LAYOUT PETITION: Status: CLOSED - Trimble Response Posted May 27th

Ok yea your message was hard to interpret.

Yea I was thinking of asking Mark why, I will say though dezmo and to all that things are happening for sure. This whole movement has been a great turnout and I have heard what has and is changing so I say that with confidence. @Mark , would you mind sharing some insight into how things are going to look moving forward? I’m sure a lot of people here would appreciate it.

His answer was a summary of what the Trimble employee would eventually say. You missed the point entirely. And what Trimble said is nothing when not backed up by action. Weeks go by and by “transparency” they mean what?

Either they have no plan at all or they do not intend to be “transparent” . Just words.

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I always looked at SU with confidence. Otherwise I wouldn’t use it. I always knew and hoped the team would strive to make the software better. And that’s mostly the case.
I know even without “marketing” text.
And I also know that they are reluctant to give “other” text.

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It’s so early to make assumptions like that. Lets wait and see.

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Did I? I am sorry for that. @dezmo was spot on in his earlier post. I’m just explaining why it is troublesome for listed companies to have a clear roadmap, despite what’s being asked here.

Back in 2005, when I needed to decide what to choose (AD or SketchUp), I choose purely based on hunches and promises for the ‘rebel’ and the ‘cowboy’ way of doing stuff.
My use of Sketchup might not be the same as some of us here, but it did what it had to do for me. I like modelling in SketchUp and presenting through LayOut, but if I had to manage large construction sets of a hospital I might have chosen other software. I am pretty pragmatic in a sense, ‘if it doesn’t work, move on’ .
But I have always seem to find a way to make it work. (we don’t learn how to use software, we learn how to deal with it’s limitations)

I am in a bit different situation right now, for I have joined a Distributor (official Partner of SketchUp) for the Benelux region since a couple of years and sometimes have some insights in what’s going on. (I tried to intoxicate @Mark with beer on a Bizcamp to get a hold of the latest Beta version once).

What I have learned in these encounters is that a lot of improvements being made are under the surface (cleaning up Google’s mess) and preparing for things to come, like the carpenter 's work being hidden by the painter or the foundation of a building that get’s covered with soil, it’s hard for endusers to see, but needed.

I also believe that they’re prepping up for the next revolution in the AEC-Industry (as a true Trimble Connect paladin) and although it was touched in this thread, it might not be the proper place to discuss.
I also believe in Seth Godin "this is broken’, If you think it’s broken, it is!

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The OP was looking for a response from Trimble, the closest thing to that has been Mark’s post so that was labeled as the solution. That seems reasonable. I think Dezmos point is that he (among others) correctly predicted that if there was a response it would be a somewhat vague acknowledgment of the shortcomings accompanied by a non-specific promise to improve in the future. This is not bad, it’s just the best a Trimble employee can do. Many of us who have been at this a long time expected nothing more and that’s fine. A far as the effectiveness of this thread which is not a petition. I’m not sure what to believe, the attitudes appear to vary wildly. Are we demanding change or are we waiting patiently, I guess it’s a bit of both, which is exactly where we were before it started.

or

I’m getting really tired of this. A lot of people are really tired of this. We need a roadmap so that the users are not in the dark and we need to start seeing some real development

or

Exactly.

And if change is coming then we want to know how we can contribute to that process…right?

I assume we can be helpful, because the current roadmap/process of releasing LayOut updates is failing us, so maybe the missing ingredient is our (vast) combined hand-on experience?

We spend so much time writing forum posts and complaining about LayOut, maybe our time could be put to better use by attending user feedback workshops or something? Just a thought. :smiley:

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I totally agree with you @AK_SAM

I’d be happy to sit down with you both @AK_SAM
and @endlessfix this week over zoom and talk ideas. We should, especially before my next meeting with Mark which is next Monday. Message me if you’re interested and I’ll set something up. Lately I’ve been getting in touch with plugin developers and getting feedback to bring up in my next meeting. That same invitation is open to other people, message me and I’m happy to chat or possibly meet with you.

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Yes AK_SAM,
That is exactly the orientation and goal that Trimble must have for improving LayOut! The fact that most of us are not at all sure where Trimble is really focused is the problem.
If they intend to quietly abandon LO, I wish they would have the common decency to TELL us! Many of us AEC professionals have invested greatly in trying to use LO effectively, we rely on the functionality it does have, and desperately want it to improve!
Trimble needs to tell us - are they going to seriously invest in LayOut, or not? If not, please be honest with us, so that we can (reluctantly) move on!

