Hi all,
I have been using sketchup for a couple of years now and have not run into this problem yet. I have a sketchup drawing with many scenes and layers and had imported this into layout to turn the drawing into printable plans. I had to put it aside for a few months and just got back to the project.
I made a couple of changes to the sketchup model, updated the scene and saved the file. When I went back to layout and updated the model reference to reflect the changes all of the drawings in layout disappear and the text and labels get scattered throughout the model. I then tried to relink the model but nothing happens. So I am not sure what to do, hoping to find some answer here.
Miter Saw Station layout.layout (2.8 MB)
wood storage cab.skp (3.6 MB)
I don’t see any missing model views in your LO file.
I see a few viewports that show the scenes as modified which is not a good thing. I also notice that dimensions for the parts aren’t connected to the model. I wonder if they ever were.
For the way you are showing the parts, it would be wise to set the camera for the scene to Parallel Projection and a standard view. It would also be smarter to leave the model axes in their default orientation and align the parts with them so the standard views are usable. Here I’ve reset the axes for the scene called miter saw table parts. The laid out parts are at an angle and the assembled view of the model is below the ground plane.
Out of curiosity, do you really want your customers to print all that gray background color?
I didn’t save the layout file after it disappeared, these are the original. if I open the layout file and select update model reference that’s when everything disappears.
the plans I have done in the past I do remove the gray background, I just haven’t yet. I have only done a few of these and am still learning, so I do some stuff out of order. But I clean these up a bunch at the end of the project.
Yes. Now I’ve updated references and see the same thing. It comes from the way you are modifying the viewports.
I found another problem with your dimensions. You have Auto Scale disabled. This will result in incorrect dimensions in your project.
I also found you have the dimension text set to be right justified which tends to make them look strange.
I’ve fixed up that scene to show the parts aligned for the standard Front view with Parallel Projection, and created a second scene to show the table in a perspective view. The parts viewport was relinked to the scene and a copy of it was just for the perspective view.
If you want, we could chat about some ways to improve your work flow so these sorts of problems don’t pop up.
I’m also seeing issues with your model. Some parts aren’t modeled quite correctly. Not sure how they end up off like this. Example:
While about 90.000° is pretty good, the corners should be exactly 90.000°.
As I poke through your model, I see a number of things that I would change/improve to make the model work better for creating the plan document. I this were given to me as a project to create a plan from, I would go almost back to square one and start by cleaning up the model to make it easier to work with. Then I’d redo the scenes so they could be properly dimensioned in LayOut. I know that sounds like a lot of work but I think in the long run it would make for a better product for you and it would be easier to modify if that need arises.
Well I am always looking to learn more and make this easier on myself, it does get quite frustrating when things happen and I can’t figure out why. So I didn’t realize that double clicking in the viewport and changing the camera angle screws up the relationship between the two programs. Is there a way to fix the link between the two or should I just delete the layout file and start again? Starting the layout doc again would be the end of the world but I defiantly don’t want to start the whole drawing again if that can be avoided. I am not that fast at this so that was many many hours of work. I’ll try and save this and make it the best I can but would definitely like tips for improving my next projects.
I am not sure how the dimensions in SU ended up being “about”, that seems very strange. As far as the camera angle and view, I just like the look of the view, it looked less “flat” to me. And the autoscale won’t allow me to uncheck it.
I really appreciate the help. I have watched many videos on YouTube and read a lot of blog posts but there is just so much to learn.
The link isn’t affected by you altering the view in LayOut. Changes that are saved in SketchUp will still show up.
Changing the camera position for the viewport in LayOut (along with some other things) creates the moidified scene. This results in a disconnect between the scene in SketchUp and the viewport in LayOut. When you have that disconnect, scene-specific changes you make in SketchUp won’t carry over to the viewport because the viewport is really no longer displaying that scene. You can reconnect the viewport by selecting the scene from the list in the Model Info panel. Of course if you’ve got labels or dimensions in LayOut that are linked to points in the model, if the points move, the dimensions will get messed up.
I don’t think you’d have to start the entire model over. I would get rid of all of the parts except in the assembled model. This bit here:
I’ve already started doing a bit of cleanup. I reset the model axes and moved the model down so the casters are sitting on the ground plane. I notice that the infeed and outfeed surfaces are an inch higher than the surface of the table on the miter saw. Is that what you want?
As I’m going through your model I’m seeing a lot of inefficiencies that could be fixed before creating the additional scenes. For example, although the four drawers in the outfeed unit are identical, each part is a unique component. This means more work to create in the first place and a load more work if you need to modify those parts later. And then the extra parts for the other views are unique from these which also forces you to do a lot more work if you need to make changes later. Components can make your work a whole lot easier but in your model, you aren’t harnessing that power.
