Been doing a bit of Dynamic Component work and decided to check out the current offering in the new 3Dwarehouse section (Sketchup Content Library) offering Sketchup Models (seemingly all Live Components).
What surprised me was the dramatic difference in file size from very small to very large so I decided to investigate !
Accordingly I downloaded the Corner Window and explode it
I isolated the texture in Affinity Photo and although used in the model at a a extremely small size (25mm) the jpeg itself was only 800k and if resaved at 85% quality would be around 150k. So that does not explain the 5MB LC file size.
So I am at a loss to explain the large file size for such a simple model ..and accordingly I cannot see a means to optimise LC’s after downloading. while keeping its “Live” characteristics
Are these Live Components or Dynamic Components? Either way, they are parametric objects that should have scripts, optional textures, and maybe some optional geometry.
Some live components have a lot of settings, for example a door gives you the option to choose different handles, door shape, lateral windows and a lot more, all that geometry exist in the component, you can’t see all the geometry it has at the same time but it occupies memory. If you don’t want to keep all that space in memory, you could explode the component and purge the file to delete all the components that were not used after setting yours up.
do they exist (the options) as programming code or as hidden model objects?. In dynamic components hidden objects are easily revealed when you toggle show hidden objects… but nothing is revealed using that process in LCs.. I am surprised that coding alone would be the reason for such a big file size increase..
when I save the the “Detached Definition” of the simple configuration of the LC the files size is significantly smaller reflecting the model complexity.(1.178Mb)
Update
Just tried the same process with the most complex version of the same LC and the file size did not change in any meaningful amount, both as a LC or Detached Definition file on my hard drive.
The file downloaded is 6.6MB as before ( regardless of complexity configured on the website).
And both the “save as” LC and Detached Definition versions save to my desktop are 1.178MB
So no idea why the file size is listed 5.4Mb on the website and downloads as 6.6MB, yet when saved from SU they revert to 1.178MB
@pcmoor I tried the but the link timed out and was never able to reconfigure in Sketchup, only on the website before downloading.
The main reason for the large file sizes is that all LC’s in the 'SketchUp Content Library" have PBR materials which (as you’ve noticed) include a roughly 800KB texture. Though as they are PBR, they also include normal maps, roughness maps, etc. which, depending on the material can multiply that size a couple times (i.e. a full PBR mapped material might be 800KB x5 maps equals roughly that 5MB file size you’re seeing!).
If you’re wanting to continue to use an LC without the PBR material, as of the latest SketchUp release you are able to paint LCs as any other component with a smaller size/detailed material - thus decreasing the size of the model overall while keeping the configurability.
Do note that there is currently a bug that will not allow you to paint an LC while it is selected, though this should be fixed in a coming release.
Thanks for that Cam_.. can you explain why the texture size in the materials tray is 25mm (refer to my second image in this post) for that texture but it 1024x1024px and it visually isn’t that size on the actual model ? just puzzling !
Sure, in SketchUp the default texture size is 1 inch. As the LC was most likely authored in metric, my guess is that this is just nice rounding (1’ = 25.4mm).
As for why the size of the texture does match the visual size, that will be because Trimble Creator uses UV mapping on geometry to apply materials, whereas SketchUp does not (strictly speaking anyway). This miss-match visually is just the current product of that conversion from Creator to SketchUp.
I can explain a little more in depth if you want me to, though that’s the gist, and the more detailed stuff requires explaining how UV mapping works!
