I do not understand why we discuss dwg exports out of archicad. (that certainly are layered, grouped, and have an origin)The topic is dwg out of sketchup.
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Quite true and I agree with you for certain projects in certain parts of the world. Trust me though, that in here it is standard for the worst reasons as it is so in a great part of the world.
Iāve used Autodesk as a metaphor, to simplify the overall idea that DWG and RVT are dominating and even IFC had/has trouble imposing as a system when RVT imposed itself so strongly and the file format fight has not yet settled perfectly.
I am not discussing that. I just mentioned, as AC is the BIM app I am forced to use (and be an "expert"on).
I think Iāve proven that I agree with you there and Iāve also proven that the requests I have donāt result in such a thing.
That justification of keeping SketchUp simple canāt be confused with keeping it simplistic.
It has tools and the tools should work flawlessly.
Thatās not the case. SketchUp has the tools we need but sometimes they donāt work that well or work underpar. We can find examples of this in almost every aspect of the SU+LO combo except modeling (even on modeling SketchUp has serious limitations but clearly not in architecture for the most boxy kind of geometry) .
So, SketchUp is simple to use for simple purposes but itās not simple to use in a lot of contexts. Architecture wise this is exactly like that. Once you need something more advanced or more inline with standards, itās very hard to achieve (this is true for either DWG or IFC, not true at all with PDF output, to name the most used file formats).
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To get proper dwg export will not in any way whatsoever make the user interface in sketchup unclear and complex. The dwg export settings is not part of the everyday user interface.
And the export settings themselves do not need to be more complex. If anything, they can be simplified. Who needs edge extensions and profile lines in dwg export? ( I know some people uses profile lines as a sort of elaborate layer replacement system). With proper layer export you could take those options away and UN-BLOAT the feature.
The export routine is made already. Its there. Someone wrote that code. Just take that same code and run it for every group and component separately, save it for each group, and name each like it was named in the sketchup file . Put it on the proper layer from that tag. Keep that origin.
The discussion about dwg as an outdated format misses the point completely when one states that one doesnāt like the format, and doesnāt like Autocad. Who does? Its about the tools one actually needs, not about how one would like the world to be like.
And its not like sketchup is ready to use ifc painlessly either. Sketchup best practises is to paint surfaces inside groups and components. Ifc colouring comes from what color/material is set to the group. So thereās a conflict right there. One solution could have been to export ifc using color by tag, but that does not work yet.
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Amen, amen, amen!
I do Color my groups, I also Color some inner faces when I need special uv maps and different finishes. But when I export to ifc that group Color is missing from IFC info. IFC exporter needs to be smarter, things need better integration between them. I have skalp or curio section dealing with that group material as I need, but I donāt have Trimble Connect or IFC export doing the same.
Generate report is able to retrieve group materials. Why canāt IFC export?
This is just an excellent example of how streamlined things could be. Thanks @Odd_Haakon_Byberg
If this seems bloated, it shouldnāt. it should be just clever and working in the background. The whole classifier tool should be more objective. The IFC export should work accordingly. and clear guidelines on how to build the Sketchup model organization for proper IFC compliance should be made. They should be posted as an official Sketchup site tutorial.
We have tutorials for working with Sketchup and photoshop but not for thisā¦ why? Because ifc export doesnāt work and no tutorial could explain how to make it workā¦ yet ifc export is thereā¦ bloating Sketchup!
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Right on JQL ā¦ Although this thread is about SketchUp ākeeping upā, I mostly have issues with LayOut keeping up. When you talk about Architects being able to āproduce what they needā, thats where we need LayOut to be capable and efficient. IMO, the minor deficiencies we all are finding in SU are trivial compared to the work urgently needed in LO. If Trimble would just seriously invest in the LO side of the Pro package (maybe give us LayOut PRO, Iād pay for that if it was real), I think many of us would be happy.
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I think Sketchupās always existed alongside CAD/BIM software as part of an ecosystem or workflow.
Sketchup concept modelling ā Transfer to Revit/Autocad for detailing/drawing production, has been The Way for as long as I can remember, in architecture, engineering or building offices. Very , very few use sketchup as the only software type for design and 2d drawing output.
The āā¦but Sketchup isnāt trying to be CAD/BIMā¦ā type of argument is completely negated when you realise that itās true - sketchup isnāt trying to do CAD/BIM stuff well (natively) - but it also happens to be a poor partner to CAD/BIM software.
You have to pick oneā¦either be like CAD, or be good at transferring information between BIM/CAD.
Simply ignoring CAD/BIM and hoping itāll go away, or claiming it doesnāt apply, is not practical.
This all comes back to āWhat is SketchUp and LayOut trying to be?ā
Because it doesnāt seem like Trimble are trying to improve it as a pro AEC tool.
Itās literally almost there as a decent AEC toolā¦it just needs the last 5% of effort to turn it into something 100% better. It starts by listening to the users who work in the industry.
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If you see my list above you can see that I donāt agree with you, there are things to improve in both SU and LO.
