Adam confirmed what I suggested 3 hours ago. At least until they make updates to better handle large images, making the image size appropriate for the size of the image on the page and the expected print resolution. Even when they do make the improvements to LO’s image display feature, it would make sense to size images based on their use. No point in bloating the LO file if there’s no benefit.
One thing that would have made things look worse is that in 2023.0 the speed of inferencing in Layout on Mac took a performance hit. That has been fixed now. Here’s a screen recording I made that shows the improvement (23.0 on the left, 23.0.1 on the right):
That was on my not so speedy Intel Mac.
Here are the LayOut improvements:
- (Win) Fixed a problem causing a crash in SketchUp when using “Open with SketchUp” in LayOut for certain conditions.
- (Mac) Fixed a Ventura specific issue that prevented LayOut from saving as earlier LayOut version files.
- (Mac) Improved performance for Mac with inferencing.
New version is here:
Rest of the release notes:
Hi Adam
Yes- very useful! Any control is welcome (including an “ultra” export resolution).
For image previews, InDesign’s system works well and is nice and simple; it gives the option show all images in the document at a lower res (or even as a placeholder box), or, alternatively, a user can right-click individual images to show at a lower or higher resolution. I would just keep Low Res preview as the default mode in the document, and quickly enable/disable “original quality” mode for a specific image or images that I need to view in detail for a brief time.
For the last few major releases, Windows OS has pretty terrible built-in image editors (and partly why I think a lot of people don’t even understand resolution/image dimensions these days). Photoshop is also getting bloated so a quick resample can take minutes, not seconds. It would be really nice if LO could integrate a quck way of exporting the low res versions to a JPG or PNG file. This may also help with collaboration between LO and other software (i can arrange images and export them all, for use in a website or similar).
SketchUp’s setting “Use maximum texture size” is a very handy feature (although poorly described to users). From a user’s perspetive there’s a relationship between the image quality settings in SU and in LO; some consistent functionality and terminology would be welcome.
Cheers
I find just doing a screen capture of an image I want to resample often the quickest method and either directly paste into Layout or save in a new file!
What’s the native resolution for a Layout page?
If we are to resize images, it seems Layout does not give the user an option to set the resolution, say like Photoshop does. Layout allows various paper sizes, but I’ve often wondered what the resolution is.
I know DPI / PPI what works best for different uses, posters, 4-col printing, web images etc…but not Layout.
Any thoughts Dave?
It depends on how the LayOut file will be used. If it’s going to be exported to PDF and printed, consider the printing resolution and consider the size of the image on the page. See the attached PDF. The image on the left is the full sized image out of the camera while the one on the right has been resized with the idea of printing the PDF at 300 DPI.
Image size comparison.pdf (1.5 MB)
The huge size of the image on the left is wasted in the PDF but it makes a huge impact on file size and performance. Basically there’s huge liability without benefit.
Many of the of the LO files I’ve seen that have problems due to images are from landscape and garden designers. Often they have small images of plants that might be 75mm square or smaller that are very high res images. These hi res images just bring down performance without adding anything useful to the project. It would be something like putting interior wall studs on 4 inch centers instead of 16 inch centers (as is standard in the US). Substantially increases the cost in materials as well as labor to install and then make the wall flat enough for the sheetrockers but it doesn’t really make a better wall.
FWIW, this thing with oversized images also applies to SketchUp models and we see this all too frequently. Overly detailed components for the way they are being used. Here’s an example from the 3D Warehouse. A nice gass BBQ grill for your patio kitchen.
It’s got a detailed thermometer, numbers and knurls on the knobs. It’s also got screws with detailed heads, a grate in the bottom and all sorts of internal sheet metal details which would be useful if you’re going to reverse engineer it and build one yourself. But if you’re using it to design a patio none of that detail is needed.
42 Mb file size hit for something that probably doesn’t even need to be 1 Mb to communicte what it is. And with all that interior detail there isn’t even a grate to put food on. There’s a lof of unseen geometry that has to be looked by SketchUp and the graphics card to determine whether or not it needs to be displayed. And in LayOut that edges need to be looked at to see if they need to be rendered as Vector lines. That all takes time.
