I completely agree. You target it for as many customers as possible! PC “might” be too late in the game. When Bill passed I knew PC days were numbered. That’s too bad. I live and work not too far from where PC started (here in NC) and it’s shame when local products don’t make it. I hope someone buys it from him. If Trimble does buy PC what about Wild Tools? Does it convert over?
Well, that’s Alfred Scott, and he’s still developing Wild Tools. He said he already registered with Trimble as a plugin developer some time ago. He has closer personal ties to the developers of Form-Z, but if Layout were to open up for plugins, this would be a particularly good question.
I used to look forward to MacWorld Expo every year before that disappeared. It was a chance to see Bill and Susan Stanley and the rest of the crew in person, and often go out to dinner after the show closed. I guess being such a small company was a double edged sword: Better access for communicating with the creator of the program, but vulnerable when something happens to him.
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For many projects I take the SketchUp drawings such as view port elevations as PDF from LayOut to PowerCADD . I don’t draw or write anything in LO. Just in PowerCADD.
I like how I can compile a whole set of drawings in one file PowerCADD and print in a few seconds, compared to the wait involved to get one page out of LayOut. Navigation and drawing is fluid.
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Similar to what I do in Acad. Very simple and easy. If it’s not broken…
Yep, I’m a Vectorworks user who is trying to draw in 2D using SU and LO because no one here in Ohio uses Vectorworks. I would love to become efficient doing the 3D stuff that is really difficult in Vectorworks, but the 2D stuff has me pulling my hair out.
Liberty
Hi all.
The below screenshots illustrate my semi-failed attempts to complete architectural 2D documentation “in situ” in Sketchup, on top of a section of the (group of the entire) 3D model.
Has anyone else got experience with this?
I tried to replicate the workflow of Revit - a program where all 2D drafting is done superimposed on top of a slice of the 3D model. With one click, Revit can halftone or hide the 3D section backdrop. Very handy!
Architects alternate their focus from 3D and 2D. At times, the 2D detailing will govern decision making, at other times, I might want to achieve a particular alignment in 3D space. 3D and 2D planning HAS to go had-in-hand! In order to fully maximise the potential of the 3D digital space, Architect need a workflow that fluidly combines 2D and 3D spaces!.
With the SU+LO package, a fluent and constant ‘hopping over’ into the alternate mode of planning is not easily achievable, I found. Let me explain: Unfortunately only the 3D space can easily be brought over to Layout`s 2D space (with the annoying need for constant synchronising, the process is not as “live” as i wish it to be, but that is another topic…).
The ability for the reverse seems to be lacking in Sketchup: I am missing the ability to superimpose the 2D space as a live backdrop in my 3D model sections!
Summarising, I can tell you that my test-workflow is faaaar too cumbersome. And on top of that, I was still not able to fully control line weights and hatching on the final LO sheet.
Some detailed comments:
- I set up tags for “elevation geometry” and “cut geometry” in order to be able to generate at least two line weight distinctions in LO (the screenshots show blue and red visual differentiation that I set up not to lose the overview) Controlling line weights with this method is a nightmare! For example, if a rectangle on the ‘elevation’ tag and another adjacent rectangle on the ‘cut’ tag coincide along one edge, SU does not give consistent priority. In fact, you get a random draw order in LO.
- Extra setup needed: 3D model needs to be placed in a container to be separately cut-away. I drew the 2D elements on top of the section cut - You might be able to see that on the 3rd pix?. Inferencing and snapping luckily works on intersection points of 3D model with the section plane! Kind of cool.
- I tried to harness the power of SU components and added metadata to the 2D components, with the aim to retrieve the embedded data with labels later in LO. My hopes were high to automate the annotation in the documentation stage… but my skills were not up to scratch yet…
- last-but-one screenshot: documentation of 1:20 scale (and coarser) is 100% from SU (with only dim, text and symbol annotation added in LO of course)
- Last screenshot: 1:5 details are 95% from SU, with coloured dashed lines added in LO to make membranes stand out more, which is important in PassivHaus projects. (dito - symbols, text and dims annotations done in LO)
- I think hatching patterns could be achieved easily with textures in SU, displayed as raster in LO. I however struggled with keeping the hatch patterns consistent, as I use the scale command a lot which also scales the texture. I presume there is a smart solution to this (I am still learning)?
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My answer to this question is : it depends! If the question has to do with using any 2D program to draw plans, section, elevations, details and the like, my answer is NO! I do everything with SketchUp + LayOut, including construction docs that appear to be 2D but are extracted from the SketchUp models.
What I still do in 2D are basic diagrams to serve as reference for the 3D but they are always made in SketchUp. In fact, I am no longer proficient in any CAD program. I have a HighDesign license available but never got around to learning how to use it.
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simoncbevans; I know what you mean. Plan examiners except 2D CAD only and big on IBC. 'Know your IBC and you’re in.
