Experiencing very frustrating challenges with editing viewport within LO; appears to be how I’m linked or not linked to my SU files. I have the book, taken the how-to course and get help from youtube too but alas it’s a jungle.
so my question: there’s nothing wrong with simply starting drawings within LO and forgoing the connection with SU altogether, yes?
and is there anything bad about having some pages in LO which were partly generated using SU and some pages which are entirely LO? thx!
You could do that if all you want to do is make 2D drawings and skip the 3D model.
No. You can do that. But give some consideration to project management. If you do all your drawing in LayOut and you need to make a modification to the project later, you will need to go back and edit every drawing where that change would be seen. You’ll have a similar issue if you split your project between a SketchUp model file and LayOut drawing entities. If your project won’t get changed or you don’t mind spending the time going through all of the drawings to make sure everything is correctly represented, by all means, go ahead and do what you propose.
Personally I think you would do better to learn how to create your model correctly in SketchUp and create the scenes you need to use for the viewports in LayOut. From your various threads I get the impression you aren’t entirely clear on how SketchUp and LayOut work together.
You hit the nail on the head; how LO and SU interact def. seems to be the source of my challenges. And I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong…it may be my somewhat outdated laptop (5 year old lenovo), how I’m connecting to my files from LO etc. I save what I’m working on constantly and update the file name so in my documents and flash drives I’ve got many saved versions. this is my first real attempt at LO and when I first starting drawing this project (a barn) I was feeling my way along…so prolly wasn’t doing things right.
I would def prefer learning to do it properly as you suggest but for now to preserve my sanity and get these arch drawings done on time…that’s why Im considering the LO only approach. thanks for your help Dave
In a nutshell you create your 3D model in SketchUp and create scenes there to show the views of the model as you’ll need them in your document. So that might include perspective views, 2D elevations, plan views, sections, etc. In LayOut you create viewports which you link to the scenes in the model. In LO those are sort of like images of the model. You can’t make any changes to the SketchUp geometry in LayOut although you can control things like the visble tags and style as well as setting scales for your elevations and plan views. If you later find you need to move a door or add a ladder into the loft, you do that kind of thing in the SketchUp model. Save the changes and update the reference in LayOut. The changes to your model with then be reflected in LayOut.
What do you mean by editing the viewport? Certainly you can change the scale, size of viewport, style etc. Is this what you find frustrating? Or are you trying to edit the SU model inside the viewport by double-clicking in the viewport (something I always avoid–not sure what it’s for).
If you end up drawing only in LO, you will be working in a 2D environment and will forgo all the many advantages of working in 3D. If all you need are standard architectural representations, 2D may be adequate, but in that case, LO probably isn’t the best tool for the job. It can be done but I suspect you will end up tearing your hair out.