Well, what’s your opinion on all of this than?
I’ll sign a petition, if you’ll sign a petition. After we both sign these said petitions, we could than create another petition basically that abolishes petitions in general… What do you think about that one?
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I like that 
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Thank you Beamer! I appreciate your thoughts and thank you for your support.
To respond:
I should summarize again my thoughts. I think the amount of feature releases done to both sketchup and layout each year is small. I can’t recall one time where I was impressed in seeing that a ton of new features were added to sketchup and especially to layout during the span of a single year of updates. When I look at other programs, I think their rate of development on their products in half a year is often more impressive by a long shot than what sketchup and layout release for their products each year.
Sketchup/Layout Release Notes History - Reviewing Release Notes Through 2016-2021
Just expressing my point of view here. Someone tell me I’m missing something. Go ahead and read the release notes through 2016-2021.SketchUp Desktop 2020.0 | SketchUp Help
There is not a single year besides 2021 through that range of 2016-2021 release notes that is impressive. 2021 is barely impressive but you can see that it is slowly getting better (the rate of which the products are improving). In all those years besides 2021, where are the new advanced tool options, where is there any sense of significant innovation in any of the release notes in these years, where is the output, like look at each individual year and that’s all they got done? There might be some minor things that are innovative throughout all of those years. If we keep the progress going at this rate, layout will not be a solid competitive program until the years 2026-2030… I think the output of features released for both products should atleast be doubled or even tripled realistically. I think thta’s realistic when you look at the output of other companies and their average output per year in product development and even frick one single plugin developer probably gets more done in half a year than trimble does to both products and that’s the truth. Look at Fredo, Curic, Medeek, Eneroth, etc.
Although Layout is the weak one here, when we look at the release notes throughout those years, someone tell me honestly that they are impressed with the release notes history. Honestly though. Maybe this is just me, but I think so much more should be done.
I think that I agree with you that sketchup is a great product and people love it, I think though that sketchup is mainly what it is thanks to the plugin developers and that’s pretty evident when you look at all of the significant plugin options out there and the tools they offer vs. sketchups native tools selection and capabilities and there relases done per year. I think that the plugin developers are really what makes sketchup a powerful and impressive program. So I don’t agree that Layout is the only thing that needs a huge fix here, I think the output in general is a joke and trimble doesn’t take these products seriously. I think it’s evident that people love sketchup, even without the plugins people love sketchup. I think if trimble really understood how good business works, we would have a customer roadmap so we are not in the dark, not making assumptions, taken seriously and I think they would increase there output on both programs so they could literally make SO MUCH MORE MONEY and we the professionals could get more out of these programs. I use these programs professionally, not for play and I’m not impressed with each years development history. 2021 is the only year I’ve been pleased with the release notes. I mean really, what are these guys not getting? If you increase the output on these programs, your revenue will go way up. Why - People have been converting over to sketchup for years becuase it is just so much more flexible and intuitive, that means that the public is really trending towards sketchup more and more based on what I’ve seen, the company should take advantage of that and make it way better way faster so they can be the kings in the architecture design program world and they literally could be if they got more done on these products sooner.
To answer your questions. I don’t think I have too much power here. I’m going to go in and listen and express my concerns to them and see if it’s possible that we could get more done to these products. That’s really my whole goal here and I don’t see how that’s bad for anyone. I think we have winning and amazing programs here and they could be so much better and this company in return could make so much more revenue if they understood that. I want to figure out with them what their roadmap is and try to point out the elephant in the room that I just touched on above.
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My opinion is that I hope Layout gets more actively developed. I’m in line with everyone here in that aspect.
I also hoped that, besides general speed gains everyone wants to see, development is based on a long term and carefully thought-out strategy and not random feedback, shouting and bashing on Layout and SketchUp that I witness more and more from people in this and similar threads.
I’m also amazed at how bluntness works so well.
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I do definitely think that layout could be improved.
So I think I’m in on this one @ArayaCAD 
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I know I said before…
I take that back I’ve started using LO myself and it really has some limitations
“Flattening” the 3D data within Layout as I understand your proposal is not a change I would support. Access to the 3D data in 2D is one of the foundations of why Layout exists. How would one pull dimensions on non-standard views in Layout?
