Trimble, please reanimate Sketchup

[MikeWayzovski]

@Aboammar

I understand where you are coming from

That probably relates to the fact that I work for an official Partner of SketchUp. But they don’t own us, for that matter, we also sell Modo and the whole Altair suite besides different Renders like Twinmotion (Epic!), V-Ray and so on.

But I originally was a building contracter and when asking why certain software did not take full advantage of my new state-of-the-art computer they tend to compare it with the building process, you can’t start on the second floor if the 1st floor walls aren’t there. Prefab would speed up some thing in the building process itself, but takes more time to prepare and logistics. This time can be spread, just hire a few more subcontractors and they could all be working on all the elements the same time, but putting things together relies on a sequential order.

Another thing is, if you ask two contractors about how they work and why one would be better than the other, you might choose contractor A to build your house and maybe even hire contractor B for parts of it, but when something goes wrong and ask contractor C for an expertise, you wonder how you even considered hiring A and B in the first place!

Parallel computing sometimes actually slows down the process, imagine you would go to work with two cars instead of one, you drive car A a few hundred yards, walk back to drive car B a few yards ahead, etc.

Sometimes when asked by a client when a job was suppose to be finished I would joke about starting with the skirting , first, because that’s usually done at the end (Client: ‘But there are no walls to put them on?!?’ reply: ‘But the wall contractor does know where to put them, though, between those skirts!’)

On the subject of reanimating, I agree that there are parts of the rendering that could be improved, especially in relation with the inference system. Check this thread for instance:

Outliner object list is slowing down SketchupPro a lot - option to reduce number of items displayed?

The issue is not the many leaf objects for trees or the size of the file. I can handle this nicely with hiding the heavy trees in layers. Modelling like this in SketchUp is fine for me. Swapping heavy objects with proxies, just because I want to open up the outliner to arrange some objects and then close it again and then swapping back, is a bit combersome. If I would use FredoGhost to do this, then in fact I would generate even more objects, as you then have the proxy and the real object in t…

This is exactly where SketchUp could improve, it treats all the leave components as if it were constructible elements in a building design and so the database in Outliner get’s bloated, while if treated as an simple (or more complex) asset that just needs to get visualised while orbiting, it would only use the multithreaded GPU instead of the serial computed data in the CPU.

Or, like in the web-based 3D viewer of Trimble Connect, provide a way to decrease the load of info while zooming in on an object (like in a gaming engine, the level of detail is dependant on the distance of the object)
That’s why it’s easy to load multiple models inside the viewer. But when a model is altered, it needs to reload.

I’m glad I was able to direct this thread back to Trimble connect

[pbacot]

@MikeWayzovski

This is exactly where SketchUp could improve, it treats all the leave components as if it were constructible elements in a building design and so the database in Outliner get’s bloated, while if treated as an simple (or more complex) asset that just needs to get visualised while orbiting, it would only use the multithreaded GPU instead of the serial computed data in the CPU.

Isn’t this where ‘proxy’ elements come into use for rending? SketchUp doesn’t have to process the heavy geometry at all.

[Aboammar]

… almost all features in Cinema 4D are now multithreaded and you can expect multithreading to be added to more features, or multithreaded features to replace old single threaded ones, in upcoming feature releases.

I understand from that reply that almost all tools are multithreaded, not just the rendering tools! He also said that future release will replace all old single threaded tools with multithreaded ones… And I assume this includes modeling tools.

[Anssi]

@Aboammar

future release will replace all old single threaded tools with multithreaded ones

That is what Autodesk promised to do in about 1995 for 3DS Max. We are still waiting.

[Aboammar]

@Anssi

That is what Autodesk promised to do in about 1995 for 3DS Max. We are still waiting.

That is not the point here, Anssi. The point according to the information is that multithreaded support for modeling tools is also possible otherwise developers would never promise for something that is impossible in the first place.

I don’t know about Autodesk but maybe they did not deliver what they promised because it is hard and very costly to implement such things or maybe for other reasons.

However, Maxon still recommends to go with more core numbers over lower cores. So I would defiantly take their advice for my upcoming workstation.

[endlessfix]

Core modeling and all direct modification of the current model is single thread, in all current applications.

https://developers.maxon.net/docs/Cinema4DCPPSDK/html/page_manual_cinemathreads.html

[pep75]

Maybe the problem is within its name and concept. It’s a ‘sketch’-tool. Not meant to make sophisticate 3d models etc…but the problem is; it does! It has become an unique tool for designers with great possibilities and great limitations. For us users there is NO alternative which works as gentle as SU…Trimble is monopolist. Suggestion for Trimble, develop an app which is based on the SU Ui that focusses on professionals. No sketching but designing…without the limitations of the initial SU concept. Let it go, let it gooo!

[AK_SAM]

Good post…I like the example of individual leafs (leaves) .
Exploding all the leaves and hiding their edges helps a little but they are still calculated as fully snappable, reportable and interactable objects. Even hiding their edges doesnt really help with snapping very much.

Turning them into “background” objects would be nice. That would be a halfway step between being visible, and being hidden.

So imagine if we had a “lock” option or “background” option for components (and other elements such as imported images).

Then lets take this idea even further.
Think about the difference between sketchups model window and a similar view within a rendering software like twinmotion or lumion.
Rendering software isnt very editable, but its rendered much faster. So how about Sketchup having a viewing mode that changed certain components (we could call them proxies) into rendered and shaded items . This wouldn’t be too different to a second window running Vray next or Lumion (with live sync enabled)…but it would be running inside sketchup as a mode just like Wireframe or Shaded.
In all views except the rendered view those proxies re just a box or simplified representation.

This wouldbt be too unlike when I have trees that have the foliage on a separate layer that I turn off. Only the problem with putting 400mb of trees and 3d cars onto a hidden layer is that it is all still being calculated (and editable) within sketchup (and…on a single cpu core)

[ebold]

I admit, I should have reviewed all the various earlier threads before I posted my rant. The “Same Sketchup you love, new way to buy” and Josh.obj’s threads in particular all neatly and more clearly sum up my frustrations with Trimble. It looks like its off to Blender I go.