I consulted with David, our resident Computational Geometry expert and long-time member of SketchUp’s development team. He gave me the following answer:
Double precision numbers can accurately store ~16 decimal digits. To be safe, lets assume 15 digits. I.e. 999,999,999,999,999.
Since SketchUp requires accuracy to 1/1000”, SketchUp’s maximum dynamic range is +/-999,999,999,999.999 – say 1 trillion inches or 83,333,333,333 ft or 15,782,827.7 miles or ~½ the distance from the Earth to Mars, etc…
So in SketchUp you could…
Model the Sun.
Model the Earth.
Model the Moon.
Model the Earth and the Moon together.
but you could not…
Model the Sun and (Mercury or Venus or Earth…) together.
Model the solar system.
Model the milky way.
or model things smaller than 1/1000 inch.
Anything much larger than 15 million miles or smaller than 1/1000” WON’T WORK!