Until yesterday, I was using Sketchup 2023 on my late 2013 Mac Pro (black trash can, Darth Vader’s baby etc). It’s been a brilliant computer for everything except SU. I have been inserting loudspeaker arrays in to a model of a large building. Every time I tried to manipulate an array, I got the beachball, sometimes for ever, sometimes for around 10 minutes. I did some reading on the specs and it seemed that maybe my Mac Pro (running Ventura) was finally ‘past it’ as the OS was the final edition that would work on it.
I bought a Mac Studio with 96GB RAM, 2TB storage, SSD etc. with a suitable display. Huge money. It still does the same thing. I am NOT a happy boy.
I have included the model (not to be made public please). Please somebody tell me what is going on.
Your model is very slow on my computer, too. At least it was until I cleaned it up a bit.
Incorrect tag usage. Untagged should be left active and all edges and faces should be created and remain untagged.
Corrected.
Purged unused stuff from the file.
And I turned off Profiles to make the style faster.
What file format did you import for this? I certainly wouldn’t like to have to start with this as a reference to create a model of the stadium.
Your model file is not very big but it contains more than 52 000 000 edges and more than 26 000 000 faces.
No wonder that even a very powerful computer is brough to a crawl with this amount of data to manipulate.
I set your model to Wire Frame style with profiles turned off.
I also purged it, just to try minimizing its size but it seems to have increased to about 12 Megs.
However, it is useable like that.
If these curved components are speakers around an elliptic stadium (similar to the Montreal olympic stadium), you could simplify them to allow a more fluid modelling.
When done, if you really need that much complexity, you can replace the simplified components by the more complex ones.
Dave beat me by 2 minutes.
Just copying one of your speakers into an empty model shows you the basis of the problem.
It is generally accepted that efficient modelling outperforms upgrading hardware.
Much the same way as learning to ride the balls off a small motorcycle is far more useful than sitting on a big one and thinking you can ride.
Thanks to all of you. The model was originally created from Revit and then the Tags were created to inform an acoustic modelling program called EASE. Dave R your model seems to work fine. You are very kind. The things you are suggesting I do are not familiar to me (until now!) Could you please tell me how you achieve them? I have several models of large buildings and this will make my life SO much easier!
Mmm, I’ve moved an array and manipulated the view and now it’s gone back in to clockwork mode…
The “rule” for using tags in SketchUp is to leave Untagged active and leave all geometry untagged. Only groups and components are given tags. This makes the modeling process much easier and you’re less likely to unduce errors into the model because you are never chasing tags like you have to chase layers in other applications. I used a plugin (Default Layer Geometry) by TIG to quickly parse through the entire model and remove the tags from the geometry. I use another plugin (PurgeAll) by TIG to purge the unused stuff from your model. You can do that with Model Info>Statistics>Purge Unused. I use the plugin because it also creates that nice little report to show how much stuff was removed.
As Box wrote, clean and efficient modeling is probably more important than hardware in making your model perform. It’s not that difficult to do the clean and efficient modeling. You just need to be disciplined.
Think about how your model is going to be used and what information it needs to provide. Looking at your speaker components, I gather they are used to indicate the placement of the speakers in the stadium. Do you really need the small details like the shackles, bolts, nuts, pins, etc. in this model? If not, eliminating that. Even if you need to be able to show the shackles with their bolts and nuts do they really need the chamfers? Do they really need the safety wire holes?
I’m all for detail when it adds something to the model but I can’t imagine small details in these speaker components is useful here. If it’s not useful, it is only a liability in your model. The detail adds “cost” to your model without any return on the investment.
Edit to add: I’m thinking you could replace these speaker components with very much simplified version that are not much more than a third of a donut sort of thing. Like this maybe.
There’s oly 82 entities here and I’d bet this would read as well if not better than your massive speaker components in views of the stadium.
Note that everything you post to this forum IS public. If this is not meant to be, remove the file link.
What! everything, even that bit about…
This drawing will end up being imported into the master Revit drawing. I totally appreciate the level of detail is unnecessary but that’s how the speakers are drawn in SU by the manufacturer for better or worse.
Thanks for all your help. Now can someone tell me how to delete the post?!
Is that level of detail required in the model you are creating? If not, edit the component to reduce it to what you need or create a new model. You aren’t doing yourself any favors by using the overly detailed component as it is.
Have you not heard about once something is posted it is there forever.
You can’t. Maybe @TheOnlyAaron will drop in. I think he has the key of power chained to a hub cap that he can use to delete it.
We don’t delete answered posts. You can find the post that answered your question and choose it as the solution, though. That way, when another SketchUp user comes along with a similar question, they will learn from your topic!
I think the OP @simonH just wants the attached file removed. Which they should be able to do by editing their post and deleting the link.
Edit your post, remove the file.
I found my own hub cap. @DaveR and @jean_lemire_1 would you be so kind as to edit the file from your replies? Thanks again everyone, legendary behaviour
OK, I deleted the file from my previous post.
Long ago, in a (CAD) world far away … the overarching concept discussed in this thread was referred to as using “space-claim” models for efficiency, where they were appropriate. No internal geometry (it was a solid modeler), not enough detail to manufacture the part, but enough detail to make sure the space in the assembly the given parts claimed would be sufficient.
Perhaps the term “space-claim model” can serve some as a memory peg toward more efficient modeling.