Oh, no - don't start them off again. You know that there is no end to a discussion (the word argument is usually more appropriate) if religion is involved.

You just want an excuse to stir them up again

@chango70 said:

Surely that rests on if her buildings are functionally poor performers.

Actually I don't think so. This goes to the heart of what people think constitutes 'architecture'. If you look at some of Anthony Caro's work url[/url], you can see that the boundaries between architecture and sculpture are a little blurred.

This tricky little issue is often skimmed over by use of the word 'architectonic', which seems to me to mean purely the sculptural qualities of architecture.

I personally think that there is more to architecture than some cool-looking shapes. Even when they give rise to some really interesting spaces, I wonder how much these are due to accident rather than design.

There are lots of different interpretations as to what architecture is. If you take the most basic definition as a structure designed and constructed for habitation by people. In these terms, Hadid creates striking architecture. If on the other hand you consider elements like culture, function, context and creation of space (among other things) as being essential constituents of architecture, Hadid is little more than a flashy sculptor.

This neatly brings me back to the reason I posted the links to Hadid's work. Regardless of what you think of her work in terms of 'Architecture', they are undeniably 'cool buildings'.

This happened to me. In Safari you need to go to >Preferences >Security >Show Cookies and delete everything that starts with http://www.sketchucation.com/

Worked both at home and in the office.

@sepo said:

Interesting you say that because the Shard is I think designed by R Piano

You are right, but it's not one of his better buildings

Guys, I'm really not a Zaha Hadid fanboy. Some of her stuff I like, some I don't. The reason for me posting the link, was because it was full of some buildings which are superficially stunning.

I actually agree with Edson - up to a point. She is totally self-indulgent, and really seems to revel in her star status like almost no-one else. However, I like some of he work. Like Gehry she has popularized a sort of dynamic architecture which gets non-architects interested in our subject.

Gehry is another architect is have big reservations about. Bilbao Guggenheim is truly great (and I quite like his Norton House), but most of his other stuff is crap IMO.

Glenn Murcutt and Renzo Piano are my favourites.

No, really, come on. Another big pointy building which is a monument to someone's ego.
But this one is different, it's like a stretched pyramid, and it's made of glass.
Please, no. I don't think so.

If you want to see really cool buildings, look here http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=hadid&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi.

Don't bother visiting the company website though. Biggest load of obscure, self-indulgent trash I have seen in ages.

Regarding the high poly support (or responsiveness when manipulating large models), I'm encouraged by this from the most recent SketchUpdate newsletter:-

"Even though we launched SketchUp 7 late last year, most of us are plugging away to make it even better – stay tuned for an update sometime in the next several weeks"

CraigD hinted at some stuff a while back (can't remember the post and too lazy to find it), which also makes me a little more relaxed about the issue.

I would also like to prod Google's collective memory about a facility to temporarily DISABLE THE %$*&£!§ INFERENCING ENGINE - PLEASE! This is driving me mad and I actually prefer the old inferencing instead.

Interesting thread. I'm not sure personally how 'fit' some of the softer kung fu styles can make you actually. Flexible, and healthy, sure. There has even been some research which has demonstrated that Tai Chi can boost the immune system, but 'fitness' - I'm doubtful. Some people, and I am one, measure this primarily in terms of aerobic fitness, and this will be determined by the method of training, not necessarily the intensity.

I have studied Shotokan Karate (a 'hard', direct, traditional style) regularly for 13 years. I hold a black belt and have even entered regional championships, but I wouldn't claim to be particularly 'fit'. Even when we train hard, lots of martial arts are based around 'anaerobic' fitness which obviously isn't the same. I have improved my strength and flexibility and overall fitness level, and although I'm not 'unfit', I'm sure that running and/or swimming would have a greater effect on my overall fitness level.

What I would say though, is that Shotokan is not particularly good for the knees, hips and back. I would quite like to try Tai Chi or Qi Gong, but everything I have read indicates that the quality of the teacher is the most important thing. I'm still looking for a good one.

