Of course not!. As we are all implying - get pro, review then complain about progress.
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Say you want to make a car or something symmetrical. I work on one side only. Makes it easy to work on the inside too. If I want to come back later and change something I don’t want to have to do it on both sides. I never want it to be be one model. Also, a model that is a whole instead of 2 of the same component is a much bigger model. Take a car from the 3D warehouse for example. Many are like 5 megs ( and 90% are exported from another 3d program but that is besides the point ). Cut it in half and make the half a component. Mirror it to the other side and the file size will be about 40% smaller. What I am asking for is something that will do without the final step which is I have to go in and hide the center seam lines. That can lead to issues. Maybe a glue command? Glue one component to the other but don’t merge them. But with the mentality of 75% of the people here I am sure that will never happen.
Or use the soften dialogue box.
Nope not true. Soften can only be used on the whole component. Not on just lines. You have to select all the lines at the area where the two components come together and right click and hide. With some materials you can see the seam too which sucks but its not the end of the world.
Just learned this about 20 minutes ago. Ctrl + Eraser will soften a selected edge.
No you can soften single edges or groups of edges, or entire components.
Between two faces sure. What I am talking about you have to hide the edge . If you soften the edge it will look like a crease between the two components. Plus you have to leave the face in the middle which is not what you want. Make a component…soften it and then copy and put it next to the other one. That is not good. Maybe if you were trying to make a couch or something. Try to soften an edge that only has one face connected to it. The one in the front is hidden and one in back is softened.
Anyways this is not helping get new features in Sketchup. I am done posting to this. What a waste of time …
Sorry you feel this was a waste of time? I see a lot of responses being offered to help. O’well.
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Help for what? I don’t need help hiding some lines. I want sketchup to grow and mature. This thread isn’t about learning how to do all the work arounds I already know how to do. I was hoping way more people felt that it would be nice too. Instead many people just think it’s perfect as is and it obvious that this mind set is very deeply rooted in many and that is a shame.
You can see your “model half get full” technique in these topics several times (sofa examples) …
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=56275
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57637#p524266
I guess that SketchUp is committed to being a platform that other developers can create specialized products for and so development probably goes to core functionality.
As a stand alone solution for building design it is like driving a golfcart in the mud and rain. It will get you there. And as Sonder’s work demonstrates it is capable of outstanding CD’s. --but at a huge cost of time. It is an exercise of driving a square block into a round hole.
Granted that it may still be better than the old ACAD.
Remove the “guess” part. Some extensions are available to everyone, like Sandbox and Dynamic Components. SU can even be an engine for computer games. Odd that there was a complaint here about the lack of “primitives” as that was one of the first plugins the SU developers released. That extension is now open source, for anyone to add stuff, and the primitives are parametric - meaning there’s an option, through the context menu when the primitive is selected, to edit the form.
And a very notable “other developer” is Trimble SU itself. They are developing several extensions geared for Pros - from recently acquiring Safaira and the Trimbnle Scan Explorer that SU-uppifies the interpretation of point cloud scans. And now components can now be set up as classified objects - yet another new thing for the Pro-crowd.
Another big benefit of having extensions to customize a program is that they can be updated more frequently, and independently of the base program, and often are backwards compatible. Which benefits people who cannot update to the latest release of SU. At least the extensions can be updated.
Let’s not forget about the my.shetchup beta going on now which brings SU modeling to anyone with a modern browser and will interface with Trimble Connect.
@ChrisStewart, @Sonder already wrote that he spends 30% less time creating his CDs in SU/LayOut than he spend with ACAD. And if you want to see another example of some sexy CDs, look at the Basecamp 2016 video from a structural engineer that Nick lassoed and brought into the SU fold. Years ago I listened to another basecamp presentation from an engineer explain how SU modeling got more interactive input from other project collaborators resulting in better communication and less costly mistakes - decreasing the likelihood of costly lawsuits later on.
I don’t get the complaint about mirroring components being a work-around. SU developers opted for the K.I.S.S. approach, and like many around here, not being encumbered by a mirade of program tools feels natural to me - like working with clay.
Kitty half components extruded from exploded 1/2 circle, later making one half unique to finish sculpting the asymmetrical bottle. I don’t see much of a seam, but even if I wanted to merge the components, I still keep the original half components around in case I want to tweak something.
More mirrored components:
The one with the hands had to be merged, but its original component half is still around if I want to do something else.
