HI Sketchup Team. I have posted these feature request before and would still love to either see them implemented or some feedback on their utility.
All relate to Layout.
Fixed length witness lines on dimensions so that you could set them as say 5mm either side of the dimension string regardless of how far you drag them from the model. Add a button to flip between fixed or full length. (Yes I know I can use the eyedropper tool to ‘drop’ the style and length from one dim to another but it references the relative distance from the model to the dim and therefore doesn’t work for the next set of dims closer or further from the model)
2 extra Default layers. DIMENSIONS AND TEXT (or Annotation) that Auto select when you activate either the dimension tool or one of the text tools. Generally if you are going to create dimensions or text you would want them to be on their own layer so you can turn them off/on - Due to my own ineptitude - the amount of times I have to go back and choose my notes or dims and then transfer to the DIMS or NOTES layers (that I have to create) drives me nuts.
Sam - couple of your requests are decent. Some exist already - No. 18 Go to 'Window - Preferences - Shortcuts - (in the search field “component edit - hide rest of model” - Create your own shortcut. I personally have ctrl H to show/hide when editing a group/component. I also have set up ctrl + shift + V for ‘paste in place’ (aka photoshop). I’ve installed the ‘Weld’ Plugin and set up ctrl + W for a keyboard shortcut to weld curves, etc into polylines. I have also set up alt+V to switch between parallel projection and perspective modes. These are just a few of my time savers. Good luck.
Sometimes when dealing with groups that have many many groups nested/child inside, I turn on Hide Rest of Model from the Model Info > Components panel. However, sometimes I wish I had the chance to see maybe just the level above the group/component I’m currently in. Maybe the WHOLE REST of the model is too noisy, yes, but maybe I 'm still needing the context of the level above the one I’m currently in within my group.
Would love to see the “Hid/Fade Rest of Model/Component” feature offer me a range input to see a number of levels above that I’m currently at.
Ex. I’ve got Group named “Display Cabinet” and it’s comprised of 10 groups–legs, molds, hardware, etc. When I enter into the group, I can go into another group, that has other groups…and other groups… Let’s say I’m 6 Levels deep (think Inception!) but having the rest of the entire model visible is too distracting, and I click to hide it–but I’m still hoping to work relationally with the 5th level of the group–the level right above me. Give mea field thats something like "No. of Levels above visible) and I can type a numerical value.
One ) One more view to component edit which is “Hide everything except parent component”. This would be great for large models where you have sub models with component inside them. You could focus on just the component and its parents and hide the rest of the model.
Two ) Zoom should lock to the speed of the component you have open. I am constantly zooming/panning and orbiting into open space which zips off into nothingness. If I have a component open I would like zoom to be calibrated to that model as if I always have my mouse over the component.
Three ) Camera collision. If I am working inside the interior and zoom back and the camera hits something I would rather it adjust my field of view. Getting stuck in zoom hell inside my model somewhere is painful.
Four ) Middle mouse to pan and shift middle mouse to orbit. I constantly go back and forth to autocad and end up shift panning in Autocad which is panful. I also would be open to WASD to navigate the model at least as an option ( and Q & E for elevation). WASD is superior to mouse wheel in my opinion.
I’d like to go one step further and allow the user to set any number of parent contexts to show. Sometimes one is enough, sometimes you want two, sometimes five.
This is one of those things that makes a lot people hate SketchUp before they even had had the time to pick it up. Seriously, when you mention SketchUp at my school of architecture the first reaction is often someone saying how much they hate the camera controls. Fixing this would be one of the best PR things SketchUp could do.
There are a lot of situations when you do want to get the camera out of an object, but there could be an opt-in for instead having it collide.
That would be great too. Maybe there could be different fade colors for different depths inside the parent component.
For Sure! It may remove my love hate relationship but I would be ok with that Also, adding options to change the way you manipulate the camera would be great for PR.
