Posts made by blackdogsketch

@dave r said:

First, it's not recemmended to use Dropbox as your "local collection" location. This will create problems for you.

Second, try creating folders with the names shown as favorites in the wrong location and see if they override the existing ones. You might need to edit the registry to get SketchUp to remove the favorites altogether and then start over.

there are other threads here on SCF related to this. Search 'delete favorites'.

What version of SketchUp are you using? Is your profile current on that?

Thanks Dave
What is problematic about dropbox storage? It has worked pretty well for about five years. Do you think this sort of thing is a result of dropbox storage?

I'm on 2016 Pro. Not sure about "my profile". Don't recall messing with that.
Not sure how to edit registry either.

Somehow, a few of my folders in Components\Favorites have become corrupted; they point to other folders. If I try to delete when the folder is active, the "Remove from Favorites" option is grayed out. If I click it, and get sent to the wrong folder, and then try to delete...the "Remove from Favorites" option then deletes the good folder.

There does not seem to be any way to organize and edit the folders once they are "Added to Favorites"
(All my local components are in folders, by division, on my Dropbox)
Any suggestions?

alternately...make the round profile you want, and use stock Follow-Me tool.

Have been very happy with ShaderLight...pretty inexpensive, has it's own library of light fixtures with imbedded IES data...very happy with minimal upfront investment of time and cost.

Sometimes after working on a new file, and saving several times...close out...come back later and the file is not listed under Recent Files (list at the bottom of the File tab.)

I've noticed that this is not a consistent issue, but it happens often. I'm starting to just ignore the "recent files" because there's a good chance my file won't even be there.

Any ideas?

Any way to increase the Undo buffer? (2016 Pro on Windows 10 64.)

Ah- I just figured it out Dave. I do a "Save-As" to a folder in my project, then after it's saved as a version, go to the little icon in the Edit dialog box, that shows a folder..."Browse for Material Image File". Then navigate to the jpeg just saved, select it, and BINGO. I'm good to go. Thank you.

In Windows 7 it was that simple...there was Microsoft Photo Editor And viewer. You edited...and simply saved. You didn't care wher it saved...It just did.

Now in Win10, with the "Photo App"...it has "Save" grayed out once you've changed the image... You need to do a "Save As"...and thus the problem.

And...on the flip side...I cannot seem to locate where the Phot App is, in order to make it the default SU editor.

Used to be pretty easy if you wanted to edit Google Earth imagery (now called Location Snapshot) in Sketchup. I'm running 2016P on Win10. Win 10 includes a simple but effective "Photos" app which in cludes simple editing parameters. So if you want to edit the google earth jpeg from within sketchup, you go to the materials editor, hit the little icon for "Edit Texture image with external editor"...then you open with, in this case, the Photos app. Then edit (to turn it black and white for example)...and then??? Need to "Save As"...and I have no idea where sketchup stashes the jpegs for the drawing. With old Windows 8, and the old "Photo Viewer and Editor", this used to "Save" automatically to wherever it came from; I didn't have to worry about a save path. Where to save the edited image now?

Also related, under Window\Preferences\Applications...I can select the default photo editor...but I can't seem to find the stock Windows10 "Photos App" anywhere in my C:\Programs folders. Any clues as to how to get that to be default?

thanks!

@chris fullmer said:

Hey sfto1, the information from the Knowledge center there is slightly inaccurate. The "Customize Toolbar" window was renamed to simply "Toolbars". So it is the window that comes up when you select View > Toolbars.

The "Command" tab that is listed does not actually exist, so the following steps it outlines are correct. I'll file this as a bug in our documentation. Thanks!

Chris

And three years later, we still have the exact same misleading documentation. Worse, using CTRL and drag to copy tools from another toolbar to the custom toolbar does not work! It does nothing. Using ALT and drag MOVES the tool so that it is no longer available on the original toolbar. Why is there no master menu of command icons that can be used for selections (as on a Mac)???