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no roadmap?
mmrrbbuulll

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PM sent!

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Here’s a (probably) really wacky idea.

I think of Layout as a special kind of desktop publishing. Just like DP, you can pull in images, blocks of text, etc. What you can’t get is the dynamic connection to SU.

Arguably, the most useful function of LO is the ability to dimension SU models. But you can dimension things in SU. If the dimensioning abilities of SU were better, might it be possible to export SU data to DP software and harness the ready made capabilities of that to pull in image details, add text, etc? In short, why reinvent the wheel?

This might not work out of the box, but external renderers must know how to take SU data and make use of it. So why not other software?

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Asking for the impossible. Layout is pathetic in comparison to the cadd program (2D Mac only) PowerCadd which I have used for 31 years. Yesterday the developer, Todd Stanley, announced that it has no future, there will be no further development, this is an incredible shame. PowerCadd shares with SketchUp the elegance and ease of use we all have come to expect.
I do not know anything about coding but I do know elegance when I see it.
In my perfect world Trimble would acquire PowerCadd (at the moment it has no value) and would then begin to marry it to SketchUp with all its incredible features. I know that this is asking for the impossible but if you don’t believe in the impossible how do you ever expect it to happen.

SketchUp is amazing but what is lacking is the simplicity and ease of creating 2D drawing and Layout does not do it. This is based on the experience of producing 2D drawing for 31 years. I have been going between the two using .dwg export and import but it is not perfect.

I am available to answer any queries.
Rik Negus

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Great insight Rik! Yea reach out to me, let’s chat. Shoot me a message and I’ll send you my email.

I will join the secret discussion:

I talked to my mother yesterday. (I whispered something to her, but I didn’t send her an email nor private or direct message.)

:stuck_out_tongue:

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😂

Well, what did you say?

My mom said I can’t tell anyone because it’s secret.

:closed_lock_with_key:

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HOW TO MAKE LAYOUT FASTER:

I’m running into this layout speed thing again… I have a fast computer setup, it’s not totally top of the line, but it’s 48gb ram, radeon rx 580 graphics, 2 nocturo cooling fans (not water cooled), a 8700 coffee lake cpu running at 5ghz. I know I have a good setup, I’ll be improving my graphics and ram at some point to be even better, but it’s good enough…

I can’t express how important and insightful this video is that talks about how to really get the most out of layout speed. I have seen this video before, actually twice. Now this is my 3rd time tonight. I was so upset by how slow layout has been acting for me tonight that when I came acrross this video again, I checked some settings of mine and had my settings wrong… Turns out once I fixed my settings according to this video, display resolution, auto render box off, etc, layout is WAYYYYYYYYYY faster, it’s quite fast and it’s quite snappy. I must often forget to not have these settings set or my template system is messed up and unoroganized on my end. I also think it helps to know how much useage you’re computer is getting. I am not a computer whiz, but I know that if my computer is on too long during the day, especially for those of you that have there computer on for more than a day (which I rarely do) restarting your computer can give it a great performance boost for many more hours of the day, so you can try that, and also try to be mindful of how many heavy ram intensive programs you have open, even a ton of google chrome tabs might make an impact too, especially youtube tabs or media intensive. Really worth it to give this video a watch and watch it again if you’ve already seen it and check those settings in layout and what you’re doing on your computer while using Layout. I actually have to say that I’m shocked how fast and snappy it is when I do all this (again) hopefully I’ll remember to do this more often now.

I hope this helps a number of people out.

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Hi Rik,
I have also been at this “2D” Construction Drawing thing for at least 30 years, and I totally agree with your approach and idea …
Anyone who tries to use LayOut to produce Construction Documents at any scale knows we need serious improvements to stay competitive in today’s environment.
Trimble has clearly shown little interest to date in really making any serious investment in the LayOut program that would bring it up to current industry production standards. (Yes, there was the recent LayOut Petition, … but is there any tangible outcome or commitment from Trimble?)
So, if they can’t, and/or won’t improve LayOut , then PLEASE Trimble, let in someone or some other program (such as PowerCadd) that could solve this substantial, long standing, and built-in, production bottleneck.
Let’s hope someone at Trimble is actually paying attention to this discussion/thread. And let’s further hope that they understand the message, and have enough clout in the organization to raise these issues to be heard by the decision makers!