True. Thats what I use zoom extents for but sometimes you just want to pass thru a window. Maybe holding a modifier key will allow passing thru
Merge Layout with Sketchup. Turn Layout into basically Paperspace from Autocad. That way you could have all of the Sketchup behaviors/tools in each Viewport. I think this would really elevate Layout to a new level.
Also, add snapping to the Origin of the Axis. Not sure why this hasn’t been there from the beginning but would be really awesome to have.
Expand literally the use of the right click menu. Also, add an auto hiding dock for tools to the Mac version of Sketchup please please please.
Add the dropdown from entity info right in to the entity info right click menu option. That way instead of opening a box to change a dropdown you can just do it right in 1 step.
Add soften edges can be the same. You can put like 10 soften percentages in there. I usually only change it a tiny bit to hide curve lines that sometimes pop up.
Layers could also be put into there.
There are probably more things that can be further expanded in the right click menu but those are the big 3 that I use. I would be left with color/materials and components at the right. Those two would be hard to put in right click and I wouldn’t want to anyways. Making color lock to components would be nice if the dock can’t happen.
I recommend adding a function to create custom systems of units, and my suggestion goes so far as to look at the kind of information you would need to gather from the user to achieve this. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute ideas for Sketchup.
I am using Sketchup to create quick floorplans out of Andrea Palladio’s Four Books on Architecture. Palladio used a Vicentine foot, which is divided into 12 inches, which in turn are divided into four minutes. So this system of units has two derived units in addition to the base unit. The Vicentine foot ties to ours because it is the equivalent of 13 3/4 of our American inches in size. (I computed this by measuring the length of the line he provides on page 79 of the MIT Press reprinting of The Four Books.) Right now, I just draw what I want and then scale it up by 1.14583. But it would be great to be able to draw in Sketchup directly in Vicentine feet, inches, and minutes.
So, the function I am asking you to add would allow users to:
• Name a new system of units;
• Specify how many derived units the new dimension has;
• Name the base unit;
• Name each derived unit;
• Define the relationship between the base unit and each derived unit, or in the alternative between one derived unit and another with error checking to make sure that when derived units are linked with each other there is at least one that is connected with the base unit.
Applying the above, here are the questions the dialogue box would be listening for, with answers as though I were dialoguing with the system to create the Vicentine foot and its subdivisions:
What is the name of the new system of units?
• Vicentine feet (This is the sytem’s name, equivalent to “metric system” or “U.S. customary units.”)
What is the name of the base unit?
• Vicentine foot
How many derived units does the base unit have?
• 2
What are the names of the derived units? (The number of slots to give the user for derived unit names would be taken from the number of derived units defined above. Alternatively, there could be a button that says “add a derived unit.”)
• inch
• minute
What abbreviations do you want to use for each part of the dimension?
• Vicentine foot = P.
• Vicentine inch = @
• Vicentine minute = m
Place abbreviations before or after the respective dimension? (Use either pop-down or radio buttons for user input.)
• before
How does one unit of the base unit relate to any dimension Sketchup already knows?
(User could enter text for the number, such as 13.75, and select from a pop-down the dimension he is relating to, such as inches, meters, miles, or whatever.)
• P. 1 = 13.75 in
How does one unit of the first derived unit relate to the base unit?
• @ 1 = P. 1/12
How does one unit of the second derived unit relate to either the base unit or one of its related defined derived units?
• m 1 = @ 1/4
This was fun to think about and I hope it makes a difference for you. It would be awesome if you added the feature for users to create new measurement systems!
Add a new Edge view style. Hide Overlapping co-planer Edges. I keep my roof, walls and slab as different groups and it would be SUPER nice to be able to hide only the overlapping edges. They go away in Lumion anyways but it would be nice while working on the model to always not see them. If you open up any of the groups those edges would be visible too. Also if you change the color of one plane the edge would re-appear.
Sketchup Web edition: The most frustrating thing I’ve come across so far is the inability to remap hotkeys or define new ones - for instance, I never use the tape measure, but frequently use the Dimension tool. It’s a bit of a PITA to break my flow, click the button on the left side, then select the Dimension one, then get back to where I started. Hitting D or shift-T or even just T would be so much quicker for me!
