Hey SketchUp Community,
I am an architecture and interior design student in college. Also, I’m doing a final project for my architecture class. I’ve ran into some geometry problems with my walls. Instead of me starting my final project over again, I need someone to help me learn how I could fix the geometry of my high-end home. I uploaded my screenshot of the house. But, the SketchUp Community is saying I can’t upload my model because it’s too big.
Thanks,
Damon.
You can upload the model to a file sharing site such as wetransfer and provide a link here.
Ok, I’m going to send the link right now.
Since it’s your schoolwork we can’t do the work for you but as Steve says, it would help us to give you guidance in fixing it if you share the file. One thing right way is that you have a some exposed blue back faces. Right click on them and choose Reverse Faces.
Hello DaveR,
My model is 95.4 MB and I’m almost done getting the link so I can share it with you guys.
I’m sorry guys, my file is taking too long to upload which I can’t get the link from WeTransfer. Is there another cloud-based software where I can upload my file so I can share it with you guys?
Thanks,
Damon.
Some thoughts to get you started while we wait…
We typically look for appropriate, inappropriate, or lack of use of components, groups, and tags. Also for model bloat due to excessively detailed entourage elements, usually from the 3D Warehouse. Imprecise drawing, often due to poor use of inferencing and having snap to length turned on. Reversed faces. Huge materials. And more.
There are many others, such as DropBox, Google Drive, and others. But if upload to we transfer is taking a long time, it is probably due to your connection speed. If that’s the case, the others won’t be faster.
The screenshot makes the model look fairly simple. Perhaps there are imported textures causing the file size to be so high. Go to Window/ModleInfo/Statistics and ‘Purge Unused’. Save and see if that brings the size down.
Hi Eric,
Thank you so much for telling me about how to reduce the file size. It’s now uploading much faster on DropBox.
Ok everybody, here’s the link to my file: Dropbox
A huge part of the issue with this model is the sectional sofa in Group#10. It all by itself has almost 2 million edges, 2/3 of the total for the model. I don’t think that sofa is the main subject of the model? Surely you could get by with something less complex.
Ok. I also believe that I have to draw some edges of the walls into a line and redo the other parts of certain walls that have patches on the big face of the exterior walls.
You have also got a fair number of examples of tags applied to edges and faces. These entities should be drawn and left untagged, only apply tags to groups, components, and non-geometry objects such as dimensions, labels, and images. Putting tags onto edges and faces almost always leads to confusing issues with visibility because tags do not prevent edges and faces from interacting with each other, and tagged edges and faces nested inside groups or components can make those objects mysteriously partially or completely seem to disappear. I think this mah be part of why you believe there are edges missing on some walls. When I correct the tagging of edges and faces, the examples I can see are fixed.
Note: you have a tag other than untagged set to active. This will cause new edges to and faces to be drawn with that tag attached, and that will lead to the confusion I described above. Always leave untagged active.
The good news, compared to many bloated models we see here, is that you haven’t retained a lot of unused components in the model.
There is also a chair that contributes about 500000 edges, and a car with about 140000. Always download components from the 3D Warehouse into an otherwise empty model and examine them for appropriate level of detail, simplifying where possible before incorporating them into your main model.
Thank you very much Steve! This resolves the problem I’m dealing with. Have a blessed day!
As an example of unneeded details, compare these two views of the Subaru, one with monochrome mode set and the other in xray mode. There are a lot of interior parts that aren’t visible in your model unless you zoom in very tight on just the car, and ones that are interior and can’t be seen at all unless you are in xray. That component may be great when the car is the main subject, but otherwise all that unseen stuff is wasted. You could edit that component to remove stuff such as springs and struts, bottom surfaces of engine, drive train, and axles, etc. and nobody will ever notice!
That’s probably because he purged the model to be able to upload it…
Several plugins you’ll find useful on your model optimization quest (not just for this, but in general):
1.) Cleanup^3 - deletes broken / hidden / stray geometry, merges things that should be merged, etc. NOTE: depending on the complexity of the model, this could take several seconds, or several HOURS. Always save FIRST and then run this plugin - if it’s “frozen” for more time than it’s worth it for you, Control-Alt-Delete and force-quit Sketchup, then open it again and try to find where the biggest issue is…
2.) …which brings us to the next suggestion:
Yes, it’s by @slbaumgartner, who’s already given you a bunch of valuable advice 
What this one does, is show you precisely which items in the model are the “heaviest” (in terms of complexity):
It has a visual navigator (shown) and a tabular report (list).
3.) Goldilocks Geometry and Goldilocks Texture show you a list of what’s most complicated, in terms of geometry (like Statistics Probe) and texture size (high-resolution bitmaps):
4.) Polyreduce - exactly what it says on the tin; reduces the polygons in whatever you have selected by percentage, in increments of 10. NOTE: the more you reduce, the weirder and more “broken” the geometry gets; try various settings until you understand the results. Also note that it does not seem to work on groups or components, only “loose geometry” (explode everything, or “click into” the group/component until you reach basic geometry).
