Why am I not able to control the line weights in Layout using the dashes settings in the Tags section for Viewports? Does my model have to have a style require a shading/texture setting in order for this to work in Layout? It seems that when using Hidden Line on white background style I cannot control the line weights of individual tags within the dashes setting. How do I get control of the line weights for the tags within the model in the viewport window? It seems I can only control line weights via the line scale setting for the viewport which affects the whole scene and not just the specific tags within the scene. Help.
The style has to have Dashes enabled. It doesn’t require any specific face style, though.
The lineweight you set for a particular tag is really a multiplier of the Line Scale for the viewport. You might not actually see a change in the lineweight if the Line Scale for the viewport is set low enough. Zooming in would make it more evident.
Share the LayOut file so we can see exactly what you’ve set up.
Here’s an example. The Line Scale for the viewport is 0.50 pt. and the Line scale for the tag is 0.60. So that’s .6 of .5. Zoomed in as I show it here, the differences is clear.
Zoomed out, though, it’s not that obvious.
I am trying to use heavier line weights for the Le Reve and Spindles tags. I have enabled the dashes for the style I am using but it still isn’t affecting the line weights for those tags.
Monument Spindles.layout (2.0 MB)
Are you able to open up this file 
I was able to open your file. You had overridden the style from the scene in LayOut with a style that doesn’t have dashes enabled. After resetting the Style section to show the style in the scene, your heavier spindles show just fine.
By the way, I looked at your SketchUp model. You should get in the habit of ensuring proper tag usage. Leave all edges and faces untagged. You only need to give tags to the components and groups in the model.That will help prevent errors in your modeling.
And purge unused stuff regularly.
There’s also no need to modify the Camera properties in LO. Doing so can create all sorts of headaches for you later.
Here’s the file. I only looked at the front elevation viewport so you might need to deal with the rest.
Monument Spindles fixed.layout (1.5 MB)
I am not sure I understand entirely what you mean about the modeling habit of leaving all edges and faces untagged. What is the method or work flow look like when modeling?
Leave Untagged active at all times.
Create all geometry untagged and leave it untagged.
Assign tags to groups and components as appropriate.
That’s it.
If you give tags to the edges and faces inside the objects (groups and components) as you have done in this model you need to chase the active tag as you edit the model. If for example, you open the spindles component to add another spindle, you must first make sure that the Spindles tag is active so the new geometry gets the same tag. If you get that wrong you can have some edges and faces in one object disappearing when you hide the tag for a different object. Or you can have edges showing a different lineweight in LayOut than the rest of the geometry in the object.
If you leave all geometry untagged and only give tags to the objects, you don’t need to chase the tags as you model. It doesn’t matter what tag the object has when you open it for editing, then. You don’t even need to know what tag the object has while editing and there’s no worries about things eing displayed incorrectly with tag visibility or tag line style in LayOut. The workflow is simpler and faster and not prone to the same issues that tagging the geometry has.
Essentially then, I can model without assigning any tags, right through to completion and then go back and assign tags so that I will have more control in both Sketchup and Layout. Have I got it correct?
Yes. You can work that way. I usually wait to create and assign tags in my projects because they vary so much there’s not a standard set of tags. And I’m thinking about how I want to show things in the LO documents while I’m modeling and that informs the tags I need to create.
On the other hand, creating tags as you go and assigning them to the objects in your model can make it easier to work because you can quickly hide objects that might be occluding your view of other parts of the model. I just started on a furniture model for shop drawing this morning and contrary to my usual work flow I started making tags for some of the objects and I createed the components because I couold model those objects but need them out of my way after I get clarification on dimensions for parts that would otherwise be hidden by them.
Thank you DaveR. This has been very helpful.
You also mentioned: no need to modify the Camera properties in LO; I am not sure I fully understand this. When I import the model or send it out of sketchup, that section in the viewport is already populated with the camera settings. I don’t know if this makes sense…
Yes. When you choose the scene for the viewport the scene’s camera properties are displayed and set. If you do something such as manually select the Standard View ormanually tick the Ortho box or double click into the viewport to adjust the Camera position, that will modify the Camera properties overriding what you’ve set in the scene in the model. In the case of your LO file I’m guessing you manually selected a standard view. Resetting the Camera properties section made no apparent change the viewport.
This override carries over to other viewports when you copy. In the following GIF I copied your Front elevation viewport. Note when I change the scene to the Right elevation the camera position does not change. Overriding the Camera properties in LayOut tells layOut that you don’t care what the Camera properties are in the scene you want to use. If I were to Reset the Camera properties, it would show the correct scene as set up in SketchUp.
Very often users will double click into a viewport to move the camera to change the view. This is handy for quickly creating a document but can wreak all sorts of havoc if you add dimensions and labels in LayOut and later the camera gets reset. Here’s a quickie example from my workbench file. I modified the camera properties for my 3/4 viewport to show another part of the model space. Then I added a few dimensions. The dimensions remain attached to the component in the model space but they appear to go flying off into space when I reset the Camera.
Okay. That works. I was having an issue with this in LO because I had not selected Auto re-render in preferences. So, when I started to position and scale the model instance I would get a warning symbol. Updating or double clicking on the model instance would remove this but then, as you explained, it overrode the sketchup camera properties.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond and help me understand sketchup and layout better than before.
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