What do you use to create drawings from your SketchUp models? Personally I find Layout great for creating construction drawings and I would go so far as to say I would be totally lost without it.
If you want to know why Sketchup and Layout seem/are stalled, read Trimble's annual corporate report
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you’d be surprised how well people receive a link to the 3D model in SketchUp, you save a lot of drawings.
If you need plans to distribute ->layout and pdf
If you need drawings to collaborate with engineers → IFC
If you need to show to a client or subcontractors ->link to Trimble Connect
You have to start abandoning CAD, if you keep delivering CAD people are too comfortable and don’t want new things.
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That article is about Treble buying Ryvit. That is a different company from Revit. Autodesk still owns Revit.
It really depends on my project, but a lot of mine are exported as .dae for use in energy analysis software or it’s a part of a workflow I have wherein I’m simplifying 3D mesh models, which I then further process in other software with the end being a .u3d formatted mesh model that I can insert into Adobe PDFs (for asset inspections of commercial buildings or infrastructure).
So I don’t really use Layout because SketchUp is really just a middle part of my workflow. That being said, I also use it for woodworking which I then will use layout to printout my cut lists.
I actually just responded to someone asking what I use to share, and I suppose I should have stated that I benefit from the fact that when I’m using SketchUp professionally it’s in the middle of a workflow for using the models in other software.
I have used Layout in the manner it’s intended, but it didn’t give me the warm and fuzzies. It just wasn’t as efficient as I wanted it to be.
Thats interesting thank you. I understand now why you don’t use Layout for most of your work, which appears to be more to do with your workflow than the software itself 
Kind of. I’ve been using SketchUp long enough (since 2005-ish, and as a primary software since about 2014) so there have certainly been times I’ve had to use it and every time it’s been disappointing. Of course this is all opinion based, but in my opinion there isn’t much difference between using Layout and just inserting images from screen captures into a PowerPoint slide.
One of the things I remember wishing Layout had was the ability to insert tables that were connected to the SketchUp files for automating a list of components. That comes from my AutoCAD days where you could add a table for all your blocks (objects) with attributes. It’s a pretty basic need to have a list object connected to drawing entities that I felt made Layout not quite what it should be.
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Fair enough.
I use SketchUp to create accurate ‘as built’ models of buildings from Point Clouds then design glass structures onto them. I use Layout to create detailed overview drawings, section cuts, glass and metalwork details and setout drawings directly from those models with some panels having complex geometry and weighing over 500kg. They always fit to perfection which is why I say Layout is the perfect tool (for me).
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Interesting. A lot of my work is from point clouds as well. I’d love for the Scan Essentials extension to allow for colorizing based on classification.
In any case, yeah, it’s all based on how you use it, which is really one thing I love about SU in general: it’s flexibility.
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There’s very much a difference – just two for starters:
Live link with the model – changes made in SketchUp are automatically updated in Layout when both are open.
Labels and dimensions.
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hence my use of “much”, and when you overwrite an image file that is referenced in a PowerPoint you can right click the image in the file and “update” it…so…still pretty similar.
Well… when I update a small detail of the model and 30 or 40 viewports are automatically updated in the doc with no other effort, it feels like a big difference.
And dimensioning an inserted image, ouch. I guess it might appear similar depending on how one uses layout, if one does not do iterative design or publish many revisions, or use dimensions, as you say SketchUp/Layout are flexible, but there are, I think, some very real differences in those workflows.
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Similar in that you can add graphics and export to PDF. Maybe for some quick schematic modeling showing 3d views - but with a Layout template keyed to my SketchUp template I can do they before you even get your images exported from SketchUp.
Otherwise, no, not even close for any sort of architectural or fabrication work.
LO offers so much more, but the biggest time saver is the dimensions and notes that are linked to the model, automatic updating of viewports when the model changes (and most of the dimensions and notes), etc. etc.
The workflow to go to PowerPoint from SketchUp seems dreadful. Export a bunch of images, give them logical file names, insert them into PowerPoint, then… manually type dimensions using what tool? Then if the model changes you have to re-export and update each image?
No thanks.
Clearly you don’t know how to use layout if you think there’s no difference between it and PowerPoint. How do you set a scale on PowerPoint? Do you draw the dimension lines then add text to it? Do you draw on top of the image to get different line weights and styles?
All those things can be done in layout at least 10x faster.
A loooot of people here not knowing how to read hyperbole…kind of surprised.
Yes, models and dimensions can be updated, and of course there’s a reason I make absolutely zero mention of scale or dimensions.
I guess next time I’ll be sure to only use literal statements here.
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When I saw you had written we don’t know how to read hyperbole you could have knocked me down with a feather 
You chose to post in a thread that is at best ‘subjective’.
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I mean, it didn’t really read as hyperbole or snark, and we are on the internet…
I didn’t say that’s what I do, I was simply stating Layout is barely better than that in my experience. It was hyperbole meant to describe how developed I’ve felt Layout is (in case you or anyone else can’t tell: not very).
Paul, I understand your comment to William “why are you here on this forum” is a passively aggressive remark and not a question but I’ll answer it anyway. Wanting a significant component of your toolbox to progress at a reasonable rate, having concerns about any thing we rely on does not necessitate throwing the whole baby out with the bathwater. Your kid Sketchup is fine. I have used it since day one. I began using it after using AutoCad for nearly twenty years prior to that. We all have different reasons for choosing a platform. In my case, I use Sketchup Pro because of cost. Others have different reasons. Price or anything else may or may not be directly related to development investment decisions in any company’s strategic planning. Hence the concerns. Squeaky wheels are not ignored nor do they necessarily need a quick fix. It’s ok. I doubt anyone is here just to be mean to our dear Sketchup. In forums good manners matter so let them rant. I skim pass many. You got my attention. FYI my use of Sketchup Pro is limited to architectural design and construction documents. If I were drawing something more complex I might at least learn about other platforms before picking a team.
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