Sketchup tutorial crashes

[Rob Blaustein]

Not a design question per se (one's coming soon though), but this seems to be a place to post questions about sketchup. I'm playing with it now but have had some really bad crashes with the tutorial. I mean bad crashes--of the sort I very rarely get with WinXP Pro. As in computer completely freezes and needs to be hard-booted (ctrl-alt-del does bupkiss). It's happened a few times and it's making me nervous. I wonder about a video card issue or maybe it's because I use dual monitors. Has anyone seen this behavior? Some relevant specs re my computer setup:
Dell XPS 3.2 GHz P4
HD's are 120 GB RAID 0
2GB RAM
WinXP Pro SP1
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Dual Samsung SyncMaster 191T monitors (one in portrait, the other in landscape--don't ask)

I haven't played with the regular program, just the tutorial. Any thoughts?

[John Miliunas]

Rob, I can't say anything on the SU tutorial but, you certainly do NOT lack the horsepower on that rig! I would probably go after three items: 1) Check to see if there are any updates for your vid card drivers. 2) You note that you're running SP1 on your XP operating system. Were I in your shoes, I would create an easy to identify "restore point" and step that puppy up to SP2! 3) Lastly, go out to the SU site and see if they have a FAQ area, where someone may have hit upon this issue before. I think they also have a forum area, which may also afford you some answers. As an afterthought, you might also want to PM Dave Richards or Todd Burch. They are pretty much our resident SU guru's!

[Rob Blaustein]

Rob, I can't say anything on the SU tutorial but, you certainly do NOT lack the horsepower on that rig! I would probably go after three items: 1) Check to see if there are any updates for your vid card drivers. 2) You note that you're running SP1 on your XP operating system. Were I in your shoes, I would create an easy to identify "restore point" and step that puppy up to SP2! 3) Lastly, go out to the SU site and see if they have a FAQ area, where someone may have hit upon this issue before. I think they also have a forum area, which may also afford you some answers. As an afterthought, you might also want to PM Dave Richards or Todd Burch. They are pretty much our resident SU guru's!

Thanks John. Good suggestions. I'm usually reluctant to update drivers if everything is working OK, but XP's restore point (or rolling back to prev driver) should help if the new driver causes more trouble. Ditto for SP2. But there it would mean patching some apps that I run, and it always takes time. But I may have to do these things. And I'll check out the SU site as well to see if others have noticed problems. I figured there are a lot of SU users here so I would check here first.

[Dave Richards]

Rob, you might want to look at the SU site for video card info. I can't remember but I think the Radeon ATI cards aren't the best with SU. The dual monitor thing should be alright, though. Good luck.

[Rob Blaustein]

Rob, you might want to look at the SU site for video card info. I can't remember but I think the Radeon ATI cards aren't the best with SU. The dual monitor thing should be alright, though. Good luck.

Dave,
Thanks for the heads up. I just looked at the forum SU site and saw that yes, people have complained about ATI cards. Sounds like ATI is working on some of the issues. It might help to put in the latest driver--I haven't done that in over a year.

Quick SU question--I just went through the basic tutuorials 1-3 but I'm still a bit confused about some very basic things. I'm new to CAD programs specifically meant for ww'ers or architects, though I work a lot with CorelDraw which I guess is more directed towards graphic arts applications, though I could be off base here. Is SU meant to be a CAD program in the way that DesignCAD is, or is it meant to be more of an artisitic drawing program? That is, do ww'ers use SU alone to create a scaled set of plans, or in conjuction with another CAD program. I ask because it seems like there is less emphasis, at least in the tutorial, on drawing things to a specified dimension, something which comes more naturally to me in CorelDraw (maybe cause I know how to use it). I probably just need to learn how to use SU more.
-Rob

[Dave Richards]

Rob, I hope the driver update fixes your problems.

As to your questions, No, SketchUp was never intended to be a CAD application. The original intent was for it to be a simple, intuitive computerized version of sketching on a napkin. It is the brainchild of an architect who wanted to be able to quickly communicate ideas to clients. It was also intended to make it a simple matter to make changes to a model on the fly. Users have tried turning it into a CAD application and to that end, SU has added a lot of capability including dimensioning and the ability to export CAD files.

That said, it is possible to create working drawings directly in SU. I do that and find it easier than outputting a DXF and then working it in AutoCAD or whatever.

Drawing to specific dimensions is simple. Start drawing a line and type the desired length. Push/Pull a shape and type the height. It's now 3D. Use construction lines (drawn with the tape measure tool or protractor) as you would pencil lines for layout.

If you need clarification on some procedure, feel free to PM me. Tutorials are easy to make and you can look at them right in SU.

[Rob Blaustein]

Thanks Dave, that does clarify things for me. And thanks for the offer to help out. As one of our resident SU 'gurus' you are very generous with your expertise.
-Rob