LiveComponents vs. DynamicComponents

Do you still have to have an internet connection to (re)configure, once you inserted a static version from your local component library?

I don’t think a live component takes up any more space than any other component. The “liveness” is stored in the cloud and SketchUp file contains normal geometry and an ID.

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Yes, that is the case, if the master LC is in the cloud and the generated component is downloaded. But I still assume or hope :wink: that the master LC file (containing the liveness) can also be stored locally and imported to a sketchup model in the future.

Yes you will need an internet connection to reconfigure even if you already have the .skp file stored locally.

this is serious disadvantage, as I can foresee connection issues and speed being factors

I believe such should be the case for 2020 and prior versions but the code should be hard wired to the the subscription version

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Try it out in SUpro 2021. We know we have issues with the time it takes to establish a connection. It currently takes about 8ish seconds to connect to “an engine”. That might be more or less depending on where you are and your connection. We know that kind of a delay is not acceptable long term so we’re working on it. However once the connection is established things are pretty snappy and not to far off from similar operations in SketchUp.

I just tried it. I dropped the network connection while having the LC configuration window open. In such a case you still can change the configuation parameters, but the change is not applied to the object If then you enable the connection again, it will not help. You have to close the configuration window and reopen it. This could be improved by showing a warning/message for no / slow connection.

But other than that it worked fine for me. :slight_smile:

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Right now the “LC engine” is a work in progress (beta stage.) It really does help development that it runs on a cloud server and changes or new features can be “dropped” at any time without rigmarole of formal releases and announcements, requiring users to download and install an extension, etc.

It also enables use in the SketchUp Web editions.

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That’s more or less how it is.

An LC is stored as a regular skp/component, but can be ‘revived’. That does require an internet connection though.

That’s right. We are constantly improving the engine and serverside aspects. For some aspects, you might have to wait for SketchUp to update and use those new capabilities, though. But this might be more frequent than SketchUp releases, as it uses served web code. A bit like the 3D Warehouse embed in SketchUp.

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I have a two part question!

  1. I really like the way you can nest and explode dynamic components. For our furniture collection we have dynamic doors (with style, size and handle options) and dynamic carcasses (which have style options, plinth options etc, and which in turn contain dynamic shelves which you can click into to access hanging rails, lighting or glass shelf options). The doors and carcasses are independent of each other, but we’ve also combined them to make dynamic cabinets that snap to certain standard dimensions when scaled. If you explode that parent component you are back with the door and carcass, and are free to scale them or move them around independently again (eg move the doors from one carcass and put them on another). We also combine the parent cabinets into grandparent (!) combinations for a media unit or run of wardrobes for example. Again, you can explode them to work with the cabinets more freely, and explode them again to get back to the independent doors and carcasses. It means you can put a standard design together quickly, but still be free to make changes to that standard design when working with an individual client. I’m hoping that when we get to author our own live components we might be able design them in a way that would allow them to be nested and exploded in a similar way?

  2. A big downside of our dynamic component library is that the overall collection is not connected. So if, for example, we introduce a new handle or we chose a different board thickness for all our carcasses, we have to manually change all the units in the entire library. If, as above, we also have amalgamations of units in different pre-set configurations - the task becomes impractical … which is a shame because using amalgamations of units is otherwise a really efficient way of putting together a design. (The original intention was to solve this by containing the whole collection in a simply SketchUp file - but the collection is now too large to make that possible.)
    In the development of Live Components, will it be possible to have connected common elements across a library of components? So that if we drop a handle style for example - it could be reflected across every instance in every model? I can’t think how that could be achieved - but it would be REALLY useful!

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Make your words my words.
I go through the same frustrations with my dynamic libraries, but I still see them as a great asset of modeling and agility in projects.

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A very complicated situation with dynamic components is the working time and calculation in more complex components … this time can be very long.
Is there any possibility that this calculation time will be reduced with live components?

I built software which seamlessly made dynamic components configurable online in a web browser. A complete like-for-like transformation, including all the component options. Our web-based engine supported all of the spreadsheet formulas and their subtleties. Whatever you could configure in Sketch-up you could configure in our web-app too.

I’m not a developer, but I thought I’d just mention the above, incase it has any bearing on what is possible with regards to converting dynamic components to Live components (I thought about adding a link here to a demo, but I’m not sure what the rules etiquette is etc) ?

I trust Sketchup’s decision for this overhaul of dynamic components is the right one;

but there is still nevertheless loads of people who would benefit from being able to convert their DCs to LCs

And it may fall on third party developers such as my self and others to help make this happen.

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Thanks @eskimo,

To provide some insight, the reason for this is because live components are fundamentally constructed and evaluated differently to dynamic components - i.e. our challenge is not with getting dynamic components on the web, but getting dynamic components into out Materia engine which powers live components.

Users who want to get their dynamic components configured in the browser might find your tool useful :slight_smile:

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Dynamic components can be developed within Sketchup, live components not (yet).
Is there s time frame when we can develop our own live components in Sketchup?

check the other thread(s):

Great, thanks.

wait so the sketchup team are going about getting DCs into the Materia engine to power LCs

that sounds great. because then there would be a way to convert DCs to LCs. Or are you talking more generally about the concepts?

Sorry I wasn’t clear. No we are not - the two are fundamentally different.

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