As I’m tending to use LayOut more often, it’s become apparent that my first two pages are probably always the same in respect of viewports. I have a LayOut template set up that I’m pretty happy with but I’d like to have the viewports of the first two pages included in the template. The other following pages always differ.
Page 1 has three viewports and Page 2 has 1 viewport. They always use the same scene name which I hope to pull into LayOut automatically using “send to LayOut”.
So the main question: When I have the viewports set into LayOut using a particular SKP file, what do I do to save that as a template with those viewports set? Do I have to unlink the current SKP file? I’m a bit puzzled to how that’s going to work when I send a new SKP file to the template.
I will admit I haven’t tried yet and it’s probably a bit noob, but I thought I would get an answer here to avoid having to fumble about too much.
I would make a dummy SketchUp file with a very simple model. Set up the scenes as desired and name them. Use them to set up the viewports on the pages and then, in References, unlink the SKP file to embed it. Then save the LO file as your template.
Going forward, you won’t use Send to LayOut. Instead, open LO and open the template. In Document Setup>References, select the embedded SKP file and choose Relink. Select your new SKP file and you should be all set.
Following your instructions I got it working ok, better than before for sure. One thing I do notice is that the right view in my test below ends up lower than the initial template one for some reason. I guess it’s just trivial to move it and the viewports will have to be shifted around a little and resized due to the varying sizes of projects. (The sample file objects I used were a guess-timate as to the size of things.) But, all in all it’s pretty good.
So the first two pages start with the template like so…(this is my sample template, I changed that too)
I guess we missed each other’s timing with the Skype thing (which I’ve never done ) We could do it still sometime. Thanks for the help though, If I’ve missed anything you know where to find me.
I just sent you the template and the test SKP file. I removed some parts from the SKP for this purpose but the scenes are exactly as were from earlier. I think I may have spotted an issue already but I’ll leave that for you to see.
Well, after our long meeting yesterday I’ve finally got back to it and have it working with the front and right viewports both aligned horizontally as you showed me. The viewports are also working much better using the uniform resize method to set them up to keep the model central in the viewport and the increased size of viewport to allow for a wider variant of model size.
For the benefit of the forum, the problem I had with the right view being lower than the front were really a quick simple scene issue. I made the mistake of doing it in both the template and the model. All that were needed to make it work were to make sure the same level of zoom were used for the front and right views. What I had been doing were zooming to fill the model window on both front and right scenes and in turn making the “ground plane” of the scenes appear at different heights in LayOut. Even though the viewports in LayOut line up, the model placement within the viewport is the important part. Probably a bit noob, but as I’d never had viewports set into a template before I just didn’t notice.
@DaveR I don’t know where nearly two hours went and I apologise if I kept you too long but it were good to actually talk at last. It’s strange that two people who have never met before can find so much common ground to talk about. I picked quite a few new tips up too as we went along which I know will come in useful. You have some very nice projects going on at the moment which were interesting to see too.
As for why the giant threw mud at his wife (allegedly), I guess we’ll never know
) We could do it still sometime. Thanks for the help though, If I’ve missed anything you know where to find me.