Iām not here to bash LO nor SU though.
Iām just here to try focus on the 5% that I think os missing.
Iām not at all angry at SU+LO. I love them.
Iām probably one of those few that is able to use it as the only one software to go for all things architecture (are we really just a few?).
My only angst is that 5% missing.
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Vary happy to be part of that gang.
Yours, @beamer2 & @AK_SAM last posts pretty much sum it up for me.
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Iām in that minority group as well. 
Sketchup it really powerful if you know it well. From the old days I know Autocad well too. I have a licence for Vectorworks, but I really dont want to waste years of my life mastering it, so I just use it and Autocad for things that cannot be done in sketchup/LO, and Iām always looking to shorten that list. From the ālifeās just to shortā argument one can also conclude that its really hard to master sketchup if its just gonna be some companion software.
From using it for almost everything I agree thereās just a few % missing for it to work well overall as a AEC tool. And thereās no Bloat involved in filling those gaps.
On a light note: taught myself a LO-trick yesterday, and I will no longer give height references in Layout manually. Its basically just deleting away from the (x,y,z) the references you dont want, in this case the (x,y).
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We are also members of this groupā¦ & like the others, we just wish that final push would be given by Trimble to get Su+LO over the line. Trouble is, itās been years that several of us have been banging on about various of these issues and NOTHING has changed. Instead we get lasso selection and SU for Ipad (that doesnāt accept plugins), plus bizarre problems with v22 between SU & LO that mean weāve had to go back to v21 for larger filesā¦ (flagged in a different thread - Layout causing white-out - SU v2022.0.354) Bref, dommage.
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Amen! SU & LO are amazing programs that are so vesatile and cheap, comparatively.
Thatās great. Thatās one of the missing pieces Iāve wanted. Without playing with it yet, I wonder if the (x,y,z) values are only relative to the natural axes location or will they report values relative to a set axes location for a given scene?
This feature is available since last release (2022). Itās working rather well, the thing that we miss here is leaders without arrows and the clear ability to associate shapes with leaders that are connected to elements in the model.
the arrows themselves can be turned off in the āShape styleā pane, and the leader lines can be made invisible by turning opacity to 0.
Try exporting one of those to DWG then. Youāll see how transparent they getā¦ 
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On proper dwg export, that most (YES, not ALL) people need, if they use sketchup as their main AEC platform: A Perfect dwg would of course be nice. However, every modeling software is made with different inherent logic, so perfect export may not be possible. Thereās no perfect dwg coming from Vectorworks or archicad either. Main thing is we need to not be embarrassed by what we can produce from Sketchup.
one would want for the export to go quick, with the press of a button and some settings, and not having to work for hours fixing the export in autocad. If you go down that path, and start fixing it it autocad, by the time you are done, there will be some other changes you need to export, and you would start all over again. This is mainly true for floor plans, that I think; are best exported out directly from sketchup, and not Layout.
So: a proper export by the press of a button. You could always spend a minute in autocad copying your result into a template file to get your colors right, if that exporter manages to set geometry to āBY LAYERā
Exporting from layout would bring all your annotation and title blocks along, but also add the 0,001 inaccuracy that makes it NOT CAD.
Best would be if sketchup made a user program for this to find out what people need and what is possible / reasonable to expect from the feature.
From the hours people have spent fixing dwg,s in some other software, a proper exporter could probable have been written many many thousand times over and over, and that situation is just disrespect for those users that actually take sketchup up on its word that the platform is useable as a main architectural tool.
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It can never be perfect when people working with CAD expect true arcs and circles, polylines as boundaries for areas, very organized line layers that I donāt think Sketchup will ever be able to pick from a 3D model, and so onā¦
What I expect is that it looks as good as it looks in PDF (that is more or less what Trimble is aiming for), but also that the final output is workable by third parties, correctly organized as standard DWG files are supposed to be, and that there is full correspondence with leaders, texts, dimensions and blocks (from LO entities).
We have two methods that almost work - export for Sketchup and the regular export.
The regular export doesnāt deal well with Sketchup standards, as LO stacked viewports donāt work. Itās also exporting a Layout file that has been set for meters, as millimetres.
Export for Sketchup doesnāt allow editing as the DWGās model space is split in groups by layer. Exploding any of those groups sends objects to layer zero and even if they become workable their layer organization becomes a mess and you canāt work. Iām not going to talk about scale issues with this method.
Both versions arenāt able to deal with SU model layers and convert them to DWG layers. A shame!
This, by no means, will make DWG export flawless, it will only make it good enough.
Itās worse than embarrassed. We are excluding ourselves from integrated workflows by being far from complying to standards. These standards were here first, are dominating and are not going away.
This is possible with Skalp. It has some minor flaws, really minor. Itās good if you want to avoid using Layout. Thatās not my case, I want to use Layout.
Another thing that should be fixed.
Iām available if Trimble is interested.
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Itās the usual, letās make it do everything for everyoneās needs. Then we will have a bloated program that does everything halfway.