From my view, horrid workarounds meant doing things like using the program Vitrite to make a transparent overlay over the SU workspace to try lining up a SU model to an existing image. But now, with SU Watermarks and using Advanced Camera Tools to set up camera positions using the data from digital photos - another extension for Pro-users - people can create SU animations matching digital imagery that are more than good enough for a court of law.
Another thing people seem to forget is copyright and patent law. Programs are copywritten property and things like Push/Pull is patented. Somewhere in the mix this comes into play when wanting to duplicate tools from other programs.
I still have the SU4 installer. Its last Windows maintenance release was a whooping 15.7 MB file. 40 MB SKPs were considered huge. It come a long way baby.
And now with SU17 requiring users to have hardware acceleration graphics capability - that’s a big change to the system - and laying the groundwork for more things to come. This has hurt some people whose hardware cannot support this requirement, but computers have made steady progress. Notably Intel graphics. Kudo to Intel for their OpenGL modeling support. Several years ago my local Intel plant advertised for an OpenGL driver developer to develop drivers for professional level OpenGL modeling. It took a few years, but it seems SU17 users with integrated graphics are reaping the benefits of Intel investment in their drivers. That’s just one example of the time and investment companies make to upgrade tools, features, hardware, drivers. It’s not trivial.
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"Sonder already wrote that he spends 30% less time creating his CDs in SU/LayOut than he spend with ACAD. "
I do not doubt it but that only speaks to how bad ACAD was ten years ago. (not a modern 3d design program) And every program now days is 3d and the models and files can be easily shared. Most programs probably even export to Sketchup.
Sketchup is excellent at modeling components and details. And I suppose that if someone is doing such complex and unusual work as Sonder’s and you can find an engineer that is willing to use it then I could see some value in it as a collaboration tool.
But that is really an extreme case where the time spent creating the model and details is not a real concern. The budget on those CD’s probably exceeds what many people can spend on their house.
FWIW, my engineer also works in Revit, but actually does all his work in SU as it is much easier to quickly produce construction documents. I see it with all my competition. I can produce as many projects with my staff of 1 to a Revit team of 8.
Once you get a handle on using Templates in both SU and LO, you find that most of your time is in the SU model and the drawings are produced rapidly. As for collaborating, I work with Civil, other Structural Engineers, Landscape Architects and Interior Designers that all use ACAD. Never had an issues to date. I usually get the compliment that I am providing them far more information than the competition.
Complexity of the project has nothing to do with it. The simpler the project, the quicker it gets done, just like with any software. The difference is SU is simple and quick, Revit and other CAD based programs are not. You just need to find the system that works.
As to fees, my fees are far below the national average for custom home design - less than half.
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I am not criticizing your fees. I was simply pointing out that you are working at a level that most people are not.
-And your work is truly awesome.
But yes the level of detail required makes a huge difference. If I had the requirement to detail every part of the building with 100% accuracy than Sketchup may be the most efficient way of doing that.
On the other hand if the requirement is to produce a plan as efficiently as possible Sketchup on it’s own can’t compete. Maybe with the addition of SpecPlus and other extensions it could begin to.
If you need the complete BIM aspect maybe. But speed is not ACAD’s specialty.
Thanks for the compliment.
Remember we are talking about SU with LO. SU on its own I agree. But with LO it is much faster.
But Layout is a disaster. -One of the worse parts of SketchUp.
Move a wall - save model - go to Layout - update model - etc…
I do not know about ACAD but having to export a model into separate modules to perform various tasks is archaic.
ACAD was a 2d program that had trouble adjusting to a 3d world and SketchUp is a 3d program which has trouble adjusting to a 2d plan set.
I agree Layout is a disaster. you add measurement in sketchup and you have to add them to layout manually.
For drawing odd details or appliances, furniture, light fixtures, etc… SketchUp is great.
It has become the standard for architectural 3d symbols
And the ability to have section planes movable on the fly is nice.
Building are just to big and complicated to be modeled with lines and faces and disjointed parts efficiently and dynamic components are to cumbersome and limited.
I guess I’m doing it wrong with a very successful business…LOL.
All I can say to comments like this is you are not exploring what LO and SU can do. They work very well together, far better than any CAD program I have used. If you think SU is not for buildings, I don’t know how to comment on that, since that is what I have used it for over the last decade.
The title of this thread is “No more new features?”, yet people making that comment aren’t using the Pro version and the ones that do and agree on the no new features aren’t even using Layout.
I’m outta this thread, as there is not much more I can say to help you. Good luck. I wish you the best.
Nick
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