After trying for some time, I am unable to get any commands from an original toolbar onto my new Custom Toolbar without deleting them from the original.

Pardon my frustration. if anyone knows a way to get commands onto a custom toolbar I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

Man this is frustrating for something so simple. On 2016 Pro, the CTRL and drag does not work at all. Using ALT and drag just MOVES tools from the original toolbar. Frustrating.

Forget complicated wish lists and requests...I would like to see an end to the glitchy random crashes. there's no logic to how they occur when I'm working. It occurs in an endless variety of conditions and does not relate to any particular complex operations. I've tolerated it for generations now but it still occurs. (You copy one line...heck...it wont' copy...what's this delay about?...) BUGSPLAT! I'm tired of Sketchup changing one or two icons and calling that a new release. It seems nothing significant changes. And the random Bugsplats keep occurring year after year...

I thought I'd put in a friendly note to Trimble. Under Contact Us...when you follow the "tree", eventually you get to the fact that they are not going to allow you to contact them directly and they tell you to Find a Dealer. So..you go thru the routing... "Pick an application"..enormous dropdown list. Architecture is not even on the list! Even Engineering is only "Engineering-custom mapping solutions". OR...you can pick the Trimble product. Again a YUGE list of software...SKETCHUP IS NOT EVEN ON THE LIST!

Essentially that tells me that we're stuck with a corporate owner who doesn't even see Sketchup on their radar whatsoever. How can we possibly send user feedback when there is no channel of communication open? I'd expect this for Make..but for a paid version of Pro...they won't even let you contact them...never mid provide support. This does not make me happy.

If I understand you correctly, you are exporting sketchup "layers" separately...so that the linework, sketchy style or not, and the colored /textured elements are on a separate PNG? Just to be able to control the linework in PS? Like make it chunkier? It doesn't seem that YOU are doing it to reduce image export time.

@tuna1957 said:

blackdogsketch, no expert but do a lot of line overlay stuff for presentation boards. maybe I can offer some help.

1 - enabling transparency when exporting a 2d graphic only applies transparency to empty areas of the view. all objects still retain their color. to get transparent image I export my line style image, open in Gimp and run the "color to alpha" operation. wipes out all the white so I can overlay on my other images. I'm sure PhotoShop has a similar function.

So if I have a line drawing of a circle, the area outside the perimeter will retain transparency but the area inside will be a "color"? Interesting...OK, thanks for the tip. I'll tell the PS person about this.

I have a few graphic output issues that I have not been able to suss out. Any help or insight would be appreciated.

1. I work with a graphics person who does post-processing in Photoshop.
   One thing we do a lot is concept site designs...simplified block buildings, simple site. We typically export PNG out of SU. I'll do an export for each layer typically; one for sketch linework, one for site colors, one for building group A, building group B, site graphics like north arrow. In this manner, the image can be easily adjusted in PS/layers. All this time I expected that the PNG retained transparency by it's nature (so sketch linework had a transparent backgorund and would lay right over the site color base)...but when the graphics person works with these in PS, they tell me that they cannot get transparency. How to best solve this?

2. If exporting images, TIFF or JPG, with sketchy styles, if resolution is low, say 2000, then all "lines" are fuzzy and this generally does not work well in our presentations. But if the resolution is boosted much higher, the resulting image is "cleaned up" to the point that the sketchy parameters are clearly suppressed and it looks like more of a standard style. Why is this and how can I get a TIFF output that resembles my display as closely as possible?

3. When exporting JPG images, the results are "anemic"; linework is very thin...much less dynamic than what I'm seeing on the display. Why is this? It seems nuts that I frequently screen shot and past to pdf as a better graphic output.

Thanks!

@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?

• Support Form
• offic. SketchUp Forum

So when I disable hardware acceleration, is the GPU still doing all the graphics export work?

@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?

• Support Form
• offic. SketchUp Forum

Thank you.

@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.

@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.

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!