Drawings floorboxes for construction drawings- do it in Sketchup or Layout?

Hi - i am doing electrical layout for a office fit out - when i use Layout and draw in squares for floorboxes - i cant measure the distances from the sketchup lines to the to floorboxes created in layout … so
I am now drawing in the boxes in sketchup and laying on the floor- but this seems daft
anyone got any advice ?!

You could measure the distances if you were using Scaled Drawing when you draw the floor boxes.

While you could do this in LO, to me it makes sense to use a component that can be quickly and easily distributed in the SketchUp model. As a component it could be given a name and description to make automatic labeling in LO possible. Or you could generate a report to get a count of how many boxes would be needed. Also when you need to make changes to the model that affect the floor boxes, you can make the change in the model. Any viewport that shows the boxes in LO file will then get updated automatically.

I guess it just depends on what you need.

I do my electrical layouts in Layout but I don’t need them to be dimensionally accurate nor to scale. If I did, I would so exactly as @DaveR suggests and draw things in Sketchup. I would probably create a Tag (Layer in your case) for electrical symbols and a set of standard Components.

Whilst it is possible to draw to scale in Layout, it is not nearly as easy as it is in Sketchup.

thanks guys - I will do a layer for the electrical items in sketchup an can do scenes for LO pages ., I have created then a scrapbook for the symbols for smoke heads etc that don’t need to be dimensioned- i can then quickly bring those into LO
thanks

Hi

If it’s a large Electrical or HVAC Layout I tend to put these in Sketchup and keep them on their own Tag which I can isolate and overlay in Layout as needed. I also tend to overlay them using a Colour by Layer Style which helps to identify the various fittings.

For large contracts, I ask the Contractor for the Layouts in DWG format which works well, especially if they are disciplined enough to use Blocks for their various symbols and they use Layers correctly. It means these get converted to Components in Sketchup. The only slight pain is any text does not import, so I have to edit the Component to add the text in, using 3D Text with 0 Extrusion Height. (Feature request there, to enable DWG Text import :grinning:).

These Symbol Components could be saved in a Library for use in other Models. They can then be inserted accurately into the model, especially if the location of things like Floor Boxes are critical etc.

For minor Electrical works, I tend to add the symbols in Layout, from a Scrapbook I have created.

Mike