I have just tried to work on a layout file I intended to print today, but now the file appears corrupted or some such thing. I cannot open it at all. Is there any way to find out why?
It opened for me in LayOut 2024. It’s extremely sluggish but it did open. While I was waiting I looked at the largest of the SketchUp references. There’s a lot of incorrect tag usage, some content to purge, and some excessively large textures. Cleaning up your models would help.
I notice a lot of text entities in the model which adds a lot of edges that have to be processed for rendering by LayOut. I expect you could speed things up if you were to add that text in LayOut instead of as geometry in your models.
I have to go out in a few minutes but maybe the PDF will have exported by the time I get back.
Are there any concise and well made materials on how to quickly rectify some of these issue?
How can a tag be incorrect? I can see them being suboptimal, but what is meant by incorrect in this sense?
I’m waiting for an appointment so have to make this short. By incorrect tag usage I mean you have tags assigned to edges and faces. All edges and faces should be created and remain untagged. Only groups and components should be given tags.
Makes sense, thanks for the tip
The reason is that edges and faces should always be contained in groups or components to keep them from interacting with other geometry. But that opens the door for them to have different tags than their enclosing group or component. In that situation, you are likely to have mysterious problems with parts of a group being invisible when you think they should show. Also, since the group or component’s tag dominates, there is no need to tag its contained edges and faces. They will disappear when the group or component’s tag is turned off.
Unless you have an extremely sharp memory and both understand and recall what you did, it can be tedious and confusing to resolve the situation! There are extensions that will instantly remove tags from all edges and faces.
I have to say it’s difficult to think of how that could happen. I use medeek to model these projects, and it functions by making groups and components exclusively. I did not directly model anything. I don’t draw lines or make individual faces so that is confusing.
The layout file is basically unusable at this point so any info about rectifying would be great and ty
One way it can happen is if an object with a tag is exploded to raw geometry. The edges and faces with inherit the tag of the object. If you have some reason to explode a tagged group or component, the very next step while the geometry is selected should be to mark it Untagged in Entity Info. Or remove the tag before exploding the object.
I was able to export a PDF from your file. Do you want me to send it?
Sorry – Not concise.
I think the key is to avoid creating the issues in the first place. In the long run it’ll take less time and your project will be easier to work with it you keep things light and tidy as you go. Keep in mind that every edge, face, and texture in the model needs to be analyzed by LayOut as viewports are rendering. The more edges you have and the higher the resolution of textures, the more work you are requiring of LayOut and the more time it takes. Just as with anything else you need to consider the ROI for everything you add to the model.
Look at the objects in your model that have the largest contribution in terms of edges (and faces). Most of them are things that don’t show in the model but almost have enough detail to manufacture them from scratch which you surely aren’t doing.
This is one of the components called Bolt #5.
The “threads” don’t add anything important to your model but their geometry is a hit to your model’s efficiency. Even the chamfers on the bolt head and hex nut really aren’t needed.
The same sort of thing applies to the joist hangers.
They are off-the-shelf objects so you shouldn’t need to have highly detailed components if you need them at all. Do you really have to show all of the joist hangers in the first place? It would be one thing if you need to create a detail view in the CD but in that case you could use a single joist hanger and even create that detail view in a separate model you keep in a scrapbook in LayOut to drag out when you need it.
Look closely at components you get from the 3D Warehouse. Does the detail they include add important information in your model? For example, do the “filaments”, conductors, and the glass stem inside the envelope of the bulb add anything to the model of the house? Does the envelope even need to be there?
Do the toilets need to have the seat, inside of the bowl, or even water in the bowl and tank?
Are the nameplates on the range and fridge or the control panels on the dishwashers adding to your story? They add to the rendering work you’re asking SketchUp and LayOut to do.
Another thing that adds a lot of work is the use of 3D Text of Flat Text in the model.
If you need the text in your LO documents, it needs to be right way round.
As I wrote before, it would be better to add that text in LayOut. You could do that using labels with auto text if you would create components for the objects and give them the required information in the descriptions. This would reduce the amount of geometry that needs processing and the text would look better in the document.
