I’m talking about my past experience. I used ACAD for almost 24 years. I’m sure it’s changed since I last used it in 2010. Aging myself…I learned on version 2.6 back in 1986 in college.
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I am with you Nick! I used AutoCad for years before I saw the light. I remember stumbling at first with inferencing because I thought I needed more control over snaps like I had in Acad… once I let go of that need to control I realized that inferencing is SO much easier and faster than messing with toggling snaps!
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I am 90% not bothered by the current snap/inferencing. That said, Perpendicular, Tangent, Parallel could be improved with a forced inference option. Drawing arcs that are tangent (to the lines you want) is still a trial & error task. I have noticed improvements of late, but still… Having to hover and approximate until a pink/blue line appears is not exactly fast and often a pain if that pink inference is anywhere close to an orthogonal inference.
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Perpendicular is sometimes hard to get; and sometimes midpoints are elusive too.
Tangent is always a chore.
Perpendicular hit the down arrow twice.
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Working with multiple curves with no great way to join them with another curve is frustrating (when it can be done super easily in ACAD). I’ve managed to work out a way to do them, but it seems to lack accuracy, especially for the work I do with skateparks (which have lots of curves!).
The last video shows how the SketchUp process doesn’t have accurate joins to the curves. If I’m producing something I will have to try over and over until it matches up better to get a useable shape. If anyone has an extension or alternative method, please let me know! 
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i just have to keep another cad program available for the things sketchup won’t do, like tangents to arcs.
(i ditched autocad in favor of bricscad and have been pleased with it. i hate autodesk so very very much)
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I’m also using AutoCAD which makes it much easier to design these shapes. Then I export the linework to SU to model it in 3D. Would be nice to have it all done in one program though!
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As a workaround, TIG has made a plugin that calculates tangents to arcs. I think that to make a random tangent actually connect, the arc has to be split in two at the tangent point.
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Thanks for the tip Anssi, I’ll check it out.
press ALT once to turn it off (on windows), or more to toggle between (all on/ all off / parallel and perpendicular only) while drawing a line
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Solid point. Every 3D program has their own pros & cons.
AutoCAD is better for Extreme OCD high-precision modeling.
Sketchup is better for the overall user experience.
Blender is better for mixing content from wildly different platforms.
ZBrush is better for clay modeling & character creation.
Caligari TrueSpace (discontinued but still available) was stunning for parametric landscape creation.
MatrixGold is better for jewelry design.
Revit is better for… masochists, I suppose.
There’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution.
An architect doesn’t need to inset gems at 0.4mm above waterline into a 14kt gold alloy, like a jewelry designer would in Matrix.
A character modeler making a cute monster for a videogame in ZBrush, really, really doesn’t care about massing and window coverage percentages in Revit.
A construction engineer welding girders in Revit gives precisely 0.00 damns about camera clipping in Blender.
And if you try to add all of these things, you end up with a monstrosity.
The only way to really handle a “one-size-fits-all” type of platform is a wildly different architecture with a core framework and massive snap-in modules. Like SAP R/3 or Bitrix, where you buy the core and modules separately, according to what you need. And the software architecture of each module has different optimizations, different scaling, different expectations of user competency, etc.
On the list of things that ain’t gonna happen with Sketchup, this ain’t gonna happen the most.