I just did a survey on AI and visualization for sketchup 2025, really cool stuff coming out! While we are looking all of these snazzy new features, I am glad we are also taking a look at lasting workflow issues in sketchup…
I am on a deadline to get some images out and I find out one of my scenes got saved over. No worries, I’ll just grab one from a previous backup… NOPE! Some of the recommended workarounds is to literally copy and past the entire model back in to the file that has a correct scene. Utterly ridiculous that I have to scramble for a plugin or workaround for such a simple action, yet, the developers seem to be more focused on AI.
Is this not a common issue that other people run into? Why are there no popular plugins for this? Is copy/pasting the entire model back over really what people do in this program? This may be one of the biggest missed-steps I’ve seen in a professional program maybe in my entire career.
I just recreate the scene. If it is one scene it would have taken less time than writing this post.
In one weird case something went wrong but I was able to use Time Machine to grab a recent update from something like 30 minutes before… I just had to re-do the modeling I changed in that time.
I’m sorry, but not being able to copy/transfer scenes between files in Sketchup is indefensible. I have to redo tags, lighting, styles, and even hidden geometry to get the scene back, all while it is incredibly easy to wipe it away from updating the wrong tab. Is the common sentiment that this shouldn’t be a feature? Why?
Even @DaveR admits that he has accidently overwritten a scene in the past (no one has ever overridden or needed views from another file in sketchup)… why is entirely recreating the scene preferable to being able to just transfer the scene from file to file? Rhino, Revit, Lumion, and every other visualization program in between has this function, and Trimble wants to push sketchup to compete with them for more in-program rendering, IE, without third party softwares like enscape. Really not looking good for that purpose, I wish I could re-do that survey.
Dang… I wonder why Revit, Rhino, Lumion, Enscape, 3dsMax, Solidworks, Blender, Maya, Vectorworks, ArchiCAD, and Formit all have this ability when users just don’t have a need for it…
If any other users find this post, just know the only workaround is to A: buy a $20 plugin or B: recreate the view or C: copy and paste the entire file’s geometry to the file with the view you want. Sketchup will never have the ability to transfer/copy a scene to another file because it’s easier to just recreate the file or the view.
Both allow copying cameras, not scenes, between files. Recall that scenes are really just like active model states and not objects like geometry. They save all the various settings together: style, shadows, tags, hidden geometry…and yes, camera.
It helps to understand better the way SketchUp works before getting too upset. It also helps to ask this forum questions about what you can and cant do, or how to do something… rather than sharing frustration at what looks on the surface like missing features.
