It’s not ultimately preventable, but an application can either ignore it or choose a threshold at which it rarely kicks in.
The problem is that computer arithmetic is finite. To illustrate, suppose that your computer worked in decimal and could only represent values using three digits. Then the best possible representation for 1/3 is 0.333. But 30.333=0.999 which is not 1. So if SketchUp during an intersection operation calculated a point location as 3(1/3)=0.999 there would be a problem if another point is located at exactly 1. Should they be the same, or is the calculated point different? Having a threshold for “same” is the only solution.
If nearby Vertices are not fixed up as being same, all sorts of other issues would result. Models would bloat because there would be potentially vast numbers of Vertices all very close to each other. Faces would fail to be created because their “corners” would be split into two points instead of one. The messes would be far more frequent and uglier than the existing scaling problem.
So, the real question for SU 2016 isn’t whether such a threshold is needed, it is whether the value could be better chosen or somehow made smarter so that there are fewer situations where novices are confused and frustrated by this behavior.
i don’t disagree with that… further, i’ve hardly ever (like once a year maybe) encountered the problem with the scale i draw at.
that said, think of how many times the question gets answered-> “where are my faces??” etc.
seems like the most answered question on the help forums.
agree.
the 3 decimal example is a good one for showing the issue but computers can use a lot more decimals than 3… certainly enough to where you should be able to draw a square 1/1000th inch and have a face form.
At the moment it seems we’ll have to settle for .001" x .002"
That’s as small as I’m able to create with either Rectangle or Line tool an P/P.
An ordinary sheet of paper averages .004" This is like modeling a piece of dust.
i understand that… but the point was more about everyday computers are plenty capable of doing the calculations and even more accurately than that.
and i didn’t mean literally someone needs to draw a square that size… i’m talking about faces failing to form when drawing at small → yet real world scales… in response to what rangel wished for in the thread.
I have been doing exactly that:
When I have to work with very small components I scale them sometimes up to 1000x and after scale them down.
Of course that´s not pleasant, as my imputing dimensions change.
Also, when I scale down the model at the end of modeling, sometimes it looks terrible (even if it´s a 10 cm length model). Faces get all crazy!
Other problem is, as I use plug-ins to correct my models, when scaled down, huge problems are created and a model that had no mistakes ends up being corrected wrongly by my plug-ins, ending up with very small faces deleted.
About 3D printing small scales:
My problem is even bigger, as I work with high precision CNC miling and my models must have a lot of small details, up to 0.000039 inches…
Sorry I haven’t yet read my down this discussion completely, the title Sketch Up 2016 wish list caught my eye…
I’m really keen to solely use SketchUp for my architect practice, and finally kick autocad into touch!
A major restriction I have in doing this I have in doing this not having the ability to design efficiently in 2D within sketchup, or produce quick 2D details in reference to the 3D model.
A couple of SketchUp 2016 suggestions,
A 2D view lock
Line types, colours, weight /thickness.
These additions would make the complete software package.
There is an annoying bug persistent through many releases where hiding the units format switches the dimension attributes of dynamic components into inches. That ought to be fixed.
Layer manager with filtering with freezing with “hide on the new/others scene” options (u can copy functions from Autocad, autocad layer manager are awesome).
Large fields for text in material editor is needed.
Outliner has very slow performance at the moment (in huge model with compound structure), Outliner performance has to be dramatically upgraded.
Something ought to be done about the SketchUp Make licensing. The problems and confusion seem to form an unnecessarily large portion of the posts in this forum. Or should Make be discontinued?
I hope that I am responding to the right forum. Sketchp has become my daily driver for design but to problem I have as am Architect is with the working drawings. Layout seems promising but needs more functions to really work for us, e.g. Dynamic Scheduling through Excel integration including quantity take offs. I really like how this software functions over Revit and would like some of the same functionality in Sketchup
