SketchUp 8 - Maintenance Release 1


SketchUp

The following issues have been fixed:

Shadows:

  • The shadow bug has been fixed! Previously, when the eye was in shadow, artifacts that look like inverted shadows could show up over all or part of the screen and annoying flickering could show up during animations.
  • The "shadow strings" bug has been fixed too. Previously, shadows could show string-like artifacts. There is now a Shadow Strings Fix toolbar which allows you to toggle on and off a fix for this issue.

Push Pull and Follow Me:

  • The Follow Me cursor is now correctly shown when using the Follow Me tool with pre-selected items.
  • The Follow Me cursor is now correctly shown when activating the Follow Me tool via a keyboard shortcut.
  • The Context menu items are now complete when activating the Push/Pull or Follow Me tools and right-clicking on an entity.
  • (Mac only) Previously, certain shortcuts weren't respected while using the Push/Pull tool. This issue has been fixed.

Image export:

  • (PC only) In this release, Windows users should be able to export images at a higher resolution. Export capabilities still depend on your computer environment but are now consistent between Mac and Windows machines.
  • When exporting images with the camera.aspect_ratio set to a non-default value, block-like artifacts could be seen in the exported images. This issue has been fixed.

Performance:

  • In this release, SketchUp is now built using the /Largeaddressaware property on the PC. This change allows SketchUp to potentially allocate/address more memory on 64-bit machines. (Note: 64-bit users must have at least 1.89 GB RAM to see any improvement, and improvement is only noticeable in areas where memory was a limiting factor (e.g exporting images).

Outliner (Mac only):

  • Previously, when working in Outliner and selecting or editing entities, non-selected entities might expand or contract. Additionally, after scrolling in the Outliner, sometimes choosing an entity would select a different entity than desired. Both of these issues have been fixed.
  • Search now works properly after minimizing and restoring the Outliner.
  • Component and group names should now be visible in Outliner results after doing a keyword search. Found items are shown in red.
  • The Rename context menu on the Outliner > Details menu works as expected and allows you to rename components and groups.
  • Previously, when renaming a component by single clicking on the name in the Outliner, you couldn't see the text as you typed it. You should now be able to see the text when renaming components or groups via this method.

Add Location:

  • (Mac only) Previously if you launched the Add Location dialog, kept it open, and then closed the SketchUp model, the Add Location dialog would no longer open. This issue has been fixed.
  • Previously when navigating to a location and then taking a snapshot, the maps portion of the dialog re-sized in a way that was visually jarring. We have improved the appearance of the dialog in this case.

Animation:

  • In some cases, animations exported on the Mac in SU8 were not as smooth as they were in SU7.1. The underlying issue has been fixed.
  • (PC only) You are now able to select a codec other than the default.
  • (PC only) Estimated file size is now correct (previously it was reported always as 0).

3D Warehouse:

  • Previously, uploading large models to the 3D Warehouse might fail. You should be able to upload models up to 10MB.
  • (Mac only) Previously, when you searched in the Components browser and then clicked on a results link for the first time, you were sometimes brought to the wrong model in the 3D Warehouse. This has now been fixed and clicking on links should always bring you to the correct model.

Outer Shell:

  • When performing Solid tool operations on coplanar geometry where some of the geometry is on a hidden layer and some is not, geometry could incorrectly be removed. This issue is now fixed and the Solid tools ignore the hidden geometry in this specific case.

Toolbars:

  • Previously, when adding new Ruby toolbars and relaunching SU, existing Ruby toolbars could unexpectedly reposition themselves and Restore Toolbar positions would not restore toolbars to their original positions. This issue has been fixed. (Note: it is still possible for Ruby toolbars to become repositioned when deleting plugins.)

Scenes:

  • Geometry will not disappear when generating scene thumbnails in a model where hidden layers were created via Ruby.
  • (Mac only) Scene thumbnails are only created if the Scenes dialog is open.
  • (Mac only) When creating a scene via the View menu the scene thumbnail is now created immediately.

Match Photo:

  • Previously, when opening a model or creating a new matched photo scene, the active scene was not selected causing confusion as the settings shown in the Scenes panel could differ from the settings of the active scene. This issue has now been fixed.

Localization:

  • (Mac only) When using the "Save as" context menu for a component, the model will now be saved even when saving to a folder with international characters.
  • Many translation fixes for localized versions of SketchUp.

EPix:

  • Five separate fixes for EPix export including correctly exporting similar-looking materials and materials that matched the background color, exporting the default front face color, and exporting edges correctly.