Because you do not use it, does not mean it is not used by others. One persons “improvement” can destroy a functioning workflow being employed by hundreds of others. Which is a good example of why software development is not best served by placating a few individual complaints. Because it ignores the silent majority successfully using the software. There are some good suggestions in this thread from the 10 or so people who have “signed” this “petition”, none of them are new and all of these suggestions are made without any knowledge of what is possible.
All serious users of Layout want improvement, including me, particularly the ability to handle larger files with speed, but there are many other changes that professional users would like to see. Not all of them agree, which is part of the concern about who is driving the change. If there is a serious campaign to access user feedback I hope it will include a much wider sample of user voices, including many who are conspicuously absent from this petition.
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Here in the UK, estate agents (aka US realtors) say the three most important things about a property for sale are (and in this order): location, location, and location.
I would say that the one thing all users of Layout can agree upon is that the three most important improvements that could be made to it are (also in tis order): speed, speed, and speed.
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I would say that advocating for more development output per year addresses all of that @endlessfix .
The idea in my mind here is to get Trimble to do more to the products that we love because there is so much more potential in these programs that hasn’t been developed yet and is taking forever to develop. Things are happening way too slowly as I pointed out a few posts back showing the update history release notes per year between 2016 and 2021. Your comment about 10 or so people… Even though it’s 10 people as you say, they are listening now aren’t they? The point is they (trimble) are open and hearing us and something is most likely going to happen as a result of this, so 10 people or 1000 is irrelevant. What is going to happen - of course I don’t know, but it’s clearly worth the effort so far as you see the results of what’s happening.
The other users you talk about are known and have been heard loud and clear throughout the community - through their own individual previous posts and the conversations that have happened in those individual posts. Part of what I’m suggesting in the peition here, is questioning not if trimble has heard them, but are they listening. Everyone is being heard, (key word heard). I’m really not sure about some of what you’re suggesting here, I can only assume.
This post is a discussion suggesting that Trimble isn’t really listening or certainly realizing or taking serious enough the programs we all love and use. Some of that might be an assumption, but surely of course if we had a roadmap, a lot of those assumptions wouldn’t need to be made, that and the slow development each year.
@simoncbevans , speed speed speed, can only come from - DEVELOPMENT, DEVELOPMENT, DEVELOPMENT. Even though I know you know that, just pointing out the obvious I guess…
Asking for more development and a roadmap benefits everyone. There is no downside to this petition if that’s the intent of it, the core of it.
You shouldn’t see this as exclusive. Having 2d viewports based on flat models does not mean you have to ditch 3d viewports. You can have both. Actually my implementation idea for flat data was only on Sketvhup export formats. We just needed a batch export for 2d Sketchup vectors from scenes.nthen these would be external skp files that would be imported into Layout individually. They are 3d sketchup models but they are flat. They use the same viewports as today. If you want to reload that model for a full 3d you could.
I do this already, sometimes and ithe flat skp models work very fast.
What I lack is a fast way to generate them, hence the batch scene exporter in Sketchup. This could overwrite flat files already inserted in layout and you simply had to reload all references.
Not a single change to Layout, only sketchup, and yet a major speed increase in your work with it.
A plugin developer could do it. If any of you is listening I’m available to explain the process better.
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Yea … the “So Much More Money” part should get Trimble’s attention!
If they are willing to do the work …
@ajharlan awesome feedback! thank you for taking the time to share all that!!
I would think a 2D viewport could still retain tag structure, and from that be lineweight controlled in Layout ? Maybe a “flat” checkbox in the model pane in Layout? Maybe a “Output as 2D” checkbox in the Sketchup scene manager.
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Actually, I don’t quite agree. Development is a much wider term than just addressing the speed issue. This thread surely proves that. Some people might want much more control of things like dimensioning. That would be development. But the one thing that (it seems to me) unites us all is the clunkiness aka slowness.
And speed actually hides quite a lot behind it. All sorts of things have the potential to improve if this one thing can be successfully addressed. I suspect this follows the KISS principle. Get the architecture right to enable much faster processing and lots else follows.
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Amen! Exactly…this is exactly what I mean.
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I’m adding my voice to the petition. Layout is definitely lagging behind Sketchup. It is a shame because it has so much potential.
As mentioned in the OP, here are a couple issues/comments raised in the past: (the second one is still not resolved)
I really hope we will see some improvement.
I guess this post fits well into this topic too… 
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Have a look at FredoPortrait ($ paid I know)…Fredo may enhance if your needs are not currently met.
FredoPortrait