I am modelling a city for fun, and at the moment I have easily over 200 windows. I put these windows into groups so I can easily open/ close them individually. I am beginning to notice a little bit of lag on my computer, and I recently learned that replacing identical groups with components would be less intensive. My only problem is that it would take a long time for me to replace all of the windows with components, and I don’t yet know if it would be worth it. Would 200 components cause significantly less lag than 200 groups?
You would probably see less lag although it depends on other things like the abilities of your graphics card. If the windows are instances of the same component or instances of only a few, you would expect to see a smaller file size but the GPU still has to process the pixels.
Here’s a comparison from a file I had handy. Compare a single component, 100 components and 100 groups. Lots of detail with the knurled knobs.
Install the extension, Selection Toys. If all the group’s are identical, you will be able to turn them all into instances of one component definition in one click.
CD
1 Like
DaveR,
I guess smaller file size is still worth it. That’s quite a large difference
ChrisDizon
This will be very useful, thank you
Note that replacing primitive geometry or groups with components will reduce your model file size, but it will not do anything to your zooming and orbiting performance, as the amount of faces and edges in your model that Sketchup needs to process remains the same.
Anssi
That is very true @Anssi, but it does make it easy to temporarily replace complex components with simple proxies.
1 Like