IMO free software isn't going to be part of the future... but you can download and use that last free version of SU (held in aspic, so to speak) for as long as you have Win Xp/Vista/7 PC's.

I expect Trimble's whole development effort will go to integrate SU Pro with existing Trimble tools for the purpose of providing whatever competitive advantage that can bring, including (but not limited to) software products that run on OS's released AFTER Win 7, day 1.

SU Free will be there too, stuck in the past like a bug in amber.

A draw call is a function used by a program to instruct the GPU to draw something. In games this is done once per frame, normally lots and lots of draw calls per frame (sort-of roughly analogous to your monitors refresh rate). In general you have one draw call per texture file used per object, but it may be more than that if you specify particular material types, ahh, check that, let's call it "qualities" so we SU folks are clear it's something different from SU materials, to influence the appearance of the texture. Such "qualities" might be gloss, brightness, various types of finish, like metal, rubber, wood, etc., and then whether there is an alpha channel present of not (transparency)

So given one model, 4 texture files, 2 of which have an area of transparency, 3 of which have areas where those "qualities" apply, the draw calls would be 4 for the four texture file as applied to a basic appearance, 2 for the transparencies, 3 for the "qualities, for a total of 9 drawcalls. For a game, that's 9 per frame for the one model. In a complex game there might be a couple of hundred models in view so that may add up to several hundred or even a couple of thousand draw calls, depending on complexity.

Because there is hardware involved each draw call is a CPU interrupt -- hello, this is long distance from America for Mr. Floyd... is Mr. Floyd there?.

In addition to letting the GPU know it is supposed to do something, a game will also provide the mesh for each object that is to be drawn, which is all of the xyz data that forms the vertexes of the model as well as the UV mesh which tells the GPU how to align the artwork. For each model for each frame.

In my experience it starts to get hard to keep frame rate equal to or above the monitor refresh rate when the draw call count exceeded 500 per frame.

On the front side of the glass sits the game player, who, quite naturally, does not want to see any slow-downs/speed ups. The net effect is to place a burden on model builders and artists to make their stuff so it requires the fewest draw calls possible. SU is not particularly good at this but at least has the benefit that things can be done very quickly and so it can have a proper place for both prototyping ideas and doing fairly basic game models.

A fair number of people besides myself use SU to produce static models for use in train simulators (the old Microsoft Train Simulator is probably the most common use).

FWIW I expect there will be a Sketchup 9 -- both free and payware and that 9 will be the last free version containing any new features (as in: 10 and beyond, if issued as freeware, SU freeware will only have some bug fixes).

Unlike google who just wanted to populate the G-Earth presentation (somehow related to advertising), the new owners want to make some money in the marketplace they serve. I just don't see how that overlaps with giving away freeware for use in any other market.

Whomever is on the SU team yesterday will figure out pretty soon they're not in Kansas anymore and so I expect few to none won't be around in 2 years, probably considerable less.

WRT doing dimensioning, it seems to me that SU is waaaay less capable than it could and should be.

@dan rathbun said:

Seems like you are trying to do things the hard way.

Nope. I'm doing things "The Game Way". EXPORT the fewest polys, fewest textures, no textures on backfaces, no polys w/o textures. As minimal as possible... applying a texture to a component puts that texture on the backface -- I can't allow that.

The code I showed, above, was what I use to identify and color untextured polys bright red (written by someone else). If they're big enough, I'll see them and either delete the poly or texture it correctly. 99 out of 100 times, I delete the poly. I need either a report OR a modification of the code I posted, whichever will get me a display/listing of all component/texture assignments. With the information in hand I can go right to the specific component definition and find the problem. W/O it's an ordeal.

