+1
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And export should respect and maintain origin.
I hope this will be a feature in Sketchup 2018.
Hi,
You can open Styles’s window, click on "Edit"tab.
Down the bottom you can change “Color” by 3 options:
- by material (meens layer’s color)
- all similar lines
- by axes (blue/red/green)
-----------------> Select “by materials”.
It’s an easy way to keep different colors by layers.
Hope Trimble is explaining that somewhere…
Blanka
Thanks Blanka, this helps a little but still leaves much work to do in a cad program after export, especially if you have a complex layer structure in the model. And if you’re exporting multiple views, you have to perform the task over and over. If sketchup can’t export a view that retains layer structure and color, maintains origin and outputs in high quality DWG, then sketchup isn’t a professional tool. I do almost all of my exhibit and theatrical design work in sketchup and layout. But when I have to export to consultants, my speedy workflow draws to a crawl. I wish trimble would take this issue seriously.
My other complaint is poor output quality of DWG export. I frequently have small bits of hidden lines (like back sides of theatrical pipes) appear in the output requiring a great deal of time to clean up. Rant over, thanks…
+1 Layer is an easy way to deliver information through different softwares .
Every few months I decide it is time to knock my head against a brick wall instead of actually doing work.
The way I do this is by trying to export from Sketchup to DWG with SKP layers. It works great, I lose half a days work, and get a very sore head, and when I want to do it again Sketchup predictably will provide me the same lack of functionality.
Why is no one listening to the user need for this feature ???
I understand it is not straightforward due to the different role layers play in Sketchup comparred to DWG files, but I am sure the export tools could be augmented with something usable.
The closest thing to a solution as far as i can see is the plugin called ‘Skema 2d Projection’, yet that involves littering my model with a bunch of additional section cuts. Has anyone got any better options ???
Please Trimble, lets get proffesional here !
I so agree. I do almost all of my theatrical design work and documentation in SU/Layout, but I always, always have to provide workable backgrounds to other consultants. Every time I have a revision, the same laborious time suck of trying to put together decent backgrounds. No export layers, no fills, no groups, just the basest DWG output with stray geometry lines. Layout is not much better. It’s as if no one really cares at trimble.
Another problem and feature that will be ignored, PLEASE give us the option in DWG export to keep hidden geometry HIDDEN! Otherwise export is just a mess of unneeded lines and edges.
They didn’t address this in 2018 did they ?
Are you exporting directly from a SketchUp view or a different method? I’ve found exporting to LayOut and doing minimal cleanup on an exploded vector view saves a lot of work in the CAD export.
Thanks d_b. I have not primarily because when I move from SU to Layout I loose the layer structure that I’ve created in the model. Good tip though, appreciated.
Yeah, it is kind of six of one, half a dozen of another in terms of where you want to put your cleanup time. A few years ago SketchUp announced a partnership with Autodesk to share APIs (iirc) and I’m still hoping that will result in better exports/imports…
I think the way is export 2D dwg and then
QSELECT (SELERAPID in Italian Version) in Autocad to select coloured lines, apply the layer and go on
I have not tested this yet but in theory the new access to tags from within layout should help. I’m thinking send whole model to layout, tweak tag choices there, vector render viewport and explode, export .dwg. Bigger question: if I stack viewports with isolated tags on separate Layout layers will .dwg export retain layer info?
We need export with layers. Scalp does it, but is focused on pretty drawings, not productivity. (they cannot export groups and components, and not dimensions.) We need a dwg that retains layers, and also components/groups, and does not cut the model geometry into tiny line segments. That is probably fixed from exporting filled closed polylines from all section cuts, and also exporting back geometry as is its shown in SketchUp, flattened, inside groups.Also, Reading a AutoCAD ctb-file (plot style table) file would ensure everything looks as it should. Setting up a few named texts and dimension styles, and one would have a dwg ready for export. Ideally if this could be done from layout, even paperspace could be exported. As it now, the different options all fail. Exporting 2d from SketchUp is just a mess. Exporting a section cut from SketchUp retains groups but not layers. Exporting as 3Dfrom sketchup defies the purpose, as it is to makie basic support drawings for a bigger collaborating team. Exporting from scalp retains layers but not components ( Why? ). Exporting from layout retains layout layers but not actual geometry layers. It’s as if someone decided we are not meant to have this basic functionality…
Also: Every autocad clone out there reads plot style table files, so that should not be impossible.
I’ve wished for this myself for ages. To some extent, there’s an attitude expressed here of, “You shouldn’t be using other software. You should be doing everything with SketchUp and Layout.” Offering a one package deal for users is understandable, and may be enough for some people, but not me. Forcing people to choose either all or nothing with SketchUp isn’t good business. Covering all the bases so that everyone finds value in it is. SketchUp will never dominate or own the whole architectural software market, so it has to play well with others if it wants to play at all.
ok, now I have, as all of you it seems, wasted hours and hours trying to find a workaround for getting sketchup geometry into AutoCAD in a grownup way. I am genuinely angry and frustrated. Every few years, since version 2 …, I get the wild idea that I could use my sketchup drawing knowledge to let 3D be a bigger part of the project, before production drawings take up the days. It´s not possible. I will go back to using Sketchup for what I know it can actually do, making simple and uncommitted sketches just like it could do back in 2002 or something. Thats nice as well I guess.
Same. I use sketchup exclusively for my theatrical and exhibit design practice. But at some point in every project, I have to export materials to consultants. Some can work with the 3D data (but vectorworks removed their SU import module in the last few releases). All the others need decently organized DWG backgrounds. Then the fun starts in exporting color layers, manually assigning them to layers in acad, cleaning up stupid geometry fragments, or having to delete edges inside of curved surfaces, etc. And god forbid I have to make changes and go through the entire process again.
Graphically, layout does export better DWG, but only layers within the layout document.