Help me out guys, fishy post on a SketchUp blog

[f700es]

Here is a bathroom that I happen to be updating this morning......screenshot of the PDF. Printed to a PDF at 1/2" = 1'-0" zoomed in to 300% on the PDF in Acrobat.

 

[Cad64]

Printed to a PDF at 1/2" = 1'-0" zoomed in to 300% on the PDF in Acrobat.

 

Yep, that's what an Autocad pdf looks like. Nice clean, crisp lines at any zoom factor.

[f700es]

Correct, at 6,400% the curves start to separate from the straight lines but still sharp and crisp line-work.

[David Bethel]

Like you guys, I have tried various methods of producing higher quality pdfs.

 

The best I have found is to plot to postscript file and then use acrobat distiller to make the final pdf. Autocad has used for as long as I can remember ( maybe release 9 ) and distiller gives you a lot of control for quailty.

 

These are shx font text entities @6,400 ( screen saved to jpg ) I don't think it can get much smoother.

 

I don't know if SU can deal with post script on not

 

I do think ACAD pdf drivers does not output in the same manor

 

-David

[f700es]

The new PDF drivers included with current versions of Acad do a good job at PDFs (for once, they used to suck). I for one try to avoid SHX fonts as they don't translate into searchable PDFs all that well, or not in my findings.

[Cad64]

Below is a pdf I just printed with the built in "DWG to PDF" printer that ships with Autocad. Zoomed up 6400% in Acrobat. No pixelation at all.

[tzframpton]

What a horrible blog post. I just read the article. Sounds like a high school kid.

[eldon]

My first impression of a product is its name. With a name like "SketchUp", anyone could have a chip on their shoulder.

 

Perhaps, instead of changing the world, there would be more success with a product name change.

[f700es]

Well the "SketchUp" name doesn't bother me and the original developers, @Last, seemed to be a great group of guys who wanted to develop an easy to use 3D program. Google took that vision and expanded on it by making it for EVERYONE and now Trimble, it's 3rd owner seems to want to do...something with it, I guess. I hope Trimble runs SU into the ground and makes way for an AutoDesk purchase. I also await for Bricssys Shape to come out and give SketchUp some competition. I love SU, it has helped me to get jobs and make some $$ on the side but there are a lot of users that seem to be a bit pretentious about it and what they can do with it. There was a SU forum out of Australia than had some admin and users that were pretty "stuck on themselves" if you know what I mean

Anyway, the audacity of performing a comparison between 2 different programs and not even having access or real knowledge of one of them is just....well.... not the best thing to do imho. That would be like me comparing SU to Maya when I have no real knowledge of using Maya.

[Cad64]

Anyway, the audacity of performing a comparison between 2 different programs and not even having access or real knowledge of one of them is just....well.... not the best thing to do imho. That would be like me comparing SU to Maya when I have no real knowledge of using Maya.

 

Exactly! The idea of doing a challenge like this when you (admittedly) have limited knowledge of the program you're challenging is preposterous.

[eldon]

I thought to zoom in at 6400% on a keyboard in each posted files. Guess which one is from which program.

[tzframpton]

Hmmm... boy. Let me think here.... LOL!

[f700es]

Alas, my post to this blog was not "allowed" and a fair and honest rebuttal of this challenge has been denied.

[Cad64]

Alas, my post to this blog was not "allowed"

 

As expected, but it proves your point. The challenge was obviously slanted in favor of SU. If the blogger honestly wanted to compare the two programs they would have welcomed your feedback and maybe even ran a new competition, head to head against you or another Autocad expert. But since they blocked your comments, they're showing that they are only interested in pro SU feedback. No critiques allowed. This blogger has zero credibility in my opinion.

[rkent]

I don't know anything about SU but the comparison of two PDF's is a weak way to determine which program is better. I also have never heard anyone claim one was better than the other, sounds like a straw man argument to me.

 

I went to the SU website and watched an architect go through some drawings he was working on and I was blown away by them. That looks like some serious software and seems to compete with Revit, although I know next to nothing about Revit either. I am not sure but SU seems to be geared to the building industry like Revit, but again I don't know much about either one. Based on what little I know and judging by price and licensing I would say SU is a better choice that Revit, at least for a one man shop doing house designs. No idea how it would be for a large commercial project with many people involved.

 

So AutoCAD is a jack of all trades, master of none kind of program, has a large user base and is so successful there are lots of cheaper clones available

[f700es]

SketchUp is GREAT but it isn't Revit in any way, shape or form. Not even close. I believe that Trimble's goal with SU was to mold it into their own BIM product but that has not happened yet. Our Revit experts can cite the extreme differences between the two in more detail.

[tzframpton]

I'm obviously involved in the MEP side of the industry, but I do hear my fellow architects go back and forth on which one is better between Revit and SU, and it always comes down to a specific output or task. Conceptualizing, SU take the cake. From there, Revit pulls ahead exponentially. I just sit back and smile while they argue... probably like what most people do here when I get fired up over a topic lol.

 

I think Kent has the right response, it's hard to look at outputs and compare. Which doesn't surprise me, for Kent has probably one of the most common sense minds on this message board. But, to back him up, my AutoCAD 2D outputs in PDF form, and my Revit 3D outputs in PDF form, in plan view only, are almost identical. This is, of course, planned because I want our standards to be as close as possible with our deliverables and most untrained eyes can't tell the difference. But wow, what a difference in platforms to get to the PDF output - which is a whole other topic of discussion altogether.

 

-TZ

[SLW210]

Maybe if the same results were on an AutoCAD blog I would give it some weight, seems pretty damning to me that quite a few knew the better one was AutoCAD on a SketchUp blog. Trying to add undecided and wrong picks together is also misleading. The AutoCAD is clearly much better, the fact many of the blog readers (I presume mostly SketchUp users) couldn't tell which was which is irrelevant.

[f700es]

Well that's my point, the supposed Acad PDF was not even from AutoCAD to begin with. It was made with the online DWG viewer. I would also bet that the DWG file was produced in SU Layout. A completely biased "test" either by design or sheer ignorance.

[f700es]

Further updates, it seems that I have been blocked from her twitter page as well. OMFG Bahahahahahahahahahahaha. I saw a post of hers come across twitter with the @sketchup tag and so I wanted to see what see posted but alas, it is not to be. It's pretty sad, I mean she does some great stuff but..oh well.

 

Let's see how fast someone runs and tells her, again