Donald Coles dba Dharma Graphics
I recently had a very productive conversation with our in-house architect about 2D drafting vs. BIM (because in reality, BIM has become the culmination of 2D & 3D). 3D is beautiful, productive and informative, but when you’re contracted for construction and permitting docs, it has to be 2D. 3D can get you out of design jams and issues, as well as for general presentation (who wouldn’t say yes to a pretty picture, right?) In my company, we do both, but in the end, 2D wins the day, or rather, pays the bills. Having 3D-capable staff is still very much important, when the clients want to see something pretty for presentation or sales, but the real meat of any project has to be in 2D.
The architect and I are the only two people in our organization that knows Sketchup and I’m the only one who has Layout experience. To either train existing staff or hire new employees to fill that void of 3D, is too costly in the grand scheme of things, unless the company takes a 180 degree turn, but even that will take a bit of time.
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@hnrkndr Good attempts! If you are trying to produce drawings from LO, I’d suggest there are a couple books on the subject. One is https://sketchupbook.com/ and to answer your question. Yes, there are people who do this successfully ( I don’t myself).
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3D sem 2D no mundo é ilógico. O 2D nunca vai morrer.
3D for Design, 2D for Output.
2D can also be also good as a design tool because it simplified things down to the most basic format…if it doesnt work in 2D then it won’t work in 3D.
…But just because it works in 2D doesn’t mean that it works in 3D as well!
3d is where everything needs to come togehter.
And as I always tell junior staff…you’re designing a real thing, not a piece of paper!
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Agree, I told my staff… you are a builder… not a drafter!
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Thanks! I’ll have to pick them up!
Very nice spiral 
Yes, pretty much 80% CAD, 15% SU and 5% hand (the latter in client meetings).
I normally go to SU when there’s a complex roof involved, or clients wish to see visuals whether basic or detailed.
If I was independently looking at why not SU 100% (which is tricky), it’s probably because I have well made 2D drawing templates and the need for speed is essential when self-employed.
What is nice, is when I break out SU and show clients, decisions are made far quicker and typical clients can rarely read 2D drawings.
SU is great and has it’s place, once it can pay for itself I plan to get an escape licence, even though it’s more expensive than the competition. It’s an amazing add-on and incredibly helpful for conveying complex plans. SketchVR is nice and cheap if you feel inclined to have a virtual reality play.
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Completely agree
Completely agree
Hi everyone and thank you for your thoughts on this topic.
A few months back, the Trimble Connect team launched a beta CAD Viewer & CAD Editor feature: Basic CAD editing in Trimble Connect
This is a Trimble Connect Business functionality included with all SketchUp subscriptions (Shop, Pro, Studio).
I wonder if anyone has tried it. Does it cover your 2D drafting needs? If not, what is missing?
Thx,
Aris
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Could not agree more.
Having the ability to switch frequently between 2D drawing and 3D model space and to see how one affects the other is a fruitful pathway to successful architectural documentation.
@RTCool and @gsharp you should take a look at concepts app for ipad.
You can draw to scale by hand with vectors with great accuracy in an infinite canvas. Imagine autocad without rules or rulers. At any time you can set your scale and measure your hand drawn strokes. It’s a bit like a fast paced 2d cad drawing, but with hand drawn feeling. Very cool.
You can convert your drawings directly to dxf and import them into SketchUp or you can export to pdf or raster formats.
The best thing is that you can export a pdf from Layout and import it into concepts, scale it to the right scale and mark it, sketch on top of it and paint it up with as much accuracy as you can sketch. You can also use some drawing helpers like grids rulers and straighten up your lines or smoothen your curves.
With some experience with it it becomes a lot more than sketching and a bit less than drafting. A great complement to SketchUp.
Have a go at it and you’ll ditch sketchbook, procreate and morpholio trace, if you use them.
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I’m using mostly the same method you do.
My advice is to split the model into at least 3 scenes per drawing:
- The first is a view of the model with section fill turned on. This is the background viewport with thin lines. You hide away the section face where you have drawn.
- The second is an isolated view of the section group with textures and profiles turned on. You hide away the rest of the model.
- Is the full 3d model with section face group, and active section and no section fill. This will be used for working. The two other scenes are not to touch, just display.
I might not have understood you right. You can use the same tag for both section plane and section cut face group. Just hide away sections with the styles settings. Edit the group and draw on it. Never had any issues.
To generate the group you can use any of these plugins:
- section cut face, the easiest to setup;
- skalp, which allows a lot of work to be done automatically if the model is correctly modeled. It might not compensate.
- curic section - which is between the other two.
This is not how you should do it. You should draw the section cut face a bit off from the section cut plane. The above plugins deal with that automatically and help you setup your scenes too. Super section plugin can be used along with section cut face to help you with that. You have to be careful with super section as it changes active layer when used.
Instead of detailing the full section you can think of using hole cutting components. That way you can use 2d components for typical details where you change one and change them all, or use a library of 2d details.
Exactly. It also helps with dimensioning in layout as you can hide the view of the model and dimension the section only. Becomes very fast.
Don’t draw dashes in Layout, use a checker box texture to fill between offset lines in your drawing. That way you can simulate dashed lines while drawing details. No need to work in LO at all.
You are still learning… There are a lot of ways to reset or change hatched patterns. You can also avoid them altogether until you really need them at bigger scales only. Use colors instead. Much faster and colors translate to CAD with vector rendering while texture hatches only translate as raster images.