Dear @colin,
thanks a lot for getting back to me. Good to hear, appreciate it.
I’m all in sorting that out with you guys. Do let me know if I can contribute in any way.
The zoom may very close, but since snapping cannot be turned off, at least easily, for professional work we need to be able to zoom in very close, and we do that as fast possible, of course.
Some few times, changing to parallel view, zooming and paning around, and switching backs helps, but only for some moments into the work.
Looking forward to updates on that matter,
so thanks again,
Ronen
This gave me a new idea. Manually zooming in and out is tricky to get back to an extreme close up without overshooting and seeing clipping. You can solve that by making scenes, and something that makes that be easier to achieve is the Advanced Camera Tools.
Try this file, and right-click on the camera, to choose Look Through Camera. Or use Tools/Advanced Camera Tools/Look Through Camera. You can also click on the scene tab.
@colin I have noticed one quirk with clipping. Camera position is also sometimes more of a factor than I completely understand. Here I have a mile square base with a series of smaller cubes near the origin, a model designed to clip. It certainly does as expected, however the clipping is much worse if I have the camera positioned outside the plan view of the geometry. If I orbit around so the camera is position within the plan view of the geometry then I am able to zoom to a pretty impressive view of a 1/16" cube. Is this because the furthest piece of the geometry is now closer to the back of the camera?
Remember when you could just zoom in and keep zooming as close as you wanted and there was never any clipping? Not that you ever needed to zoom that close, but you could if you wanted. Remember? Why can’t it be like that again!?
If you are in perspective, you really are moving forward, and eventually some of the geometry is behind you. If at that moment you switch to parallel projection, a lot of geometry is behind the camera, and there will be a lot of clipping.
You can instead zoom extents, and then zoom in as much as you want while in parallel projection, and nothing will get clipped, because everything remains in front of the camera.
I understand what you are saying. I’m still curious why (without changing any camera settings) I achieve a higher level of zoom when approaching geometry from one direction than I do from another, as the GIF shows.
It has to do with the (never fully explained) logic for when and how SketchUp chooses to place the front clipping plane. Evidently coming in from the one direction causes SketchUp to move the plane differently than coming in the other way. That’s the quasi-technical explanation of how, but it really doesn’t address why.
Thanks for confirming, just my curiosity. My theory in this case as I said is that in position 2 the furthest piece of geometry from camera position is closer to the camera, although behind it.
Sorry to be spoilsport again, but it not true for parallel projection. I do sometimes try to see if the clipping is not as bad in parallel projection, and I can edit geometry more closely, but sometimes it’s even worse.
And, I actually need to sometimes zoom in very close because:
In Sketchup there is the snapping, which is a nice feature, but if I need to edit geometry which e.g. only 0,02m away from the another mostly bigger geometry, you really need to zoom in very close to make sure it snaps to the right geometry/ intended position.
There where times I thought it’s gonna be alright, and a lot of times after many hours or work I realized that more detailed geometry was all wrong, and I had to spend hours editing back.
So zooming in very close is very necessary.
@colin Would you be up for a TeamViewer session so I can show you the problematic cases?
The cases where you get clipping in parallel projection is where you have moved into the model in perspective, then switch to parallel projection. If you Zoom Extents, then zoom into any part of the model while in parallel projection, there shouldn’t be any clipping.
Here’s a screen recording, see if you can make one as well, that goes through the same steps, but ends up showing clipping.
I’ve been having the exact same issue using sketchup 2018 and 2019. It seems to happen randomly with larger models, and it happens both in parallel and perspective view. I’ve tried purging the file, removing components and/or materials, saving with a different name… all kinds of things. Nothing has fix it!!!
Attach your model for someone to check it. There is usually some workflow issue that creates some geometry a long way from the origin. The larger your model is, in area not file size, the more likely you are to get clipping. One tiny edge left at a distance will cause all sorts of issues.
I was using SU2020 and began continuing working on a model with the new SU2021 software. After having saved the model to my C Drive using the SU2021 software, the file has apparently been destroyed (+2000 hours lost). I am now using SU2020 again, but am experiencing the very same issue, in that I can’t zoom into geometry.
I noticed this used to happen when you are working in a very larg model (not MB but the extents of the model itself) and trying to zoom in too much. sometimes i found that there was some hidden geometry that when i zoomed extents made my model much larger than in reality, so making the zoome extent area smaller seemed to allow me to zoom in more.
As if the scale of the model is tied to its extents, and that is the reference for the zoom capacity.
As of today i came here trying to look for a new answer because it is happening to me and i could not solve it this way. Using Sketchup 2019
well i think i solved it. i wasnt wrogn, but this time the thing preventing me from shortening the extents of the model that i could not see nor delete, was the picture from google maps that sketchup paste into the drwing when you reference the location of it.
That is such an annoying feature.
reseting that location made it work.
