I have been looking for a better computer system to use for sketchup work. The sketchup file I am working on is more than 40MB and when I need to copy and multiply a component (for example a tree to multiple trees), it takes forever. Orbiting is also not going very well. I heard about I7 and did some search and found the following professionals using I7 with much better video card and a lot of memory. But there was no article or discussion on how well Sketchup runs on I7. I tried to contact these people, but no success. Do you think any one of the following system would work better for large Sketchup models?

I also heard that multi-core system can be switched back to single core while working with sketchup (single threaded program) to have a better performance. Do you guys know how to do that? I cannot find any info on that. I am using Quad Core.

To get some ideas on the file size and my work in general, please visit http://www.newvistavillage.com/. Thanks for your time and help.

Landscape Designer and Arborist
VWLMRW 09 SP4
Vista 64 i7-920
6 GB ram Asus 9800 GT 1024 MB
1TB WD HDx2

Architect
VW a/r 09 SP4 / Vista 64bit
Intel Core i7 2,6GHz, RAM 6GB
GA HP NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCI-E

SketchUp Expert
CPU: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965
RAM: OCZ Gold DDR3 1600MHz 12Gb
Video: Asus Radeon HD4870 X2 2Gb
Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe 1366 Intel X58

Do we have a thread that provides information on the SYSTEMS (processor, memory, video card etc.) that Pros are using to model and render their works? If not, can we start one, so people like me (newbie) can learn which system is good.

I am in the process of upgrading my system (memory and video card)and not sure if I need to upgrade my processor too.

I am getting Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 (768 MB) and 2GB more memory to make it 4GB total. But worried about the speed of my processor which has only 2.4 but it has 4 processors (Core 2 Quad Q6600). I will be using this machine for SketchUp and rendering in Vue 7. Thanks.

Hello Everybody,

I have attached screen shots of my System and Video Card. Would you please look at them and let me know if there is anything that can be done to improve the performance of my computer.

I have a sketchup file that is about 1MB and I have hard time rotating it around and adding simple things on it. After I open that file for 15 minutes or so, my screen goes black and I have to reboot the computer. I have attahed the sketchup file here, if you would like to play with it.

Thanks for your time and help.

My SketchUp File

@jon said:

Thanks guys

newvista:
Here's the SU model...

Thank you so much Jon! for posting the sketchup file.

Hi Jon,

Is it possible for you to post your sketchup file (jpg) in sketchup gallery section? I would really like to see the sketchup image.

I thought it was real photo and I showed a lot of people at my work and everybody thought it was a real photo. Great job. Thanks.

Thanks remus.

I purchased the commercial version of podium today downloaded many types of materials like stone, wood etc from their website. I extracted the files and put them in respective sketchup material folders. (For example, if it is wood, C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Materials\Wood)

I do not see them when I open my sketchup program. I also found out that the materails I got from podium is .jpg files and the ones in sketchup material folders are .skm.

Could somebody help me with this please? Thanks.

@remus said:

But if you havent altered the model itself, than you ahve maintained the 'pure SU'aspect, imo.

This was not about exploring the meaning of 'pure'. For different people 'pure' has different meanings. For you, it seems like not altering the model itself is 'pure' and for me, using anything to make your model look better other than sketchup is not 'pure.

All I was doing is suggesting administrator and people to post the sketchup images under sketchup gallery and if you do any minor changes using something other than sketchup (even adding a background), then post that under render gallery. Why is that so difficult to understand and accept?

The bottomline is I (and I hope many of us) want to see the true measure of what can be done by SKETCHUP (just sketchup, nothing else).

@anssi said:

@unknownuser said:

Who cares if some images in SU gallery are rendered or enhanced with Photoshop or even Piranesi.

Anssi

You may not care about it, but I do and I believe many people care about it too. The reason is, I am learning sketchup and when I am done with one drawing, I go to see sketchup gallery and look at what others have done and if I am coming close to them or I want to see how good of a drawing can be done with sketchup. If it has been done using rendering tools, it does not tell me what the original drawing looks like.

And if nobody cares about it, then why two seperate folders/sections for skecthup gallery and renders gallery?

This question is for the administrator and also want to know what rest of the people think about it.

What are the rules on what type of images to post under the SketchUp Gallery and Renders Gallery?

The reason I asked that question is that I thought people are supposed to post ONLY sketchup images under the sketchup gallery. If you use anything else to make your image look better/real, then it is supposed to post under renders gallery. I was going through the sketchup gallery and I saw some images that look like they have been used some other tools other than sketchup.

