Layout Rendering and multi-processor

A good improvement could be a batch rendering.
When I’have s big file i work in raster mode to add notes and so on, then I convert views to vector rendering and export.
If I have many views in many pages the process can take a long long time, so a batch process should be very usefull for me.

For now you can un-tick and re-tick the Auto Render option in SketchUp Model to render all pages, not just the one you are on. I know, it’s not very intuitive but for me it saves a lot of time.

This is a good idea, but I prefer to operate in raster mode, because I need
to change model very often (an then refresh the layout), and change the
rendering type at the end of the job…

Sam welcome to the club. What they’ve done is like a toy that you start playing with only at the end to realise how ■■■■ it is. Only one processor is in the game. That is so pathetic that I want to explode etc. You and me not the only ones, trust me. They have to re-write this Mickey Mouse product, but somehow it’s not happening just a marginal tweedle dee tweedle dum, here and there. It’s millions “tips-and tricks” and hundreds of plugins that also cause lot of pain, as nobody is really fine tuning it? User interface is absolutely ridiculous.

Somehow I am using it since 2003 and with help of Thea Render (that uses both GPU and CPU when render) somehow maintaining sanity. Sadly Sketchup itself relies only on a SINGLE PROCESSOR!? So the best computer that will run this dinosaur is the one that has a fasted single core processor. That is absolutely insane… Sadly that’s where we are for a very long time.

The real problem is the core product being ■■■■, scenes, styles, hide-unhide, edges on hidden layer, layers themselves and then data structure, stickiness, groups, nested groups, components/nested components and then on top of it, hollow double faced ■■■■ data?! I would really abandon it if SKALP guys didn’t save the day. Relation between Sketchup/Layout absolutely pathetic. Lack of viewports… and the list goes on and on…Quite frankly tired of it…

Sadly nobody listens and cares, historically have asked questions and raised issues but in vain. In this shape and form this donkey will never run like a thoroughbred. It feels so sad to see after all these years people cry about same issues…Nothing major changes…Trimble, shame on you… If nothing, trust your profits are doing well …

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A post like that makes me wonder how you deal with general stress and difficulties in your life.
Do you have any road rage issues?

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I always use Layout with Hybrid mode and I find it much faster since I bougth the Titan X. However, when I bought it I also bought a new computer with a new processor, so I might have been mislead.

Unfortunatelly I feel @novurba post tends to be true.

Layout is not fast, nor intuitive and it doesn’t look very professional. Fortunately it is capable of incredibly professional results if you do know how to work around it’s issues and fortunately it is getting better with each passing year. I place much confidence on it. Working around issues is not for all people though and many do tend to get frustrated using it.

The main reason I use it is that Sketchup is the opposite and Layout is the best software in the market to deal with it. Period.

So, I cannot understand @nlenn post. First it’s not about Layout but Sketchup, so it’s missing the point even if Sketchup and Layout are connected.

Second, though any means to make sketchup faster would be welcome, all things criticized in this post are what makes sketchup intuitive in the first place… along with the inference system.

Third I do use Thea and Skatter so I can understand how you still use sketchup even if you dislike it so much.

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you obviously have no clue what you are talking of… all 3D CAx modelers - even of the big boys - do process vector-based modeling threads on one (1) kernel only… that’s mathematics… summing up 1+1 cannot be sliced in mutiple taks :bulb:

no, rendering is not modeling but generation of raster data… which can be sliced easily into multiple bands each processed on a dedicated kernel and afterwards ‘glued’ together to the final render.

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I have been waiting since the year 1993 (approximately) for the promised multiprocessor versions of AutoCad and 3D Studio Max. They haven’t been released yet (yes, they can multitask rendering photorealistic image files, but modelling, no.)

I am rather wondering if the drawing of the model viewports on LayOut pages could be split into threads. This is something that Archicad claims to be doing - not that I think I am experiencing a large performance boost switching between views in it, despite the hype.

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You are de-railing the thread and you are plain wrong.

Hi all-

Thank you for sharing your concerns about LayOut’s performance, and also for sharing ideas about how to improve. It is helpful for the team to see the pain points that you’re encountering.

Improving performance is definitely a long-standing goal of ours. Multi-threading would be one way to achieve some performance gains, and we’ve also been doing some work in other areas. As our work bears fruit, we look forward to sharing it with you.

Cheers,
Marc

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Release SU 2018, pretty please! :grinning:

Dear SketchUp!

