yep, I've tried messing with aspect ratio, screen size, shadows, resolution, advanced graphics card overrides, etc. without any luck whatsoever.

Yeah, I messed around with a bunch of advanced camera settings, but if anything, it just makes it worse. Real bummer.

Something else that's very interesting is that adjusting shadows will tweak the clipping plane on the fly. If I adjust the time of day, you can see the clipping plane move in and out from the objects in view.

Weird.

I'm working on a 3 mile section (5.23 km) of roadway with trees, buildings, cars, road striping, etc.

Sketchup is handling the model itself beautifully. The one and only problem is the clipping plane. I need to do a flythrough at the eye level of a vehicle that follows the roadway. However, only the top 1/3rd of the screen shows the model as the rest is clipped off. If I could lock my clipping planes to a few thousand feet view distance then I'd be set since that would probably fix it.

EDIT: Your comment about section planes made me try an experiment and clip a segment that's only 500 feet in length. Nothing else is visible. It still has massive viewport clipping problems.

Even with geometry being clipped out with section planes, it doesn't have any effect whatsoever.

Hearing that I bought a program that can't do what I needed is very unsettling. I don't understand why a free program like Blender is able to view my model from Sketchup without any clipping issues at all. It uses OpenGL and has full clipping plane control. Considering Blender is open source, can't someone from Sketchup see how they designed their camera controls and follow suit?

If Sketchup is simply not a solution for what I need, nor will it ever be, then that really sucks.

I've been having serious issues with the clipping plane and it's driving me nuts. I know the clipping plane issue is a common complaint, but I've been looking into it.

I was told by Sketchup support that the biggest issue with the clipping plane is that when geometry in the model is too far away from the origin, it affects how much memory OpenGL is using. This makes sense, considering OpenGL has a depth buffer that needs to be set. You have a far and near clipping plane, and everything in between is buffered. I assume that Sketchup dynamically adjusts the far clipping plane based on what object is the furthest out from the origin.

I was told to put geometry onto layers that can be turned off for when they are behind the camera, and this will help with the problem. Makes sense.

However, it appears that Sketchup has something configured wrong for the depth buffer. I've been running multiple scenarios to figure out how to work with the clipping plane issues, and here's what I'm seeing.

Starting with a blank model and creating a 100 foot x 100 foot box, then setting the camera FOV to 60 or above.

Draw a box 60,000 feet away on the GREEN axis, and another that's 60,000 feet away the other direction on the same green axis. The clipping issue doesn't happen.

Now do the same thing, but draw them on the red axis (keeping the other boxes on the green axis). Clipping issues are now noticeable (larger buffer area, I get it).

Now put the boxes that are far away from the origin into their own layer. Turn off that layer. The clipping issues are still noticeable.

It appears that Sketchup is still using a depth buffer for the objects that aren't even visible. The only way to correct the issue is to physically erase the objects. Hiding the objects doesn't solve the issue either. The moment the objects are erased, the clipping plane fixes itself.

It would be nice to have a dynamic clipping plane that can be adjusted by the user. I brought my model into Blender just for the heck of it, and the clipping plane issue is nonexistent. The way Sketchup handles the clipping plane seems wonky, and having manual control over the near and far planes would solve most, if not all, of my issues.

I wonder if the zNear setting for the clipping plane in Sketchup is set too close to 0. This can cause issues like this, but if the planes were adjustable, it could be quickly determined.

Please, Sketchup dudes, fix this for the sake of my sanity .

The "Architect Tools" Plugin on the Extension Warehouse also has a "Move to Z Elevation" button that will do what you're looking for.

I've been messing around quite a bit more with groups and trying to narrow down the issue, and I think I may have figured it out.

Almost all of my models are geo-located with the Sketchup geolocation tool. I'm thinking that maybe the floating point precision and size of coordinate numbers is making the data for each line much larger outside of a group.

For example, a single point at the center of a geo located model may be at the mathematical point of 1401928.01, 278199 in real world coordinates. However, in a group, the center point is at 0,0. This would mean that the lines in a group have much smaller coordinate numbers versus the real world coordinates, so they take less time to calculate.

I'll keep running tests to see if this is the case. If that is the case, then it would be nice if Sketchup could be tweaked so the whole model sees the center point as 0,0, but a simple piece of metadata gives the real world coordinates of that point (I believe this is how AutoCAD does it).

Edit: Clearing the geolocation doesn't have any effect. I'll leave it up to the Sketchup techies to figure it out since I'm out of ideas.