Actually, I can narrow things down quite a bit... this code:

def GetHighlightFaces(entities, untextured)

  count=0

  entities.each do |ent|

    case ent.typename

    when "ComponentInstance"
      count+=GetHighlightFaces(ent.definition.entities, untextured)

    when "Group"
      count+=GetHighlightFaces(ent.entities, untextured)

    when "Face"
      if not (ent.material and ent.material.texture and ent.material.texture.filename)  and not (ent.back_material and ent.back_material.texture and ent.back_material.texture.filename)
	ent.material=untextured
	#ent.back_material=reverse
	count+=1
      #else
	#ent.material=reverse if not (ent.material and ent.material.texture and ent.material.texture.filename)
	#ent.back_material=reverse if not (ent.back_material and ent.back_material.texture and ent.back_material.texture.filename)
      end

    end
  end

  return count

end

finds any face taht has not been textured and paints it red. If these faces happen to be part of any component, I need to know it's name so I can get in there and either texture the face or delete it. NOT being a ruby programmer, I have no idea how this code could be tweeked to tell me the component name. If someone knows how to do that and would share the code, I'll edit this file and test it.

Thanks!

I have a need to review all the materials used in all of the components. It would be better if the primary sort is by materials but I can make do if the sort is by component instead as what matters most is that it is complete and accurate. It would be ideal if "front face not textured" is there too.

I would appreciate any suggestions on where I might find a solution that address this need.

Regarding my original assertion about the inaccuracy of the follow me tool -- I now understand I had not set up my work to be "compatible" with the way follow me works. Had I added tangents to each end of my arc and extruded the face along tangent, arc, tangent I'd get a middle section that was exactly what I wanted.

I'm not sure how to judge the implications of that fact WRT accuracy but I do know it is less work for me to do it that way than I had to deal with before and so while I'm not 100% happy about it, it is a better method. To everyone who helped to explain this, my thanks!

@wo3dan said:

@genma saotome said:

...I think it is perpendicular Alan. ...

Both sides of the path are at an angle of 89.5 degrees (not perpendicular) to the connected faces. So the follow me starts and ends incorrectly.

Am curious how you determine that. Could you explain please?

@alan fraser said:

The face to be extruded is not fully perpendicular to the beginning of the path...as witnessed by the slight gap between the original template and the extrusion.

I think it is perpendicular Alan. The Y value of every point of the original face is zero... and so is the the centerpoint of the circle and the start of the arc. I'll recap my procedure:

1. Place the face to be extruded at 0,0,0.
2. Draw a vertical line up 2-5m from 0,0,0
3. Draw aline on the dotted red axis of the necessary length -- in this example I used 100m
4. Draw a circle at the end of the previous line, using a radius of 100m
5. Change the number of segments of the circle from 24 to 360.
6. Use the protractor at the center of the circle to map out 20d of arc.
7. Draw a line from the center of the circle along the dotted line, intersecting the circle.
8. Delete what is not needed.
9. Highlight the arc.
10. Use followme on the original face.

Considering the above, I see a mistake could be made at step 2, failing to draw a line on the axis, and at step 4, failing to center the circle on the endpoint of the line. Either would create an arc that is not perpendicular to the face. Wouldn't the proper quality check be to verify that both steps 2 and 4 have a Y axis value of 0?

I havn't had a chance to review the model you uploaded... I'll check later tonite or first thing tomorrow.

WRT your suggestion to use a lead in and follow thru, that is what I do and is what I had in mind when I wrote needs to be manually corrected. I have created several thousand of these extrusions... each one needing to be manually corrected. Either I'm using the tool improperly or it doesn't do what it is supposed to do.

@unknownuser said:

@genma saotome said:

I don't have a problem with SU circles and arcs being a collection of tangents. I do have a problem with the Followme tool not being able extrude a face that is actually congruent to that collection. That, IMO, is an instance of what I would call inaccurate... as in wrong enough that I must do manual corrections to make it right.

can you attach an example .skp to illustrate your issue?

(and yeah, I agree that there's all sorts of problems with follow me... I'm just curious as to what you're trying to do with it)

Sure, I've attached an example. My work flow is to import a template of what I want to extrude along an arc, then create a circle of the required radius, use the protractor to measure off a set distance (n the example it is 20d), clean away what's not needed, select the line of the arc and hit Followme.