Ruby:

  • The View.pick_helper(x,y,aperture) method now respects arguments passed to it allowing the Bezier.rb and BZ tool plugins to work again.
  • Over ten fixes for Ruby issues and a few new methods for Ruby developers. Please see the SketchUp Ruby API site for details.

Crashes:

  • We've resolved some of the top SketchUp crashes (as determined by our Bug Splat and BreakPad data). SketchUp should be more stable now.

Other:

  • (Mac only) On machines where Arial Bold and Arial Italic fonts were missing or corrupted, the Components dialog could be blank or unresponsive. This issue has been fixed and the Components browser should now work even in this case.
  • Images correctly hide when editing components with "hide rest of model."
  • Walk tool no longer bounces when walking.
  • Measurement toolbar works as expected when in the top toolbar.
  • The customizable Standard Views tool palette no longer shows cryptic numbers for the tooltips.
  • Watermarks behave as expected during scene transitions and when switching to a Matched Photo scene.
  • The full text is visible for Entity Info for components or groups.
  • Launching SketchUp by dragging and dropping a model to the SketchUp.exe now does a proper validity check.
  • Previously, after switching scenes, the ground plane/edge effects and shadows over a background matched photo image degraded/flashed as you moved the mouse over the model. This flashing occurred until the model was modified. This issue should now be fixed.

Known issues

  • The shadows strings fix will, in some models, make shadows look better, but in other models, may cause different kinds of shadow artifacts to show up. Because of this, the shadows strings fix is implemented as a toggle button on the new Shadow Strings Fix toolbar and is turned off by default.
  • (NVIDIA graphics cards only) Users with NVIDIA cards are more likely to see the "shadow strings" bug reported above, especially when the eye is in shadow. Toggle on the Shadow String Fix to work around this issue.
  • (PC only) If you have an English operating system set to a different language, you may have problems with Microsoft's .NET installation dialog box. In this case we suggest installing .NET separately then restarting your SketchUp installation.

LayOut

The following issues have been fixed:

Preserve Scale on Resize - we worked on preserving scale to handle typical user workflows in a more efficient way.

  • LayOut now rescales SketchUp models after editing.
  • When editing a SketchUp model, "Preserve scale on resize" should be automatically disabled.
  • Setting the scale of a model no longer changes the style back to the style seen in the "Last saved SketchUp view."

DWG/DXF export bug fixes:

  • Dashed lines scaling is improved in export to DWG/DXF. (Note: if you're planning on viewing your export in Model space, you'll want to export to model space; if you're viewing in Paper space use that export instead.)
  • Fixed three bugs affecting DWG/DXF Unicode character export.
  • Rotated entities in scaled DWG/DXF export are place correctly.
  • Export scale is correct when exporting to DWG/DXF model space.
  • Metric scaling should be the correct scale.
  • (Mac only) Previously, when exporting to DWG/DXF for the first time the page range of "All" wasn't honored. This has been fixed.
  • (Mac only) Lines break on a space when possible for DWG/DXF export.
  • (Mac only) When lines break mid-word in a DWG/DXF export, the lines are complete.
  • (Mac only) Previously, if you had text on more than one page of a DWG/DXF export, text would scale at an incorrect size on subsequent pages. This has been fixed.

Localization:

  • Fixed three bugs affecting DWG/DXF Unicode character export.
  • (PC only) Previously, some Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters didn't display properly at all or in Display mode. These characters should now be correctly visible.
  • Various translation fixes including template names.

Fonts:

  • Previously, undoing a font color would link that action to the previous undo item, and you couldn't undo just the font change. Now font color changes are their own undo item.
  • Previously, if you had mixed-sized fonts in the same text box, the box would render differently than seen in text edit. Text now renders the same in both conditions.

Other bug fixes:

  • The "Scale to weight" drop-down in the Shape Style inspector better handles systems where a comma is used as the decimal separator.
  • Fixed a crash that occurred when using Document Setup > References > Relink to link to invalid SketchUp file.
  • Many Template fixes to make settings more consistent from template to template.
  • Previously, you were not able to use a window select to select a clipped image unless you selected the entire hidden image bound. This issue has been fixed.
  • Previously, when editing inside a group, clicking outside of a dimension, text, SketchUp model, or path editor would exit the entire group edit. This issue has been fixed.
  • Previously, getting the center, endpoint, or on edge inference, would cause on face inferences stop working. This issue has been fixed.
  • (Mac only) Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to edit a SketchUp file after doing so in presentation mode.
  • (Mac only) Pan cursor correctly shows up with the shift key activated.

Style Builder

  • Previously, applying any color (other than black) to the strokes caused many of the lines to drop out in the Style Preview model. This issue has been fixed.