DWG Export with layers

Hello, you can check out my dwg export from Curic Section here with a little edit (create a block for all objects that not be cut by section):

1 Like

interesting. Have you tried integrating those floorplans with Layout text and dimensions, or is your Construction Documentation done in autocad?

2 Likes

All my CD done with SketchUp LayOut, dwg files are just references for other patrners & contractors.
See my drawing example by LayOut here: Dropbox - 102_phumy_thiet ke xay dung_tang 1.pdf - Simplify your life

3 Likes

I would add the following issues to Layout DWG exports:

  • Sketchup texts, leaders and dimensions export as exploded lines;
  • Vector mode exports surfaces triangulations in 2D.
3 Likes

We Currently Export from Layout using Color by Layer and Could use such a LISP Routine. Does anyone have one to share?

Today I made my first manually made dwg, by turning on just one sketchup Tag at the time, and exporting each Tag by “2d graphics dwg”. I add each exported dwg on top of the other in autocad and assign a layer to each. Took me over an hour, but the result was a fairly ok flat dwg.

The process would probably take 2 seconds for a computer, if one can imagine such a thing.

A Turing machine I think it´s called, and they make instructions, called programs, for them, to tell the computer what to do. Image the future of such a thing.

1 Like

I bought Curic section, just to use their dwg exporter. Dont know what I did wrong, but it turned out just as exploded and layer-less as an export from sketchup.
plan1etg.dwg.zip (373.8 KB)

there’s no user manual for Curic section in English? I have found no videos with voice, explaining how it works … :slight_smile: , so that was, at least so far, a letdown.

Skalp does it very well actually.

well here’s a revision for our dwg export options. Added options for sketchup dimensions and leaders, which are none, and added the workflow of Tag by Tag export.

seems to me that the section tool plugins can add layer info to objects that are being cut, but not the rest of the model.

4 Likes

3D export is the whole model, correct? Cutting a section is just ignored, isn’t it?

yes. its the whole thing, also ignoring tag structure of the current scene.

Not true with skalp. Model layers are exported too

Have read down thru this entire thread…

Is it entirely naive of me to think that the Sketchup community couldn’t pull enough weight to influence their sub-contractors to move to Sketchup instead of continuing with AutoCAD? Seems like the example that @Sonder has set should be the thing that we are all pushing for; adoption of Sketchup by everyone. #take over the world #domination.

Thanks for this Matrix.

An update to the dwg export matrix: I have experimented with skalp, and found that it does provide “tags to layers” and makes closed polylines in the section cut. However, it has the same problem as Curic and Layout (same API?) in that there’s no proper precision, so your axis lines will go to the engineer with the distance of 5999,9723 instead of 6000 mm and the engineer will ask if you did the work in Microsoft Paint :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Thanks, you’ve done really helpful work for the community.

1 Like

A couple of these absent features would be mandatory:

  • Export DWG Layers from Layout without needing stacked viewports;
  • 100% Accuracy at any model decimal places. This could be solved also by allowing us to define an high accuracy in model, yet the display accuracy of dimensions, leaders, areas and volumes would be lower. This would be even more important in Layout, which should have a preconfigured display accuracy in leaders that would be configurable as with dimensions, and wouldn’t be connected to the model accuracy settings.
5 Likes

Can you describe the stacked viewport method? I don’t get how to set that up.

I am not sure about the exact workflow @JQL uses, but it might go like this:

  • Create LayOut layers to correspond to the layers you need in the DWG
  • Put a copy of your SketchUp vector-rendered viewport on each LayOut layer, located on top of each other
  • In each viewport, turn off SketchUp tags leaving on only those that you want to end up on the LayOut layer.
  • Export to DWG using the “Export for SketchUp” option
  • Open in CAD and scale everything back to full scale

A bit tedious, but works.

4 Likes

Exactly as @Anssi described.

If you need others to work with your export you might want to export without using the export for SketchUp method.

That method creates several groups in the DWG. One group for each layer. Those groups are very hard to work with so they have to be exploded in CAD. If you explode those groups though, you loose their layer info. Every line will be on Layer0 and the model will become a mess.

With the other export method, Layout will export each viewport as a different DWG layer, but will also spread them apart in modelspace. Everything will be fine in paperspace but layers won’t be on the same place in modelspace. Fixing that will make your work even more tedious.

This whole process is really painful, whatever path you choose.

2 Likes