I'll have a look at Craig's macrobiotic links - they sound really interesting!

Wow - awesome work Fredo! If there is a list of essential Ruby scripts somewhere, this really needs to be on it!

How on earth did I miss this thread for so long? Lots of my favourite topics - high poly support, shadow bug, DCs, multi-core, future direction of SketchUp etc.. Sure it is littered with Coen's habitual weak attempts at justifying the limitations and missed opportunities but hey, there is always a downside.

My 0.2c worth -

1. Multi-core support has been dealt with before. It won't help SketchUp because it relies on the program being able to divide a task into a series of distinct parts. There are actually few things that the application does which rely on heavy processing of a single task. For Ruby and things like sandbox activities - sure. For general modelling - no, not really. It will not help with smooth orbiting and navigation of large/complex models. John Bacus's interview, referred to elsewhere on the forum - too lazy to find the link) was quite succinct in this regard. It isn't possible to predict every possible course of action and calculate and cache it. Yes it is the future, but it the application doesn't lend itself to the technology, there is no point.

2. Shadow bug - we know about the legal stuff, but the fact is that Google has some spectacularly clever people, (and they have been let loose on Layout now apparently ) and other applications, produced by companies with a lot less money, seem to manage without the problem. So, go figure.

3. High poly support - it really intrigues me how some people just don't get this. So, for Coen and others, I'll try to express it simply:-
   We-want-to-be-able-to-manipulate-complex-shaded-models-with-edges-and-textures-and-working-shadows-smoothly-and-quickly-without-a supercomputer.

4. DCs - these are really fabulously cool things. Sure at the moment there aren't enough around but more are being produced all the time for download. I suspect in time they will be one of the things that you really rely on all the time.

5. Stability and new features - some good stuff, but not enough. The newest version is too slow, too unstable and doesn't contain enough new stuff to get us really excited. The new inferencing is just too slow when orbiting. Suppose I want to draw a line from one part of a complex model to another, rotating the scene when zoomed out takes an age, because SU keeps trying to snap to every point under the cursor, when all I want to do is orbit. Why can't we turn this off temporarily? It isn't always convenient to switch to the selection tool when orbiting. I'm going to try LayOut again and I'll try not to swear a lot this time, but really this and DCs seem almost to be distinctly separate applications. Okay DCs are integrated, but are almost like a (great) plugin.

Unlike lots of people, I do think that Google care, and I do think that the problems will be fixed. I also think it is important to try to stay positive about the application. there are some great, talented people there, and they post help here from time to time. SketchUp hasn't suddenly become a bad product overnight, but there is a widening gap between expectations and reality. We need to keep things in perspective IMO.

I think one of our niggles is the whole concept of 'Google-time'. Progress is too slow for such a huge and wealthy company with so many really clever people. I think we have to accept this as part of the company that gives us the application we love for free.

If you want to see contempt for customers and 'no love' in action, you should try AutoDesk or to a lesser extent, Nemetschek.

Ignorance and snobbery are just as contemptible whatever form they take. Lots of people discount SketchUp purely because they have spent hours and hours learning their chosen application, spent a fortune on it, and are jealous that relatively inexperienced newcomers can get images that are as good as (in some cases better) than theirs.

I have seen some fabulous Podium images and some truly crappy 3ds max ones. I have also seen some distinctly mediocre images produced in Maya by someone who has spent years learning it. I produced better images in Podium in a fraction of the time. I'm not pretending that in terms of ultimate quality SketchUp is a threat to 3ds max, because it isn't really, although with Vray and Maxwell maybe it is...

Remember when people sneered at Japanese cars, digital cameras and CDs? You will have the last laugh.

From Vectorworks, export as .dwg for import into SU. Unlike AutoCAD, you do not change the viewpoint to a 3d view.
Top/Plan or Top should both be fine. I have always selected 'export 2D fills', and 'Triangulate to preserve fills' in the 3d section below.