Please add Touch Bar support to Sketchup. The Autocad support for Touch Bar is so cool and useful. Allow it to be fully customizable.
Also…this is something that should have been here for years…multi touch support please please please. Pinch to zoom in and out, two finger drag for orbit and shift 2 finger drag for pan. Yes I know I can click on the orbit icon but you shouldn’t need too. This is something used more than any other tool and should feel natural. I don’t even have the icons there for mouse. Never would I waste time hunting and clicking for orbit.
Also add account based shortcut key saving. I am constantly having to re-setup my shortcuts.
Not the most important feature but one that does help us Mechanical and Aerospace engineers.
The ability, at any time of our modeling process, to do mass evaluation of the object. So lets say i am designing a new landing gear and i am about 2/3rds of the way through the modeling, being able to hit a button that lets me choose what each component is made of, then it calculates the final mass of all the components or what ever ones i want. Also, having the ability to edit the mass evaluation would be great for cost analysis. Another example. If i had 4 components in my model, each of a different material, i could find the total mass of all 4 components, as well as the individual mass and then have the ability to add a cost per unit in there, that way when the price of steel(or any other material) goes up or down, i can edit that number, then it will calculate a cost of the product as well. This way, i know where to trim the model for costs, without jeopardizing safety .
Another cool feature would be stress testing
like i said, not the most important, because i think im the only Mechanical/Aerospace engineer that uses sketchup pro haha
Basically, you are asking to switch the geometric kernel from surface to solids, which can only be done if you build from scratch.
That won’t happen, I guess, as SketchUp is merely an AEC-modeller were most shapes are pretty straight forward.
That said, it is still possible to create solids (with or without extensions) with more complex shapes by subtraction, trimming or deformation. They can become accurate when you have more segments, but they will still be just edges and faces, and will have inaccuracies.
(ie. a circle can have a centerpoint and calculated circumference, but as soon as you edit it (merge with other geometry) that info will be lost and you get approximate area’s or total length of the segments instead of a calculated perimeter)
A SketchUp solid is not the same as Nurbs-solid.
That said, the watertight objects in SketchUp can have all sorts of attributes, one of them being able to recognize if it is a solid, so why not have ‘Substance or Resource’ being one of them.
(I specifically do not want to use ‘Material’ because it refers to the all ready existing, which is only a cosmetic thing in SketchUp)
Substance or Resource would be a new Class or Object in the API (not sure if I phrase correctly @DanRathbun) with attributes like the ones you use in the Periodic System.(Mass, E, Density, Stress, Coefficient of expansion) or heritage (Pine from scandinavie, steel from recycled bins)
In SketchUp, we would use the Mass, primarily and heritage. Extensions could work out the others like expansion (eg. You set the geolocation, the date in Shadows and it picks the right temperature, so you can see how much your rail would expand)
The ability to report would be by File->Generate Report, as it is now all ready (we can now only generate the dynamic component and Advanced Attributes)
With the upcoming awareness of the limited resources, SketchUp could become more import in the process.
Edit: pinging Sefaira team, they have localized data for temperature and are more into physics @niraj.poudel@corney
Calculating volumes and finding center of mass and weights and stuff is very much possible already in a mesh modeler too, as long as you close your meshes so they represent solids. I’m about half way into getting Eneroth Center of Mass to support weights and densities, but put that project on ice as I had other things coming up and also no longer needed it myself.
In general I think introducing a mass dimension is best done by an extension as it doesn’t benefit the vast majority of users. Keep SketchUp clean and simple for everyone; add specialized functionality as extensions.
While I agree that my mass isn’t simple (gained some, past month), Mass in general is a pretty basic and a common known property of objects, not especially in the AEC industry, but for most of us.
SketchUp has an opportunity here in leading the way to a more constructible approach in the design process, by making it possible to do this in a universal way (ie. Advanced Attributes) instead of an extension. Talking Mass only here.
Also, adding options to change the way you manipulate the camera would be great for PR.