Exporting from Layout to png/jpeg produces extremely low resolution

When I export from Layout to an image the resolution is worse than a screen shot, unpresentable. I have the Export Resolution set to High, render as a vector and 300dpi but the image is incredibly poor and in fact not even the same, for example I’m using dotted lines spaced at 2px for my dimensions, but the exported image has them at more like .2px.
There must be a way!

Probably. Without seeing your LO file though, it’s hard to tell.

Here’s an example file and the resulting png. To give the full picture, I’m importing the png into Google Slides, maybe its a Slides issue.


TEST 1.layout (152.3 KB)

I don’t know anything about Google Slides, but it seems to be downsampling images automatically
https://support.google.com/docs/thread/9031600/how-can-i-stop-google-slides-applying-their-extreme-image-compression-and-resampling?hl=en

Well …

No. You have the Stroke weight for dimensions set to 0.10
Screenshot - 8_21_2024 , 1_24_00 PM

If you export the image at 300 dpi, those dimension lines will be practically invisible even when viewed full size as shown below. If you view the image smaller, those dots will get smaller, too.

Set them to something reasonable for the size. 0.2 pixels wide is not suitable for what you are trying to do. This is wth the Stroke weight set to 1.0 pt. With the extended spacing of the dots on the lines, I think this is still a little light unless you’ll be viewing at full size.

As @Anssi points out, Google Slides downsamples images anyway sothat’s working against you, too.

Question about your setup. Do you really want all that ground and sky shown in the background of your image? Wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate that and just show the object and show the object larger in the image? You could then use more appropritely formatted dimensions for the thing you’re modeling.

BTW, make sure you set up a scene in the SketchUp model for the view you need in LayOut. Using the Last saved SketchUp view is not a good idea.

Thanks, I saw this 1600x1600 seems to be the max before an image is compressed so I’m now keeping my images to that or below.

This is just an example file but indeed, zoom extents and using Scene are good practice I often forget! So other than these points there doesn’t seem to be a setting that I’ve not seen.
I appreciate your assistance, it has been driving me crazy so good to know its a limitation of Layout rather than something I’m missing.

It’s not a limitation of LayOut. It’s the simple math involved of setting Line Scale to a value less than a pixel wide and then exported a huge image and resizing it when it goes into Google Slides. You are setting the dimensions up so that the dimension and extension lines will be practically non-existant when you get to Google Slides.

I understand that element and its an easy fix, thank you for pointing it out, but how can I prevent the drawing from having a low resolution?

I’m not seeing low resolution in the image exports from LayOut at 300 DPI. Take a look at this image. It was exported from LayOut at 300 DPI. Does it look like low res to you?

Here’s a link to the full sized image in case the forum software downsamples it. This is a PNG file. The only thing I did to it after exporting it is to give it a white background.

I expect the resolution issue is, as @Anssi wrote, Google Slides downsampling the image. You could reduce the impact of that downsampling by cropping the image tightly before inserting it into the slide.

FWIW, I inserted the above high res image into Google Slides. I think it’s probably OK but certainly not the resolution of my original image.