3 Likes
I know this is a frustrating answer that, if you’re dedicated to using Macs, will probably be unhelpful. Layout runs on a PC very noticeably better than it does on a Mac.
1 Like
This is not true. I have mac and pc next to each other and both mac and pc LO are laggy. Terribly laggy.
As always - you state the problem and get “you do it completely wrong… everything works just fine” in reply. “You need to crop images in photoshop, why would you use this or that…” … so annoying.
3 Likes
Although you successfully conveyed the fact that you are feeling frustration, I never said that the original poster is doing anything wrong.
1 Like
Sorry, @nate2, my second paragraph was not meant for you. I only disagree with you that Lo works better on PC.
This is a common problem of this forum - you state the problem and there’s an army of supporters and staff members who believe their task is to prove you don’t have a problem.
6 Likes
Ah I see @marakony and I share your sentiments there. It’s infuriating.
Can you elaborate? I am working as an engineer and this issue slows my workflow down.
Same here. Entertainment/Exhibit design. Layout is so slow that my first layout set (working drawings) is set to raster rendering. And when I’m ready to export drawings as hybrid or vector, I go page per page and reset render settings for each viewport. The process can take up to 3-4 hours for finished output, and afterwards, if I miss something, it’s another time nightmare. Beginning the process to move towards vectorworks regardless of how much I like working in SU. Trimble, it seems to me, is NEVER going to address issues such as speed of layout or layered quality DWG export. I’ve been using since v04 I think.
7 Likes
I am referring to a process, something else on the computer, running in the background, something other than SketchUp or Layou. It should show in the task manager but I wouldn’t guarantee it. If Layout is running like a terd for me, I restart the computer and it returns to normal operation. Most of the time it runs normally.
I wrote this a couple of years ago – what’s happened? Nothing, got worse if anything.
I posted at length, about 2-3 years ago, complaining about how Layout was significantly worse that previous earlier versions. I recently had to use it for a very small architectural project and the whole process was nothing but pain – slow, frustrating, counter-intuitive, clunky and hugely time consuming – other than that, it was fine! In my opinion it’s become worse with the most recent update. It is almost useless and not worth the money I paid for it.
If LO were a standalone product for importing 3d data, to make 2d orthogonal drawing with notes, colour etc, it would be an abject failure, no one in their right mind would use it. It’s just that it’s paired with Sketchup, which is a really decent, intuitive application – it’s hard to believe that both applications come from the same company.
I have written to the company who sells me the Trimble licence (here in th UK), asking for a partial refund as the LO part of my package is not fit for purpose. I wasn’t seriously expecting any refund, just making a point, the company gave a polite reply saying there is no fixed part of the licence which covers LO as it’s an all-in-one package. Fair enough. Still, I asked them to forward it to the useless Trimble…
I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to list all the instances of LO failures, glitches, snail pace actions etc. but, looking at the recent postings about Layout, I’ve no need to – most of problems are there. Dozens and dozens of moaning frustrated Trimble customers and, no, I’m not inclined to watch a 38 minute video explaining how to speed up LO. Trimble really needs to sort this out.
BTW. If there’s anyone out there who thinks LO is ‘really great’ and uses it all the time without any problems and loves it to death then please get in touch.
3 Likes
You can use links to quote or refer to earlier posts 
Honestly, the performance issues with SketchUp and Layout are now decades old.
I bet this is due to program code that is also decades old, long forgotten and buried deep in SketchUp’s guts.
The people who wrote that code probably have left the company many years ago.
Trimble simply doesn’t have the knowledge and abilities anymore to ever fix this.
I use it all the time to do construction documentation with very minimal problems if any…
I suspect I’m not the only one.
2 Likes
I know @Lindsey does well with Layout. I met up with him before 3D Basecamp and got to leaf through a a massive E-Size set of drawings in his office all done with Layout except for the consultant’s drawings.
1 Like