If (SU2024) the next update had only one thing new/fixed about it, what would you want?

Hear, hear! I totally agree with this! IMHO, that “padding” shouldn’t even be there unless and until I ask for a text box to show up and add a fill to it.

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could you post an example? A few versions ago section fill came in and we no longer needed to do a group from section and edit line work. I agree it could do more but it is a lot better than what I hear you describing. Perhaps some of what your asking for already exists? Sections are created in Sketchup not Layout. Im not sure what your saying by having sections “snap” in layout.

What Thom is saying is that in Layout the actual linework that represents the section cut cannot be snapped to in Layout.

For what I do, not being able to share to section cuts is not a problem.

Because, for example, if the section cut is cutting a wall then there will be geometry “below” the cut representing other building elements that will be abutting the wall that I can snap to.

This^^^

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Check out CONDOC tools extension by Mike Brightman…it’s the best extension out there for work. flow automation…if you do architectural design drawings

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@francisquitof and @Anssi

Normal face direction would solve it (backface/frontface). As you do with a pushpull double click. Select all faces, push one to one side and all others would be pushed to the same side.

The problems I see are geometric and all solvable.

On @Fredo6 's JointPushPull, the closest approach is Normal Push pull but it doesn’t create interconnected they will all be single faces.

On corners all faces going outwards would expand until they would intersect with each other and on inner faces all faces would need to be trimmed.

There is a plugin from @thomthom that is called shell that does an almost good job at it, as it thickens all faces keeping a fixed distance between them, but fails at connecting the corners.

SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation | Shell by Thomthom

There is a plugin by Tak2hata @ Sketchucation plugin store that is able to Extend/Trim faces.

SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation | Extend Trim Faces by Tak2hata

Using both or Fredo’s joint push pull normal method plus tak2hata’s extend trim faces yields good results, but envolves handwork. I still use them sometimes.

I’m on windows 11, and I can do the opacity on the dimensions text in LayOut.
Is that what you meant?

I agree the default padding seems far too large.

I would like to see expanded attributes for components and groups. This would benefit all users ,In Architectural design and documents there is a need for tables and schedules. The current ability is very limited. Report generation would be better if attributes were expanded. My thoughts are to have Attributes that could be assigned to editable custom categories. Currently there are a few for components and two for groups. Metadata can be pulled from components but that requires editing a component to assign a value and there is no standard. As an example if I use a window from the 3D warehouse, (some are amazing dynamic components) they have a lot of data within the component. I simply want to assign a number as it pertains to my finished document. I often use the instance to assign this number but if I want more info like rough opening the other available attributes dont always work very well. Also some plugins use the instance name so the assigned number can get wiped out. My goal would be to have these new attributes that could be linked via auto text to tables. If I “label” a component with a number all the data would fill out the rest of the table. The tables could be improved to have minor spreadsheet functions “smart tables” that link to a file outside of SU/LO better than what we have now. We have a few extensions that can pull a lot of data out of our models so we know its there but it requires custom code or our current report generator to get to it. It would be wonderful for small scale designers in many industries and fit right into Trimbles products that cater to large scale projects.

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Take a look at this videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__z6_Kv2kc&list=PLMJXiYw2gXjpf89zwQChMej8PsLWH2dvR&pp=gAQBiAQB
I had the same neccesity and I programed a plugin to do that among other things. I you want to test the plugin I can send you a code to obtain it by free.

@ivanjones
By snapping to sections in Layout, I mean if the object cut, say a sheet of plywood, does not abut a visible edge of something else, like a sole plate or stud or something, then that edge which is cut by the section plane is NOT an edge. It just looks like one. And because it isn’t an edge, dimensions in Layout have nothing to “connect” to, and the result invariably returns red warnings that the dimension isn’t connected to the model. And because there isn’t an edge, there is no way to connect to it. Also, a dimension so created defaults to paper space scale, and then needs to be manually corrected. Also #2, dimensions do not snap to surfaces reliably, just edges or intersections of edges.

Short of making a section plane group, which is oh, so fraught with unwanted groups and components that are virtually impossible to manage. Sure, the cut plane group thing does provide something for Layout dimensions to snap to but if I need to move the section plane slightly to reveal something else, that group may no longer be visible and I’m back to square one.

Style apparently has a play in this, as I fare better using a hidden face style (or, temporarily, a wire frame style) with which I can find some meaningful portion of the geometry Layout recognizes (beyond just showing us a picture). If. with such a style in place, I then trace the edges I need with an overlaying bold line or a filled shape, then dimensions snap to that. But they are not then connected to the model and don’t move when the model changes.

If I use a slice, put in dimensions, then subsequently delete the slice (and all its myriad components), the dimension then is no longer connected to anything and the red warning pops up. Or if that, for some magical reason, doesn’t happen, the dimension will not change if the model does.

@AK_SAM
I think I could deal with the obnoxious padding if it was transparent. (shrug)
But what I just discovered is that when adding a call out (label) with leader, and the leader is on the right side of the text, there is often an undesirably large space between the text and the beginning of the leader. I used to be able to edit the call out, grab the start node of the leader and drag it nearer to the text. But in version 2024, all that does is move the text farther away, restoring the large gap. I could explode the call out and then fix the appearance, but that defeats the purpose of connecting model and the 2D document (model space to paper space).

And no, I do not especially like the hack to change the text to right justified, thank you very much.

After this discussion I did check it out and you are correct. I didnt notice because the dimension either snaps to underlying geometry or in my case I am dimensioning to a Vector layer with everything but the edges I need turned off. I do this for speed and accuracy.

I agree with you on having the section cut snapable.

But – some won’t want to hear this or somehow their workflow needs overlapping groups – I never have this problem because I make sure I don’t have overlapping groups.

If I have a problem with the section cut and it’s overlapping groups – I fix the groups…

Can you elaborate on your label issue?

If I understand you correctly then – I don’t have this problem…

Layout_Label

I don’t necessarily see right justifying as a hack…

Sure. I prefer all my call outs to be left justified so that I can use Layout’s native alignment tool. If the text is right justified, that alignment tool operates on that huge text box and not the characters themselves.
Your video clip is informative. Thank you. I have been digging into the call out until I can edit the leader as an ordinary line, which sometimes works, and other times, causes the text to jump away, restoring the gap.

Paul,
By overlapping groups, are you referring to the “Create group from slice?”
I just did that through a house I’m working on, the section in question is giving me fits because I use it for detailing and in Layout I reference several portions of the major section. The group created by this action contains 58 components. Components with names that are meaningless in my component list.
The first time I did that, I spent an hour combining those components into an outline that was useful…until I moved the section cut, so I’ve given up using that feature, as it’s much too time consuming and not very functional.

Curious. Why would you want to get rid of tags? What would be a better alternative?

Forget that. Just realised that question has been answered…

I’ve mentioned this before, but the new Snaps feature could be a game changer. However, in it’s current iteration it falls short. We need the ability to add position attributes to snaps inside nested components. And we need to be able to see those snaps more that 1 level down. Right now when I stretch or change the length attribute on a DC the snaps don’t move with the stretch. (Yes, they move with a simple rectangular block, but nothing nested). I’ve complained about this before, but as usual no word from Sketchup. It’s been a year since Snaps were introduced. I’m starting to think that they will never touch them again, similar to Dynamic Components.

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