Every time I have tried this, it works as expected, but I have found it is better to explicitly set the units for each program.
I haven't tried this with VW2008-9, but with earlier versions, all 3d faces were triangulated, most likely because I selected the option to do this in the export dialog. I haven't tried without the 'Triangulate to preserve fills' option though.

BTW, importing the 3d SU model back into VW works well too, and you can create sections from it, but again the critical thing is the import settings.

@al hart said:

We hope as we learn to program on the MAC, (iPhone programming is done on the MAC), that we can bring some of our other products over as well.

Fantastic news Al! You guys produce lots of really nice (and free) plugins and it is really frustrating not to be able to use them because I have a Mac.

Because most plugins are Ruby and platform-independent, could I ask that when you release news of your latest cool plugins, that you explicitly state that it is Windows only. I got to the download stage before I found out that RPTreemaker wouldn't work.

Thanks for the responses! Doesn't look the easiest of things to do though. I do think that there is a lot of demand for this sort of thing however.

Scott is quite right in that for something like tiles, a texture would be better for performance, but for things like panels, where the joints and setting-out are critical, you do need a component like this.

Also single linear arrays with the same property. Stuff like copings, kerbs, ridge tiles and that sort of thing.

I apologise if this has been covered elsewhere. I haven't searched the forum, because I wasn't sure what terminology people would use. I have searched the 3DW for arrayed components which do what I want but found none. This indicates to me that no-one has created this sort of thing yet, not uploaded an example, or it can't be done.

What I would like to create is an array of a component, defining the start point, and then when I scale the DC, if the scale does not correspond to a module length, the last modules in the array get 'trimmed'.

All the DC arrays I have seen tend to do one of 2 things, they either adjust the final size so that the DC corresponds to the nearest number of complete sub-components, or the sizes of the sub-components change to accommodate the final length.

In reality, as we all know, what would happen with tiles and most panels, is that the setting out point would be determined at the start, and as the components are added, they would just be trimmed at the edges to achieve the required overall size. It isn't always practical to adjust the size of a room or building (or even the component) to avoid cutting at the edges.

I have created linear arrays in DCs, but I'm not sure how to make them behave in the way described above. Anyone have any ideas?

Nice one Thomas! This should improve my productivity no end!

I looked at the files, and this stuff seems to be aimed at old hardware and versions of OS X. Some of the dates of the programmes are a couple of years old.

It seems to me like this doesn't update the actual driver, but adds configuration options to adjust the performance of the graphics card.

However, intrigued at some of this information, I did a little research about the whole driver issue. It appears that actually, you can download a few drivers for hardware that isn't included in the OS X core. There are some examples here:- http://mac.rbytes.net/cat/mac/drivers/apple-nvidia-driver-3.0/

However, core hardware drivers are still released by Apple and managed by Software Update as you can see from the above page. But if you look here:- http://support.apple.com/downloads/ you will see that Apple keeps tight rein on its hardware support. If you look here:- http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3194 you will see that the latest OS X update 10.5.6 includes fixes for ATI graphics card issues. You don't say what version of OS X you are running, but the latest version will give the best performance and the new Snow Leopard, due for release in just a few months promises significantly better performance.

Actually I'm sure they do realise this now. They are always tight-lipped about forthcoming developments. CraigD hinted that something might be coming in relation to basic improvements to the core. Unfortunately I would put money on it not happening any time soon.

Just to clarify (sorry Remus) but you can't update the graphics card, or any other driver for the Mac. You need to install a system update. Sometimes there will be specific firmware updates for particular problems, but these appear to be quite rare. If you have the software updates option turned on, your system is probably already up to date. Unlike Windows, drivers are fully integrated into the OS, and are always managed by Apple, and always through Software Update.

You can check by going to >System Preferences>Software Update>Scheduled Check>Check Now.

I'm inclined to agree. SU is not multi-core enabled, and as discussed elsewhere, there aren't too many benefits from making it multi-core. Graphics support is the most important thing though I think. Some cards give reasonable performance, others not. Get a good recommendation for one of these.

If you are buying a new PC, make sure its performance is tuned to your other apps, other than the proviso regarding graphics card support mentioned above.