As for the angles and dimensions, I would start by increasing the display precision of dimensions and turn off Length Snapping. Since you are working in Fractional units, set Precision to 1/64th. This will make it easier to see errors in dimensions.
I would go through all of the parts and check them out before going further. Make sure they are all correct. One quick way is to run a cutlist and look down the list. FWIW, the cutlist would be a lot shorter and easier to deal with if you were taking advantage of the components.
Look at the dimensions for 64ths, 32nds, and tildes. It’s unlikely that any of your parts should have those. And although the dimensions of the casters really aren’t critical in a cutlist they shouldn’t have the dimensions that one shows.
Again, I know it’s a lot of work to go back and fix up the model but in the long haul, it’ll be time well spent. And you should learn some strategies to avoid creating the problems in future models.
Many of the scene specific changes will not carry over into LayOut if the scene has been modified in LO.
I wanted to make your answer look extra long by comparison. My point was that the link to the model is still there, geometry you make in SketchUp will show up in LayOut, so long as it’s within view.
So, I’ll get rid of the “models” in my scenes and look through the original drawing for errors?
I am familiar with reconnecting the model and having the table and dimensions become messed up, thats happened a few times. I will have to keep in mind that all changes to the model and the way its viewed be done in sketchup.
I think I had set the dimensions to 1/16" because a large number of my customers will be amateur and my thinking was to avoid more complicated measurements. Maybe the better option is to have a more precise measurement in SU and I think I can change the LO dimensions to 1/16".
I am still unsure how the dimensions of some objects get so screwed up, is the only solution redrawing these pieces?
As far as components go, it seems I have a basic understanding of them. I use them but I think when there was multiples I was making each unique for some reason.
So when I draw a drawer : make the sides, bottom, front and back components and name them respectively and then should I highlight the whole drawer and make that a component also before making copies?
Setting the precision to 1/64th in. doesn’t mean that you have to create parts with 64ths. The 64ths are to allow you to identify potential problems in your model.
Yes. You can set dimension precision to 16ths in LO if you want but even if you leave precision at 64ths for the LO dimensions, you’ll only see 64ths if parts you’ve modeled are like that. Again, setting precision high allows you to see possible modeling problems and head them off.
It depends on the part. In some cases it might be easy enough to modify the part. In other cases it could be easier to start over. I’ve been working through your model trying to clean it up and make it efficient. I started with the saw stand. I fixed the front left leg and then copied it to make the other three. The cutlist looks like this now. Notice one line for all four legs. Precision is 1/64th in but not a 64th, 32nd, or tilde to be seen.
While that can be done, it isn’t especially useful for this kind of project.
As for the drawer, I would make the parts (the sides are instances of the same component) and then I would make a nested component so you can handle the drawer as a unit. (Some people would make a group instead of a nested component but I prefer making components. That component would get copied as needed to make the additional identical drawers. Then the cutlist for a single drawer would look something like this. (I had to fix it a bit because the sides and bottom were about 14-15/64".
What are you planning to store in these drawers? Spent uranium? They’re built like a brick outhouse. 
Ok, I think I got the component and copying idea. that definitely makes more sense than what I was doing and it makes the cut list much cleaner.
I think I had the precision set because at some point I was drawing something and had to put a component between two other components and was getting a fraction that would be hard to work with. I don’t remember exactly what it was but I remember looking up how to lower the precision because although the drawers can handle the spent uranium, I am not building rockets 
. That was just my thought process that made sense at the time but this is all pretty new to me so I will defer to your suggestion and try it again and see how it goes.
I will mess around with this model more this evening and see if I can improve on some of this stuff.
When I’m modeling a piece of furniture or other woodworking project I am always thinking about what parts are identical and will get the same machining processes. The legs on the saw stand are identical so they can be instances of the same component. The front & back aprons, and the side and center rails on the saw stand are all the same size so they can be instances of the same component, too. (I didn’t catch that before but cleaning a little more I now have the cutlist looking like this.)
So if I was going to build this thing, I would know I need to cut 5 or those apron pieces and would do them all at the same time with the same stop set up.
The same sort of thing applies to the long base frame pieces. They are the same on both cabinets so I’d use the same component on both cabinets so the cut list would show I need to make 4 of them. Look for similar things throughout.
perfect, thats great advice. There is a lot to think about on this program. On paper I would have done exactly what you said, I should have thought it could be the same for this.
As far as the tow different cabinet, keeping them separate was on purpose so that one could print plans for and build one of them at a time. I know when I do a big project like this I will sometimes do one unit at a time to avoid cluttering up my small garage with parts or if I only have the money for part of the project, Like this one I have only built the left and center units.
You can still set them up to be separate projects if you want. If you use a cutlist, it can be set up to only report the selected components.