I find myself doing minor changes directly on the exported dwg, in autocad. The process of exporting is so cumbersome that its better to do some changes in both places in parallell, than changing things in sketchup, getting in updated in layout, end re-exporting. After reexport there is things that needs to be done for the export to be a proper dwg. I need to get my texting from Layout to land in model space. I need my dimensioning to land in model space. I need to fix insertion points. I need to establish some very basic rudimentary layer/color control. That takes 15 minutes for every dwg. I need to split different floors and sections into separate dwg files. Not so nice then if afterwards you find that there was another change that you also need to bring to the dwg´s. Exporting can quickly become a full time job.
Exporting is a full time job and preparing the model in SketchUp via scenes and layers, as well as separating viewports in Layout, to split the viewport by layers we need in DWG makes the whole process unnecessarily dificult.
I loose way more time setting up this export to DWG process and then fine-tuning the result, than actually modelling the building, dimensioning, and labeling everything.
In projects that I can deal exclusively with PDF, all is ok.
What really troubles me is that the things that Trimble would need to do in order to have this completely seamless, are a couple of seemingly minor changes to the SketchUp and Layout.
Why doesn’t that happen?
In order to make a properly layered dwg one needs the old 10-15 stacked viewports. Layout does work that goes towards simpler workflows, but that does not include dwg export, so far. They should make the dwg export that does not explode everything, but keeps groups intact with their tags made into layers. We dont need that for every thinkable new dwg- format. Everything that is produced in Layout can easily be exported in any old dwg format back to dwg 2000 at least.
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