@unknownuser said:

How does this look?

this looks quite pricey... is hardware that expensive in Belgium?!?

You really should compare prices. Maybe at http://www.vergelijk.be/
(i don't know if there is a better one for Belgium)

And concerning the components:

• 3930K is good... but you need a cooler for it. (maybe a Thermalright HR-02 Macho or a Corsair H80/H100)

• I think the board is ok (I have a P9X79 WS)

• GTX 670 should be good... if you need it. (i would say it's overpriced...)

• Antec 1200W PSU ...?!? WHY 1200W? Do you plan for quad SLI? A good 700-750W should be enough even if you want to overclock. Maybe a Seasonic X-Series 750W (i have one here )

• 2,5" 750GB HDD ...because it is more quiet? Or why did you choose a 2,5" HDD? I really would go for a SSD as system drive. The Samsung 830 are very good and cheap atm. because they will be replaced by the 840 next month. But i would take at least the 256GB version (~150€) because it has a higher sequential write speed than the 128GB model.

• 16GB Corsair CL8... I think the low latency will give you close to nothing. I would go for 4x8GB Corsair DDR3-1600 CL10 instead

@stefanq said:

The way I see things, from the specifications:
PC: 4 cores 8 threads ( that means 8 buckets when rendering, but half of the cpu clock), also known as hyper-threading, better for multitasking. That means, in rendering power,
4 cores at 3,4GHz or 8*1,7GHz resulting 13,6 GHz.
Mac: 8 cores at 3 GHz, resulting 24 GHz.

sometimes it's better to say nothing instead of spreading wrong "knowledge"...

Yes, the i7 2600K (Sandy Bridge) quad core means 8 virtual threads ("hyperthreaded"), but why should they run at only 1,7GHz?!? The 2600K has 3,4GHz on all cores and an adaptive turbo mode that raises one core to 3,8GHz, with 2 cores to 3,7GHz, and 3 to 3,6GHz.
"Hyperthreading" doesn't mean 8 full cores but something around 20-40% faster than 4 cores without HT, depending on the software. (http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/39555-intel-sandy-bridge-core-i5-2500k-core-i7-2600k-processors-review-6.html )

The "8-core" Mac is a dual processor system with two Harpertown (E5472) quad cores without hyperthreading running at 3,0GHz. So the mac has 8 full cores but in fact the processor is three generations older than Sandy Bridge which has a much better performance and is clocked higher. So if you compare the performance of these two machines the Sandy Bridge will be faster! (you can compare the Maxwell Render scores here: http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/benchwell ) and has a better single core performance (sketchup).

You're right, it's a very old system - but the problem is not only the video card and RAM...

Concerning the 2600K offer: this is highly overpriced and looks more like a bad joke. And using 3x4GB RAM for a 2600K is bullshit because it needs dual channel which means 2 or 4 RAM sticks! Unless you need this "stylish" case you can get a system with these specs for less than half of this money... and maybe from a vendor who knows what he is doing!

For this amount of money you should better get an i7 3930K hexacore (3,2GHz) with 16 or better 32GB RAM - best bang for the buck atm. in this performance class. (maybe ~1400€)

.

The limited RAM capacity of GPUs is one of the biggest issues atm, if you want to render bigger scenes with high res textures. So if you really want to do serious GPU rendering then i would say at least a GTX 570 (2,5GB RAM) or a GTX 580 (3GB RAM). Or the 660 TI you mentioned with 3GB. To get 4GB RAM you would have to take a GTX 670 or 680, which would be much more expensive.
I don't know how the GTX 6xx series performes on V-Ray RT. Other GPU renderers had problems with the new Kepler architecture and were slower. But this can be a driver issue, i don't know, but it seems that a GTX 6xx core is weaker than a GTX 5xx core.

you should really better look for an intel i7 or i5. The overall performace is better and single core performance is much better. And the FX8xxx is even worse than the X6 most of the time. And has a higher power consumption.
Look at these values:

Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up For Ivy Bridge

One of Intel's worst-kept secrets ever, Ivy Bridge is an evolutionary die shrink of Sandy Bridge with improved integrated graphics. The flagship Core i7-3770K is great if you're replacing an old PC. B

Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com)

Single threaded:

Redirecting...

(www.anandtech.com)

And why did you select a high priced high end GTX 580 for a "budged" low end system with amd processor?!? Do you plan to do mostly GPU rendering?
For sketchup this will give you nothing compared to a midrange card like the GTX 560 TI - only a higher power bill...
Sketchup is still highly CPU dependend.
But don't take a GTX550 TI... it's only a small difference in the model number but performance is better for the GTX 560 (TI). The only reason to take a 550 TI would be a pasiv cooled version - i don't know if there is one?!?
And a 450 with 4GB RAM is a joke...