It would be nice to have something like this, if somebody visits the sketchup gallery, he/she should be able to see only PURE SKETCHUP images and if somebody visits to renders gallery, he/she should be able to see all kind of COOL IMAGES done by using various rendering tools and sketchup. Thanks.

Thank you guys.

I need some help deciding between these two: Space Nav vs Space Explorer. The first one is $60 dollar and the second one is $300. It looks like both work the same way, but the second one has some extra features and I am not sure how useful they are and if it is worth paying $240 more for those features.

Link for $60: http://www.3dconnexion.com/3dmouse/spacenavigator.php
Link for $300: http://www.3dconnexion.com/3dmouse/spaceexplorer.php

Thank you all for replying to my post. Sorry! I was away from the forum for a while. I just would like to update few things.

I still have not bought a mouse, but I am looking at this one: http://www.3dconnexion.com/3dmouse/spaceexplorer.php. I saw good reviews of it by SOLO and some people in some other post. I hope it is really good and going to help me.

I am using Podium free version to see if I am going to like it. So far, my renderings are worst looking than the sketchup models themselves. I guess I need to keep trying.

I did not take the Skecthup training course even though company was paying for it. I looked at the course of study and pretty much everything they are covering in that training, I already knew. It was not an advance course. I also knew that I can get help here and youtube (thanks to Aidan Chopra). Thanks.

I have three questions for professionals and I would like to thank you all in advance.

1. My right hand wrist hurts a lot when I use sketchup for a couple of hours. What can I do to reduce the pain? I am thinking about getting a comfortable mouse. Any ideas which one is the best?

2. What is the best rendering software that works well with sketchup? I need something that is easy to learn (no 3D background) and also powerful enough to make the images look real.

3. Has anybody taken the Google sketchup training? If yes, was it worth the money and time? I will have to drive about 6 hours to get to the training facility for 3 hours class.

My company is paying for everything, so I want the best.

Thanks.

They look beautiful. I wish I could design 1% of what you have done.

When you say, "SU 6 MAXWELL1.5 PHOTOSHOP7.0 COREL 12" at the bottom of your post, does that mean you used those tools to complete these designs?

Is it possible to design what you have done here just using SU, nothing else? Thanks.

Thank you, everybody, for taking the time to answer my questions. For the first question, Todd's trick did what I needed. Now I am able to make seperate image files and put them together and make one big image. Thanks Todd.

I apreciate the answers to my second question too, but I am kind of lost. May be I am not good with layers and scenes yet, so I feel like I am not understanding something.

So, the first trick would be using 2D trees and 2D people and replacing them with the 3D trees and 3D people, right? What about the size (height) of the trees and people? Do I need to adjust that or replacing object will be the exact size of the orginal object. I could try it out myself and see, but just wanted to ask if somebody has already done it.

The other one is to make layers for those heavy components and turn off that layer while working with the image. But the problem is, at some point I have to be able to put them all together and show my boss. That is when I am going to have problem as I can not orbit around to show him.

Thanks for your time.

Hi, I am having two problems with my simple design works.

1. I have two seperate files. I open one and I import the other one in this file and combine it, I still see thick line in between where the two images are connected. They do not become one face, that is what I wanted.

2. I am trying to design a landscape and I want to add a lot of trees and people etc from the components, but as soon as I add few trees, my images become almost impossible to orbit around. I also get a lot of black squares when orbiting. Is there a place where I can find small trees/bushes that are small in file size? I have a brand new laptop (Dell Vostro 1500, 1.6 Ghz Processor, 1GB Ram, 256MB Nvidia Video Card).

Thank you so much for your time and help.

Landscape.skp

@dave r said:

Maybe the writer meant "grove"? Maybe indicating that there would be trees.

Thank you for your reply. I think you are right. He was talking about having nice garden in front of each buidling.

@gaieus said:

Well, although I still do not really understand the whole concept (especially with the 3' spaces between the blocks), I can still give some advices:
...
Have fun (and welcome here)

Thank you so much for your warm welcome and advice. I will follow your advice on using components and layers as much as possible now on.

I think I know what he is talking about 3 feet spaces between blocks. If you look at the 10 buildings together in this link: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8a37c0a9ea408652d6377d8ca83b853d, I have colored that 3 feet space in red.

Thanks again and hope to get a lot of help from you and others in this forum about sketchup.

I am new to the Sketchup World. I have put together a basic model, which I was going to attach here, but the file size was too big. So, here is the link: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... 014b6ee656

Please have a look and let me know how I am doing. If you have time, please feel free to make any changes on my design and post it back here. Thank you so much for your time and help.