All, Sorry in advance if this is opinionated. Or if I am simply howling at the moon.
I am an Architect. I have used Sketchup so much over the years. It is super malleable and fun to use. I would go so far as to say I love it. Through ease of use and the way it lets you improvise effortlessly, you can visualize your ideas and stumble across new ones. I find it a creative wonder.
But it continues to fall flat on the ability to turn all this good stuff, into industry standard 2D documentation. You are forced to use a million work arounds or plugins. none of which allow full control. and all of which lose the time you are supposed to gain. It is quicker to go to other drafting software to complete the process. I’m aware people do make this happen. I have tried. In reality, these are all by and large time consuming and impractical. And importantly, it does not allow you to easily work with consultants and counterparts who are still CAD dominant yet alone Revit.
What is more frustrating, is that it doesn’t feel far away. Line weight control (in sections) and and hatches, proper vector hatches, are almost all that it would take to be able to make clean clear 2D documentation. That you could then share as backgrounds to consultants. There appear to be lots of possible ways where this could be introduced in to the sketchup eco system. via Tag line types for instance or Tag overrides in layout. It feels so close, but remains just out of touch. I’m no software developer, but from the outside, it would not seem overly complicated?
But this has been the case for a decade now! and there are just no serious moves to correct this. I also understand that there is a whole industry of plug-in creators who do extraordinary things. But that appears to be an industry too. Could these developers themselves be holding things back? It is a bit of a puzzle because sketchup is inches away from delivering it all.
After trying last about 4 years ago, I came to 2025 looking again to use use sketchup for my full workflow. I see that there has been no real change. It is with much regret, I have reached the point where I feel no choice but to walk away from Sketchup. Look to Revit (even though i loath it). or Rhino. Or something that does not make the Sketchup side of my workflow redundant at a certain point.
I havn’t found a way to export this in to CAD to send to consultants. My structural engineer can’t tell what a block wall is from a concrete wall, from a wood wall.
in layout, when editing your viewport, you have a tag section. and in this tag section you can apply a different line aspect for each tag.
Anssi is giving actual good advice here.
Anyway, good luck in your next endeavours, have a good end of the week.
I was gonna say don’t be a stranger but really, aren’t we all strangers ?
cheers.
Thank you. I was excited when I found this too. But it doesn’t work for objects on Section cuts. It works great for object below the cut line. This is an example of something that is almost there for the purposes of easily controlling 2D documentation in Layout, but falls just short.
I did try use this feature using Curic Section. Then it works to some extent because curic section creates an object at the cut line on a tag below the cut line. However, where the cut line touches another object that is on a different tag, you can’t control the hierarchies and the line weights you select in the Tag override get interrupted.
I don’t know what specific section of the construction industry you work in or if you are in a country that has mandatory standards for communication between involved consultants…
I provide my structural engineers with bare bones DWG export from SketchUp and a set of my fully annotated arrangement and conditions drawings as PDF.
I also don’t disagree that I might be overstating this aspect: It is true that MEP engineers in general just ghost out a background, so for them i would say it isn’t really crucial. I find that the structural engineers will jump in to CAD and won’t expect to go back and forth with a pdf. You can have separate tags appear in different layers, so they could look at the layer designation. But i would expect additional conversations over coordination. I could also go through and add hatches myself in cad if i keep a clean and tidy model. but not ideal.
I have not yet found a way to have hatches on printed pdf documentation from LO to look crisp and clean and easy to read. especially in black and white which is generally standard for permit and construction documents. Things are pixelated and fuzzy.
I have no doubt I can continue to learn ways to improve this but still trying to find a way with this.
But it remains a solution of stacked viewports for line weights and a hit and miss approach to section fills.
I really love sketchup. Maybe I am being unreasonable. You all do wonderful work in sketchup and it looks beautiful. So I don’t want to provoke anyone to be defensive. But i also don’t think it is unreasonable to say that there has not been much development on these type of issues for the last 5 years, maybe 10? and that it could be better?
I really want to start in sketchup and stay there through a project life cycle. and it isn’t for desire or endeavor that i have not been able to yet. But a crunch comes. and you have to deliver drawings. and i just hit a wall with the software.
I’m agree with every words you wrote. I also struggled for years about it. I lost many gig because the lack of compatibility with other softwares. I often say: I adore SketchUp but I hate Layout. A few years ago, I decided to switch to Vectorworks. A standard in my industry. However, the switch is progressive. At the moment, I’m still modelling in SU but create my documents in VW, mainly in 2D. I use Layout just for presentation, when I don’t need vector import.
I’m expecting eventually switch fully to VW but still struggle for a few big reasons. 1- It’s 2 to 3x slower modelling in VW and I cannot simply pass the bill to my clients. They will not pay the same work I usually do for 3x the cost. 2- Creating stunning presentation and rendering is so easier (and fun) in SketchUp. I’m just not ready to let that one go.
I’m using SU for more than 10y and for many of those years, it was my only workflow. I tried everything. I pushed this software to his limit thousands of times. As long as you stay in its universe, you’ll be fine, but when you collaborate with others, you hit big walls. How many times I send a dwg export to a collaborator and receive the reply: WTF is that?!
And to conclude, I’m mainly agree with you with the lack of improvement on the Layout level even after so much discussion on this community about it. I lost hope. And it’s very sad.
Also couldn’t agree more. We have decided to stick to Sketchup as our 3DInfoHub (BIM?) of choice because as @JoeDrafter pointed out - it’s 3 x faster at least then any modeller out there. And since it is 3x faster I can live with my Layout Workflow being somewhat worse then what a pro tool would do.
However - I cannot forgive that these EASY FIXES are not appearing. This would make everybodies live so much more fun and it is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT then adding AI to Sketchup. Rhino - I wouldn’t do Rhino if you want a fast updating documentation. It’s the one thing Rhino can’t do. Worked with Vectorworks for many years - great for documentation, 3D construction so-so. Slower then Sketchup in any case.
So - dear Sketchup Dev Team - how about giving us Layout folks some love…
Not entirely. What a Sketchup-Model is missing in it’s data set is materials that have section cut properties, as well as some settings for line weights and such that Layout can then access. I created a concept about this a while back of how this could be solved. It didn’t feel like it would be a major programming hassle. So there is some stuff left to be done in Sketchup. And A LOT in Layout.
Totally agree. It seems so close to it as well. and yet somehow so far! using your suggestions for instance or ways you could maybe apply a style to a tag. or a line weight to a tag. There is presumably a way to do this that wouldn’t break and bring down the whole code? Maybe a plug-in could be written to do some of these things (to add to all the others…)