The only reason for me to rethink my subscription policies on my company´s SketchUp Pro licenses is the way Layout handles my requests these days, even to see the next page takes (10) minutes.

The handling of my files and memory consumption should be like a walk in the park for my xeon ssd (so far an overkill, but both Mac Pro and Thinkpad P50 are equipped with Xeon (max respectively 3,7 and 3,9 GHz).
Both with 64 Gb ram, so why shouldn´t it work as smooth as to watch a sunrise?. But both OS´ have these hiccups, around the same consumption of memory, so it´s all about coding and/or processing?
Intel somewhere responded that there are handling issues from 2 Gb and above (where is that screen dump when it´s needed?). In some cases the “misery” kicks in below 1 Gb.

The files usually (but sometimes more, but not slower for that reason, it seems) have about one million edges, a half million faces and 3 thousand Component instances, the same number of Groups, then follows 8 guide points and 2 images and a less than hundred for each of Component definitions, Layers and Materials. totally 11 Mb.

Monitoring programs for both OS show that it indicates a singel processor issue, but when internal memory consumption exceeds 1 Gb it processes processing reduces itself to small jumps of 4 Kb (that´s not a misspell ) pr every ten second or so.
From then on my consumption of cooffe surges, and I try to fill the void by do some accounting or project planning.
But, it can not go on for long - some parts off my work flow are too slow for business.

Multithreading or not this occurs even when the .skp are smaller than 15 Mb, and the LayOut file consists of three png renders and 6 scenes - two pages with one viewport each, and one page with 3 viewports.
Jumping between pages with different scenes takes “ages”, sometimes fifteen minutes - which makes my deadlines to shwoosh by faster than I think only Douglas Adams would have liked.

Another CAD? Presently I feel a pressure to get a second leg to stand on, and have moved beyond the try out period of V…s. But it´s not the same.
I have had some of my best best CAD-moments behind the mouse and my different versions of SketchUp, and not missed A…d or R…t a bit since 2006.

Single core seems still as the fastest way to get get around and get things done in gaming and CAD, I´ve read they both are tools programmed to be on their toes to fulfill my mouse slightest intent, so I understand why SketchUp and single core sticks.
But, could not LayOut perform it@s typografically operations beautifully in multi-core mode, except maybe in Edit 3D view?
I keep my fingers crossed and consider that a small sacrifice, if the rest of LayOut could run faster.

Sometimes I wonder if the leap to a new SQL (thin ice for me, though but still) may be part of the reason, my projects has been of the same size the last ten years, but Layout has never been this slow as far as I have used it (and loved it, it has really impressed some clients and occasionally given my new one´s, too).

Memory bandwith is my final question on this subject. Could performance improve sufficiently (at least in my case) if only memory is handled “wider”, like Threadripper and alike?

Any good help would do.

Sincerely,
Fergos

Thanks Marc - It’s reassuring to know that SU/Trimble monitor these boards.

Is there a way to allow LayOut to use one core at a higher percent then if we are stuck with one core? I can only get it to use about 32% of processing available.

with the Windows Task Manager you can increase the process priority (and affinity to cores) of SketchUp/Layout on the tab “Processes” by r-clicking the according executable (“SketchUp.exe”/“LayOut.exe”) and set the priority to “High”:
/uploads/default/original/3X/4/f/4f2a455f95df43e9cfcb0337d27dd107a65a985a.jpg

Does work during the runtime of an application only, i.e. needs to be done again after every new launch.

Be aware, that with e.g. a quad-core CPU one (1) kernel running at full speed does result in a global CPU usage of 25%, the difference of 7% is created by other process and the operating system.

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I second this request to do multithread / core, obviously. Also want to add another performance issue that has become more of a problem with 2018.

I use LO for construction drawings, so you can imagine the number of Vector lines I might have (I have performance issues with vector lines over raster images in my case).

The worst performance I get is when I try to edit a group, or 2018’s new “scaled drawing”. When opening this, LO seems to put a translucent mask over the rest of the paper space, and this SLOOOOOWs everything down. Pity, as I believe the whole point of the “scaled drawing” is to be able to draw within that scale; the performance issues makes it an unproductive approach.

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Layout could also be a lot more productive if the entire program did not stop to render something. Why not allow you to add text and edit other windows at least while the one viewport is rendering. In this way layout could use a multicore processor for something right now its a loss.

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