I’ve been working on this little project in the free, web-based Sketchup the last few weeks. I am just an amateur and am ignorant of the finer points of how a Sketchup model works. About a week ago, things started slowing down while working on my model, and now this morning it’s been practically impossible to work with the model at all, the slowdown is so great.
What problem points have I inadvertently created? I have a few suspects, but with my level of understanding I wouldn’t really know. There is the room divider made of rectangular prisms by the table; there are a few cylindrical posts there, some of which intersect. Then, there are the two Star Trek LCARS-style wall displays with a few images; somehow things started slowing down when I first created those. Finally, I have the wall by the sunken living room made of segmented triangles. I recently moved it over a few centimetres and that seemed to slow things down.
The model is only 5.6 megs. To me that seems small, but perhaps that is large for a Sketchup file? Is this a case where I have some strange things that need to be better optimized, or do I have entire chunks of my work that will need to be deleted and redone in a more simplified manner?
Many thanks to anyone who feels like taking a poke through my model and helping me on this.
Specs:
Windows 10
AMD 3015e with Radeon Graphics 1.20 GHz
8 gigs of RAM
IT seems fine in the Web app here. As Mike suggests, you may be running out of browser memory.
Even for the Web app, 5.6MB isn’t a very big file.
Looking at it, though, I see that your model is all made of ‘loose geometry’. Every edge and face is connected to all the other edges and faces (or very nearly all, perhaps - I didn’t check in detail).
It will make it much easier to edit your model if you learn about grouping elements into components, which separate geometry. For example, each piece of furniture should be a separate component, and the room divider should be one component with sub-components for the round connecting rods and for the individual panels in it.
That will somewhat reduce the file size (though probably not hugely) but will make subsequent editing MUCH easier.
You also have a few blue reversed faces in the corner sofa. You can see that if you use the little search icon on the left to find Monochrome.
Then R click on each blue face and select Reverse faces to fix that.
I’d suggest converting the furniture into separate components. Window select round each piece (as best you can) then type ‘g’ to create a component. Move a copy to where you can see all round it, and edit any extra or missing pieces. If you edit one copy of a component it changes all the copies to match. When you’ve finished editing the copy, delete it to leave a clean copy in the original position.
One thing that will immediately speed up your model, turn off Profiles.
Profiles are the thick edges around everything, they can be useful but the down side of them is the drain on the graphics.
Click the magnifying glass icon on the left, start typing profiles and you should get an option appear that you can click to turn them off.
Very thankful for your responses. Everything you guys have said has either cleared the problem up or opened up new avenues for me to explore. If anyone is curious, I think the issue was indeed as Mike suggested - running out of browser memory. To think I was considering buying a new computer that could better “handle” my Sketchup model! Pure lunacy.
John, thank-you for taking the time and patience to discover the reversed faces in my model. Duly fixed! I shall also start working with components. It’s clear that the more complex a project is, the more trouble you save in doing so.
And the profiles! Had no idea that turning them off saves so much on processing power. That made a big difference. I suppose the downside to turning them off is it’s more difficult to determine when the lines of an ostensibly-closed surface don’t entirely connect?
I use Sketchup a bit in my classroom, and I know enough to get by for smaller-scale projects with my students. With the next-level basics you guys have mentioned in this thread I can finally start thinking of doing more complex assignments.
Indeed, profile edges are one way to detect non-solid geometry. I think that the SketchUp for Schools and SketchUp Shop web-based versions of SketchUp (but not SketchUp Free) have a built-in “solid inspector” feature which is super handy for making solid geometry.