So i would say for Sketchup the best bang for the buck would be an i5 2500 (K) with a GTX 560 or 560 TI (maybe with 2GB video ram) and 16GB RAM (RAM is very cheap today)
Or for better rendering an i7 2600K, 2700K or 3770K.

If you're willing to overclock the price/performance ratio for these CPUs will be even better! 4,0-4,2GHz should be absolutely no problem for all of them, even without overclocking experience (stock speed for them is between 3,4 and 3,5 GHz and with turbo up to 3,8 - 3,9 GHz on one core.)

.

Is gpu acceleration enabled for firefox?
If yes, maybe try to disable it.

@cmoreink said:

Or could SU and vray do (in near future) something like thea render (instances in regards to tress, grass, flowers, hedges, etc.)

maxwell with mxs references (not instances, instances have to be stored in the scene)...

yes, there is a tool in the express tools (they are part of the installation since acad 2004 or so) called "Explode Text" which converts the text to polylines.

But i too think that an image would be the better way for displaying text and dimensions. Less lines, better to snap and you can easier assign it to another layer to switch it off.

Really a fantastic plugin! I have to say it again! Thanks a lot!

But i have noticed a problem with exporting textured object for rendering, maxwell in my case...
The problem is that the exporter writes a seperated material and texture for each face! So with a complex gepmetry this results in thousands of textures and materials.

My question is now, is it possible to avoid this behavior? I'm painting as QuadMesh.
Or is this problem maxwell related? I noticed the same thing when i use photomatch for texturing.

Can anyone say how this works with vray?

edit: ok, problem solved... disabling texture distortions in maxwell uv export options did it. I thought this would result in distorted mapping but for now it works.

Thanks again for this incredible tool, Fredo!!!
Trimble should buy this from you as standart mapping method!

i think the better way to go with sketchup would be sub-d modeling, instead of nurbs... maybe a combination of both like t-splines. But i think a clean polygonal model would be better for most of the sketchup users.
But you're right, this is a thing that should definitely be improved in Sketchup and i really hope to see sub-d in sketchup's future...

Why do you want to export it?
You can import .skp files directly into 3DSmax (since v2010 or 2011 i think, i don't know exactly) - including textures, scenes and lighting...

@thomthom said:

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WIRED (www.wired.com)

@unknownuser said:

How does Tinkercad differ from Sketchup?

Both Tinkercad and Sketchup are 3-D design tools. The main difference is that Sketchup is a desktop sketching tool that isn’t suited for designing physical objects while Tinkercad is a web app that is actually a real Computer Aided Design program suitable for real design.

I believe he hasn't really observed what SketchUp is capable of. Any suggestions of some nice examples to put him to shame?

I think he means that Sketchup doesn't support curves.

But other than that it really looks like it is made for idiots...
and it looks like a cheap copy of autodesk's 123D (cloud based, 3d-printing, sharing)

Thanks!

It's possible that i already wrote this before, but then i have to say it again, because it's really bugging me...

PLEASE!!! implement a background autosaving that doesn't wait for you to come back to sketchup and THEN starts the saving. Why is this done this way? I really don't get it... I can work for half an hour in another app and then come back to sketchup and the first thing that happens is an autosave!?!?!?!?!? Why hadn't this been done while i wasn't active in Sketchup? Is the autosave paused if Sketchup is not in the foreground? This would be even more worse...

Maybe use one of the many unused cores to do the background saving...?!?

The other point is that i really can't understand why the autosave has to be so much slower than a normal saving... this can become quite frustrating for larger models...

edit: sorry, wrong section... please move this to wishes

@surfingalien said:

exactly... ViaCAD has push/pull like modeling since v.8 and imports SKP files.
still, I spend 99% of my time on SketchUp and 1% on it... LOL

thanks for mentioning ViaCAD... i wasn't aware of it (and Shark). Looks very interesting. I will test it...

Thank you Pilou!

WOW! incredible!
Thank You very much for your great work!!! ...once again.

yes, this is really very annoying...
every time i have to search for the video source on youtube to watch it full screen...

@solo said:

really? you do not have Artisan? I'd suggest you get that too.

i have tested the free demo but found it to be too slow and lagging for intuitive sculpting and it's still no subD-modeling so the geometry gets broken and the model becomes very large and unhandy... - i prefer subD-modeling in max and export it to sketchup or merge the geometry before rendering.
Real SubD-modeling in sketchup would be incredible!!! Hope dies last...

(maybe i'll integrate silo or voidworld into my workflow - quite nice little modeling apps, but this would be one import/export step more... which holds me back for now)

wow! great!
i think this will be my first paid plugin!

Sketchup 9 top 3 new features:

1. Strictly Single Core (SSC) : no need to buy a new system, a five years old single core cpu is enough to reveal sketchup's full power!
2. new amazing and unbelievable Google Earth and Google Warehouse features that everyone is waiting for!
3. more funky new display styles and improved style builder!