The steps I took when I first opened are the same standard steps I always use.
I fixed incorrect tag usage. Purged unused stuff, and reduced material image sizes for the largest of the textures. For that I used Default Tag Geometry and Purge All from Sketchucation. Then I used Material Resizer from the Extension Warehouse. Other tools that you could use to help clean up your models include running CleanUp3 from the Extension Warehouse and Skimp from Mindsight Studios. Skimp can simplify geometry in the objects in the model. It would help to run Skimp on components you get from the 3D Warehouse before you add them to your models. Follow the usual advice of looking for low poly components from the Warehouse to start and download them into a separate file so you can ensure they are suitable before adding them to your project.
One way to think about your SketchUp models is as theatrical sets. Make them communicate what you need the audience to know without adding excessive details that will never be seen or that over-describe the model. A brick wall on a stage set wouldn’t be made of real bricks. Most likely it would just be paint on canvas. The paint would be cheaper and faster and still get the point across to the audience.
When you get into LayOut, leave viewports rendered as raster as long as you can. Maybe you don’t need to render in Hybrid or Vector. Many users get perfectly fine results with Raster rendered viewports. That will also help improve performance.
Dave, thank you very much, I have more work to do with it and have gotten it to fluidly work here now, so no pdf is needed yet. I don’t explode objects as that is unnecessary with Medeek, so that is odd that I was able to make that mistake with the edges and faces. I try to restrict the amount of objects I bring in.
Also, to make these sections below, I make a new file and import only the relevant floor, then explode all objects down to edges and faces, then use zorro2 to cut them all. IS there a better way to accomplish this at the front of your mind?
Model links
Do you mean objects from the 3DWarehouse?
If so, that could well be the reason for the incorrect tagging.
Always open 3DWarehouse models in a separate instance of SketchUp so you can inspect them for suitability.
They can be overly detailed for your needs and slow SketchUp down.
They can bring in tags that you probably don’t want, incorrect tagging as allready mentioned and there are even models that can crash SketchUp.
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See my edit, above. Sorry it got long.
That’s just one way that geometry gets tagged. Another is changing the active tag in the Tags panel. Someusers have done that without realizing it. It could be that objects you inserted from the Warehouse had tags with tagged geometry. That’s a thing you should check and clean up before adding the objects to your project. I don’t know exactly how the geometry got tagged in your model.
That’s the way that geometry could be given tags in your models. Personally I would use a section cut. the model I looked at has section cuts. You can place section cuts inside of groups so you could, for example, group all of the walls doors, and windows, edit the group and put the section cut inside. Then it would only cut the walls, doors, and windows without cutting through furniture and appliances.
BTW, I noticed that in some of the scenes in your SketchUp model the section plane is visible. I expect you’d find it easier to work in LO if you edit the style and turn off the section plane display leaving only the section cut. Don’t forget to update the style.
Another thing I forgot to mention earlier is to avoid modifying the Camera properties in LayOut. Here this viewport shows that you have modified the camera from the scene in the model. (Dark background and Reset button in the Camera section.)
If you need to make that viewport correct reflect the scene in the model or that viewport gets reset accidentally, it will ball up some of the dimensions and callouts.
There’s no need to modify the Camera for this viewport. So no need to double click into the viewport to pan the camera and no need to manually select the Standard View or manually tick the Ortho box. If needed, you can drag the edges of the viewport but don’t enter the viewport to move the camera.
You could also reduce the number of scenes you need in your model. You really don’t need the West Dim scene since you already have the West El scene. To get the same view of the model for the West Dim scene you can just turn off the tags in the viewport in LayOut. If you want to stick to using two scenes for that, at least keep the camera position the same for both. If you did that you could set up the West El scene on one sheet with the correct scale and such, copy the viewport, paste it on the page where the West Dim needs to be displayed and just change the scenes. The model will remain aligned on two seets and you won’t need to screw around with the viewport at all.