All you need to do is download the model, highlight the arc and use Followme on the vertical face standing at 0,0,0.

What you will find is none of the four corners of the extruded shapre are where they belong. The two corners closest to the center of the circle are farther apart than they should be and the two farthest form the center are too close together. The example has a set of faces that should be where the corners fall. You'll see they fall short or have pushed thru.

Example.skp

I don't have a problem with SU circles and arcs being a collection of tangents. I do have a problem with the Followme tool not being able extrude a face that is actually congruent to that collection. That, IMO, is an instance of what I would call inaccurate... as in wrong enough that I must do manual corrections to make it right.

Yeah, that would be useful to have. So would being able to type in the offset distance the dimension line should go from the object being measured.

Edges... that was one... ok, I understand. One of the others I recall now was a count of deleted components. Would delete 13, then another 13, etc., etc.

In truth, the numbers are a nice thing but not essential. I figure if you're aware and later happen to notice something the two might click and something gets fixed. Otherwise, oh well.

Dunno if this has been mentioned before (40 pages is a lot to go thru) but the statistics presented afterwards are off. I'll run cleanup and be told it cleaned out quantities a, b, and c of types x, y, and z... do nothing, run cleanup again and be told it cleaned out quantities a, b, and c of types x, y, and z... and... rinse and repeat forever. Version 3.1.9.

I like the results... but I do wish it would tell the the straight story when it was done.

Works on mine too.

Thanks very much!

I can't figure out Ruby... even what should be simple Ruby stuff, and so I need to ask a favor, I think a small task:

I would like to have a plug-in that has two icons, with one issuing the command "Sketchup.break_edges=false" and the other doing "Sketchup.break_edges=true".

Most of the time my work is done with break_edges-false but every now and then I switch, do some work, and switch back. Having a plugin w/ a pair of icons will be handy.

Would someone here be so kind as to write this for me? I can do the icon art.

Many thanks in advance.

@alan fraser said:

I think they'll need to completely rewrite the whole mapping system before SU has anything that's approaching professional level.

I can't imagine Google would fund something like that. Frankly, I regard EVERY release of SU as an act of charity by Google... I just cannot see how it fits anymore into any aspect of the company in any meaningful way -- street view changed everything.

All that said, let me add how grateful I am for these many acts of charity -- they are appreciated and for as long as they continue, one can hope for better UV features.

@tig said:

OK, further testing.
Irrespective of the 'beak-edges' settings... an edge drawn from within a circle that passes through a segments' vertex of that circle will break in two. BUT if 'break-edges' is set to 'false' the new edge will NOT break IF it crosses a segment anywhere other than at a vertex !

And that's a problem for me and a bug for Google to fix.

What I'm doing is setting up a follow me along an arc. The arc length is always in whole degrees and the segments of the extrusion must also be whole degrees. Now at first thought you might say "So what's the problem with breaking the line then?" and while that's a fair question the answer is this: The follow me extrusion along an arc begins and ends by twisting the profile face -- the edges closest to the centerpoint of the arc twist outwards so the total length along the arc is long and those furthest from the center point twist inward and so are too short. I have to fix both ends to get the correct dimensions. IMO a very serious bug. On the extruded end I extrude for a greater length than needed and then go back and trim the excess. The broken lines across the arc is where the trim is going to be. Back at the profile face I have to set it up so the face has depth behind it and I use the end points of the two sides to figure out how to fix that end.

The entire set of manual fixes are: The extrusion has 20 faces so that's... umm, what... 22 lines to fix where the face starts... the broken line across the arc... setting up a face along the broken line to use for the intersect... drawing another line further along the arc than needed so the extrusion goes past the intersect face... doing the intersect selected for the extrusion and the trim face... and all cleanup of the stuff I entered but no longer need. Can you say STUPID MAKE WORK SOFTWARE? I can.

I'd complain bitterly to Google if I was using the pro software but as I'm not I deal with it as best I can.