glenn bradley
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SU Tools Models
- Thread starter glenn bradley
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Cool...I had missed it. 
Dave Richards
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That tool set is nice but be aware that most of the components are rather fat. If you start dropping a bunch of them into your shop model you may find computer performance degrading. It wouldn't hurt to take a little time to clean up the components you want to use and by all means, purge your model of unused components to keep things clean.
Aaron Beaver
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Those models came in very handy when I did my layout for my shop in my basement. I was even able to put in the ceiling joist so I could see how the duct work for my dust collector might run. Not sure the link will work but here it is, like Dave said this file is pretty big as I made different tabs to show different things.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=basement+shop&btnG=Search&styp=m
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=basement+shop&btnG=Search&styp=m
Last edited:
Dave Richards
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Aaron, for what it is worth, in about 3 minutes I got the file size on your basement shop model down from about 3Mb to 1.1Mb. 
Nice shop drawing though.
Nice shop drawing though.
Aaron Beaver
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Dave, could you give the steps or make another post explaining how to make the file size smaller? If its on the forum I can search for it next time I need it.
Thanks
Thanks
glenn bradley
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This brings up a good point. In another product I use at work, very complex models are built but, once established they are converted to a more static form. This reduces their size and complexity for use in other diagrams or environments. I would think SU has a similar function or tool(?). I guess that was actually a question.
Dave Richards
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Alright, here's what I did to clean up Aaron's model.
First, I purged the file of unused components, materials, etc. This is something you can do manually but I used a plugin called PurgeAll.rb which goes through and looks for stuff to purge in all the places you can purge stuff. Components, Materials, Styles, Layers. I Aaron's model there were 124 components , 6 layers and 51 materials that got purged.
That alone probably contributed the most to reducing the file size. I also converted the shop walls. floor and the steps into a component. I made each copy a component and then got the definition of one of them and applied it to the other two. I used a script called ApplyTo.rb for that although I could have just deleted the extra basement wall components and copied the first one over.
Finally, I ran the Purge All script again to clean up the unneeded components. The steel beams are groups and could be components copied to the other views of the basement. Actually, if you open the Outliner and scroll to the bottom of the list you'll find 24 groups. These could be reduced to 8 components instead and this would further bring down the file size.
One important thing to note about components is that deleting it from the drawing does not delete it from the In Model Component Library. You have to go into the library and purge it. Or use the Purge script. In fact the same applied to removing materials and styles. This is important because you don't see thiese things unless you go looking for them. It would be kind of like having a book with a bunch of pages written in invisible ink. You can't see the writing but it is there.
I didn't touch a single one of the tools here but each one of them could be reduced by reducing segment/face counts on curved surfaces and eliminating lines and faces you can't see.
Glenn, unfortunately SketchUp doesn't have the sort of feature you mention. I guess it could be nice although I suspect in most cases you'd want to actually go the opposite way starting out loose with little detail and fleshing out as you go. I think the best thing to do is consider the application of the model you're drawing. For example, suppose you're only working out where tools will be in a shop layout. there's really no point in drawing a bandsaw blade on the bandsaw. In fact there's little point in drawing much more than the base cabinet as a box and the wheel covers as another box on top of the base. If you drew it that way you'd end up with only 11 faces which makes for a very light model. Maybe add another 6 faces if you want to show the table.
In some cases you might find that you could reduce a model some by exploding all the components and/or groups that make up that model. You could then run through in x-ray or wireframe view and delete unwanted geometry. At this point I don't know of any automated way to do that.
You can select components and replace them with other components from a component library so if you had lighter weight versions you could insert them instead. I see this being used in the revers, though, more often. Suppose you start with simple boxes to represent kitchen cabinets. You might already have those in a component library so you don't have to draw them each time you do a kitchen. Then, after getting the locations of the cabinets down, you can replace the simple boxes with fully drawn cabinet components so that you can open doors and drawerrs to check for conflicts or even run the cutlist script so you can figure out what materials you need.
Babble, babble, babble. Alright! Wake up!
First, I purged the file of unused components, materials, etc. This is something you can do manually but I used a plugin called PurgeAll.rb which goes through and looks for stuff to purge in all the places you can purge stuff. Components, Materials, Styles, Layers. I Aaron's model there were 124 components
, 6 layers and 51 materials that got purged.That alone probably contributed the most to reducing the file size. I also converted the shop walls. floor and the steps into a component. I made each copy a component and then got the definition of one of them and applied it to the other two. I used a script called ApplyTo.rb for that although I could have just deleted the extra basement wall components and copied the first one over.
Finally, I ran the Purge All script again to clean up the unneeded components. The steel beams are groups and could be components copied to the other views of the basement. Actually, if you open the Outliner and scroll to the bottom of the list you'll find 24 groups. These could be reduced to 8 components instead and this would further bring down the file size.
One important thing to note about components is that deleting it from the drawing does not delete it from the In Model Component Library. You have to go into the library and purge it. Or use the Purge script. In fact the same applied to removing materials and styles. This is important because you don't see thiese things unless you go looking for them. It would be kind of like having a book with a bunch of pages written in invisible ink. You can't see the writing but it is there.
I didn't touch a single one of the tools here but each one of them could be reduced by reducing segment/face counts on curved surfaces and eliminating lines and faces you can't see.
Glenn, unfortunately SketchUp doesn't have the sort of feature you mention. I guess it could be nice although I suspect in most cases you'd want to actually go the opposite way starting out loose with little detail and fleshing out as you go. I think the best thing to do is consider the application of the model you're drawing. For example, suppose you're only working out where tools will be in a shop layout. there's really no point in drawing a bandsaw blade on the bandsaw. In fact there's little point in drawing much more than the base cabinet as a box and the wheel covers as another box on top of the base. If you drew it that way you'd end up with only 11 faces which makes for a very light model. Maybe add another 6 faces if you want to show the table.
In some cases you might find that you could reduce a model some by exploding all the components and/or groups that make up that model. You could then run through in x-ray or wireframe view and delete unwanted geometry. At this point I don't know of any automated way to do that.
You can select components and replace them with other components from a component library so if you had lighter weight versions you could insert them instead. I see this being used in the revers, though, more often. Suppose you start with simple boxes to represent kitchen cabinets. You might already have those in a component library so you don't have to draw them each time you do a kitchen. Then, after getting the locations of the cabinets down, you can replace the simple boxes with fully drawn cabinet components so that you can open doors and drawerrs to check for conflicts or even run the cutlist script so you can figure out what materials you need.
Babble, babble, babble. Alright! Wake up!
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For some reason, this made me think of a Formula I racing mechanic working on a street car.Aaron, for what it is worth, in about 3 minutes I got the file size on your basement shop model down from about 3Mb to 1.1Mb.
Nice shop drawing though.
Thanks for the crash course, Dave.