Ability to open model without loading textures

SketchUp for iPad
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I’m at a short break from a meeting on a masterplan we’re developing with Sketchup. In the meeting we have some drawings and my ipad. This is the only device carrying the masterplan’s 3d model.

This model has 1.6Gb, mainly due to orthophoto textures projected on terrain. We don’t really need these textures while working or when viewing and measuring the model in most situations.

The iPad I have is an M1 and only has 8Gb RAM. It handles the project but sometimes it crashes.

Would it be possible to have a way of not loading the textures and still work with the model as an option?

I don’t care much if, when manipulating faces, textures get wrongly mapped. I can fix that later in the desktop. I really just want this to be more stable.

Thanks in advance.

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Does having a scene in monochromatic style (or shadows no texture) help ?

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I think monochrome still loads the textures, just doesn’t show them. So if out of memory is the issue that won’t help.

Perhaps clean up the model on the desktop to remove those textures or shrink the images?

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I also think textures are being loaded, as if I use monochrome or flat shaded it still crashes. I don’t want to clean the model because thatbwould imply wrecking the main working model. I need those textures for presentation purposes.

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But what about a trimmed down copy of the model just for those situations, leaving the main model alone?

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i agree, you could copy the terrain, make a component out of the terrain without textures and the rest of the model, leave the terrain with textures outside this component, right click on the component on your desktop and save as, and should you have modifications to the model during your meetings you can reload the whole thing

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Off the top of my head the best I can come up with is to create a copy of the model, and in that copy, go to the materials panel and find the materials containing the high res orthophotos, you could then either:
A) replace the base texture of those materials with a lower res placeholder (that you can again replace with a higher res image later, preserving the texture coordinates for easy swapping)
B) delete the materials (which will replace them with the default color) and then copy/paste in place the entire, textured terrain from the original model at a later time.

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If the textures are really high-res as orthophotos tend to be I would create a meeting copy of the model and use the Material Resizer plugin to make the photos really coarse.

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I have thought about all of those solutions. However, all those solutions take time and require a lot of micro management. As you might imagine, one often goes to these meetings or to construction with a lot of last minute changes, caused by all sorts of reasons. It’s not feasible to loose the time it would take to do all that.

This is the less intrusive solution. Would it be possible to have ipad doing that automatically?

Would it be possible to have a LOD for textures being created in SU that would automatically create the two versions of a texture, store one in the model file but use the other in the app. Some toggle button would then allow SU to swap it.

A bit like using High resolution textures in preferences but in avery fast way and specifically designed for streamlining sketchup mobile apps and even low end desktops?

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Note that SketchUp will automatically resize all textures to fit the capabilities of your graphics card. The default is to 1024 x 1024 pixels maximum. In Pro, you can check the “use maximum texture size” box in Preferences that increases this to the maximum allowed by your graphics card, with a top value of 4096 x 4096 pixels. Anything larger than this is just wasting space. I don’t know what these values are for the iPad or Web versions. Maybe @MikeTadros knows?

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11

Until iPad app natively ignore textures… easiest way can be:

  • Save a copy of your original file in a desktop app.
  • Use TT Material Tools >>Remove All Textures.
  • Save it again, and load it to iPad.
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12

That might be the fastest method if I would only have to visualize, but what would I do if I would change stuff in the model on site?

Sometimes I add a box, move a wall, color some stuff differently. Sometimes I just markup some stuff and need those scenes in my master model so I can model from them in Desktop afterwards (sorry for not modeling more in iPad guys, but I can only do that in slow motion when compared to desktop).

Sp. if I would need to carry on from that model that has been edited on site, how would I retrieve the textures to those materials?

That’s why my initial suggestion was to not loading the textures, just keep the materials. Some misplaced textures will happen when working without textures, but that is fixable. Altering materials on a model that you will need to keep using later, will be faster to achieve but harder to fix.

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In these cases I’m using an extension to split the texture into 4096 tiles that I then project into the terrain. I can’t remember the name now, but it’s a very useful extension.

EDIT:

The extension is Large Image Splitter

Large Image Splitter | SketchUp Extension Warehouse

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At this point I can only suggest that you keep that model, note down what you did, and when you are in the office, apply it to the original model ( much faster than on an iPad) :slight_smile:

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That’s also the best solution I found so far :smiley:

(It’s the safest too, as some of the changes I’m able to make with the pencil are really messing the model anyway)

Even so, it’s easier to pick the model changed on site, and redo that bad stuff, or at least this feature request could be interesting as an optimization of the iPad workflow on complex models.

Possible requests:

  • Not loading textures as an option;
  • Use very low resolution textures as default and have a toggle to raise them up inside iPad. Do it after warning the user of what might happen with memory limitations.
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This just occurred to me (but I didn’t think it through :wink: ) maybe it’s suitable for something like what you want:

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I would make a stripped down model before a meeting (if I have time, and knowledge) - otherwise just replace the textures on the iPad model, make your notes and changes, then when you get back to office open both files on the more powerful machine. In the iPad version select everything, strip all the materials, make it a component, Copy.

Switch the the proper, working model and ‘Paste in Place’. Then I would assign a somewhat garish semi translucent color to the component you brought in from the iPad and make changes.

I do this primarily with timber shop drawings that a client might adjust (crudely) and send back to me.

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This is a specialized feature for a special use case. I’d prefer something more general, like better xref abilities. That way you could unload heavy assets when you don’t need them and load them back later, whether they are large images or high polygon 3D or anything else.

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19

It’s not feasible for me to tinker with the model, xrefs or textures before meetings. I simply don’t have time to do that, nor the mind to keep thinking on what parts of models should I update, strip textures, manage as xrefs, and so on. That will always create a lot of unrest and versioning problems and certainly errors, precisely when I need them not to happen as I’m usually under great stress.

I also don’t think this is a specialized issue or that I’m the only one having and issue with heavy textures.

My particular case or use scenario is specific, but the underlying problem exists for any user that will deal with heavier models, specificially if they feature a lot of higher res textures.

My particular model’s ortho map has been split into about a dozen 4k textures. I use way more 4k textures in house models, for rendering purposes.

Even if in this case I could isolate a terrain xref from the buildings, how would I isolate a house from itself?

Every single model I use has heavy textures. Textures have to be loaded into iPad and textures are what’s bogging it down. I think this happens in iPad, but also on Sketchup viewer for Android, that I used to use in my cellphone, but I imagine this is also a problem for Sketchup for web on chrome devices or smaller computers.

I appreciate everyone’s effort to try and help me workaround a particular problem I have, but the issue behind the problem is what should be handled better, in my honest opinion.

Improving that would improve my quality of life, certainly, but I think it might also improve other users quality of life.

I imagine this will be increasingly important in the eventuallity that even more textures are going to be used in the future, if Sketchup’s visual bells and whistles start to be improved based on PBR textures, for example.

How many of these textures will be featured in a single material?

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You could also use a MacBook instead of the iPad. Then you have proper hardware in a portable package with a mouse… etc.

I get the the iPad is nice to carry, sketch on, etc… but I’d be brining the right tool to the task. Even a new MacBook Air would be better suited than an iPad.