Desktop Viewer App missing Layers? Perhaps a [FR]

SketchUp
1

I’ve got a component that I’m trying to share with a manufacturer about whom I know two things:

  1. They use Windows and
  2. They do not use SketchUp

I’d like to avoid having them install full SketchUp in order to take a closer look. Then, there’s the apparently new SketchUp Viewer (not Mobile Viewer) available:

When I installed SketchUp Pro 2017 yesterday, I noticed that there is a desktop viewer available for Windows and Mac (64 bit only):

So I went ahead and installed it (Windows version). Managed to open my project using it, then looked for any kind of layer control - unsuccessfully:

732×533 28.2 KB

None of the icons brings up a Layer control. Nor does a Layout panel appear in the Default Tray (which I didn’t show in the picture). Nor is there anything I’ve found buried in the menus.

Am I missing something? Or is there actually no layer control?

I would appreciate it if someone can check the Mac version of the viewer to see if there is a Layer control. I have checked the Android version - and there is the ability to turn layers on and off.

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SketchUp Viewer has been around a while and predates the mobile Viewer…

as you have disovered is missing a few things people find useful which @DanRathbun has posted about many times …

and it is almost the same file size as the trial version…

personally I’d try sharing via my.sketchup …

john

3

That was my first thought, but I’m having trouble there as well: I can’t find a way to open a local file!

Yes, I could put my model in the 3D Warehouse - but I don’t want to make it available for public consumption.
Yes, I could put it in my Trimble Connect - but I don’t know how to point the manufacturer to it in a way that allows opening in my.sketchup!

4

You can setup some scene pages with various layers on and off, and then in the Viewer the enduser can just switch scenes via scene tabs.

5

You’re right - I could do that. And it will likely work for my immediate purposes (getting feedback from the manufacturer and pitching the manufacturer to commission a much better modeled component for inclusion in the 3D Warehouse), but it won’t work for the end point I’m hoping for: A component, usable by anyone to place this product into a model they’re developing. I don’t want people to download a component that has - as a byproduct - the creation of unwanted scenes in their model.

I am accepting that my component will cross one “no-no” line - It will have one layer that isn’t Layer0! The outer open topped box (shown in turquoise in my screen capture in my original post) is a clearance box. Since the item is an appliance that generates heat, it has minimum requirements for free space around it for air flow. It needs to be there for correct placement of the appliance in cabinetry, but doesn’t represent anything that would appear in a render. So I put it in it’s own layer so that the user can simply turn off that layer. And when (OK if) I make it public in the 3D Warehouse, the description will include this use of layers.

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I didn’t mean that exactly. I thought you just wanted a way so that the OEM could view the object in various ways.

That would mean a model with scenes, that is viewing a component that is pre-inserted in the model.

What gets later uploaded to the 3DW is a separate matter (and would be the component file only.)

Anyway, we are diverging away from the FR, which BTW, has been requested in the past.

The lack of layer control is a glaring feature omission in the Desktop Viewer.

1 Like
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I often think my middle name should have been “diversion” or (perhaps) “tangent” or even “Squirrel!”