A Google SketchUp alternative?

[uhcafigdc]

A technician at my company has been using SketchUp Pro to render drawings. It's perfect for him because it's cheap and it's easy. The problem is that Google SketchUp doesn't perform very well with some larger drawings. These larger drawings may have more than ten 3-story buildings in them.

 

I am looking for a way around this, obviously. I have a feeling that the performance bottleneck is in the SketchUp software, but I guess I could be wrong.

We tried it on some other computers, including:

a Dell DXP051 with 512MB ram, RADEON X300 SE 128MB, Intel® Pentium® D CPU @ 2.80GHz

a Dell MM061 with 1024MB ram, RADEON X1300 256.0 MB, Intel® CPU T2050 @ 1.60GHz

 

 

Is there another application that isn't too expensive that I could be switching him over to? I am aware that the full version of AutoCAD will render in 3D, and along with some LISP routines I can make something look like it was drawn by hand, however the technician is not trained in AutoCAD and so he doesn't like this idea.

[Noahma]

A technician at my company has been using SketchUp Pro to render drawings. It's perfect for him because it's cheap and it's easy. The problem is that Google SketchUp doesn't perform very well with some larger drawings. These larger drawings may have more than ten 3-story buildings in them.

 

I am looking for a way around this, obviously. I have a feeling that the performance bottleneck is in the SketchUp software, but I guess I could be wrong.

We tried it on some other computers, including:

a Dell DXP051 with 512MB ram, RADEON X300 SE 128MB, Intel® Pentium® D CPU @ 2.80GHz

a Dell MM061 with 1024MB ram, RADEON X1300 256.0 MB, Intel® CPU T2050 @ 1.60GHz

 

 

Is there another application that isn't too expensive that I could be switching him over to? I am aware that the full version of AutoCAD will render in 3D, and along with some LISP routines I can make something look like it was drawn by hand, however the technician is not trained in AutoCAD and so he doesn't like this idea.

 

 

there are several 3rd party render engines built to work with Sketch up, some of them are open source. Or is it your computer cannot handle the size of the models in sketch up?

[Cad64]

a Dell DXP051 with 512MB ram, RADEON X300 SE 128MB, Intel® Pentium® D CPU @ 2.80GHz

a Dell MM061 with 1024MB ram, RADEON X1300 256.0 MB, Intel® CPU T2050 @ 1.60GHz

 

Both of these computers are carrying less than minimal RAM. Try the file on a machine with 2GB RAM and see what happens. You might also want to look into getting a better graphics card. And stick with the 2.80Ghz processor. The 1.60Ghz processor will not be fast enough to handle large scenes.

[f700es]

I think the hardware is the problem. What is the size of the files that are giving you problems? Are those laptops? I have absolutely no respect for Ati video cards. Not to insult you but this is my opinion with using them in the past, so please don't take offense. I compared the 1st card to my 6600 at home and here is the result.

 

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=85&card2=191

 

It did worse than a AGP card from 2 years ago.

 

The 2nd card did not do much better.

 

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=349&card2=191

 

If these are desktops I would really consider getting some newer cards or if they are old enough replacing them. If you are doing CAD and SketchUp 8 hours a day at work a workstation graphics card is a must! If not that then a high end game card will be better than a low end card.

My picks would be an nVidia Quadro FX series card 1700 or above, yes these are expensive. Or an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT 512mb or above.

 

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=349&card2=512

 

I would have 2gb of ram, no less. Ram is cheap. Good luck and let us know how you fair. Also remember that SU is very heavy on the resource and that cleaver usage of layers can also make working a bit easier.

[uhcafigdc]

I just tried loading SketchUp on another workstation:

Athlon XP 3000+ @ 2.1GHz

2GB Ram, an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB

 

A .skp file that is just over 1MB is pretty jerky when panning around in SketchUp.

 

The large drawing this guy was having problems with is a 103MB .skp file.

 

 

Let's suppose that yes, I should build a new, faster computer for this guy to render drawings with. Is a fast computer going to be enough? Is SketchUp really meant to handle a 103MB drawing?

 

Noahma, you mentioned there being some third party rendering engines that I could use with SketchUp. What did you have in mind?

[Cad64]

Check out Kerkythea. It's free.

[f700es]

I just tried loading SketchUp on another workstation:

Athlon XP 3000+ @ 2.1GHz

2GB Ram, an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB

 

That is still a low end unit, I am sorry to say. I had a 5200 card 5 years ago. A 103 mb file will bring this to it's knees.

 

A .skp file that is just over 1MB is pretty jerky when panning around in SketchUp.

 

The large drawing this guy was having problems with is a 103MB .skp file.

 

 

Let's suppose that yes, I should build a new, faster computer for this guy to render drawings with. Is a fast computer going to be enough? Is SketchUp really meant to handle a 103MB drawing?

 

Noahma, you mentioned there being some third party rendering engines that I could use with SketchUp. What did you have in mind?

 

Kerkythea is good option.

 

Sean

[boofredlay]

Hi uhcafigdc.

 

SketchUp is known for not supporting high polygon counts well. A faster

computer will help but there will be a point where SU just won't be able to

handle it. That said, I have only run into a couple models that given me trouble.

 

Make sure when you are orbiting or moving around in SU that the shadows are

turned off as having them on will slow things to a crawl, even with smaller files.

Also, use your scenes tabs and set the delay to 0 so SU does not have to

calculate geometry from one scene to another.

 

As far as render engines go I would also recommend Podium.

http://www.suplugins.com/

It works inside SU as a plugin. Very easy to use.

Here are some recent images I created with Podium + Photoshop:

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/view/mb/file?username=supodiumforum&id=714610

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/view/mb/file?username=supodiumforum&id=699282

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/view/mb/file?username=supodiumforum&id=699281

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/view/mb/file?username=supodiumforum&id=702576

 

The large site rendering SketchUp file is over 54MB by the way.

 

I hope this helps.

[CADken]

another piece of advice would be to turn some of the layers off when not in use... this might save some of the jerkiness, or save each level as it's own file, combine them for the final render...

 

and +1 to kerky, works great.

[f700es]

Yes, use layers. Also use components (SU's version of blocks). You can also turn your face style down to no textures or even wireframe to speed up your work. Give it a try.

 

Props again to Boo for Podium. It uses Kerky as it's rendering engine. It is not free but it is a lot more user friendly and easier to use and well worth the cost. If I did more rendering I would get Podium, no doubt.

[Stephen]

boofredlay,

 

Thanks for the Podium link. That looks fantastic. Time to investigate a bit more......

 

Cheers,

 

S

[Stephen]

Agree with the earlier posts about RAM and video card too.

 

However one thing that seemed to be a big help for me was moving to a dual core processor. Although that's probably just in the context of having something else running at the same time, even Outlook, as I'm pretty sure SU only uses one core.

 

Anyway, hope this helps,

 

S

[f700es]

Yes SU will only use a single processor thread. But it will help with multi-tasking.

[Stephen]

Yes SU will only use a single processor thread. But it will help with multi-tasking.

 

Thought so.

 

S