Layout too slow to use efficiently

Thank you for writing this report. It mirrors my experience with Layout to a tee and I hope SketchUp does something about this soon!!!

got to say @CarlS…fought that fight before. Learned that tag control of these offenders can “manage” this problem. Have a model that I have been working on as a hobby. A massive boat load of objects and there is this one that I modeled that has a massive amount of entities in it. It is a small block in the whole model. It’s tiny really compared to the whole, but when it’s on, it cripples the performance. So I have gone to just keeping that tag off. My working model view runs fine and the only place it is on now is in the scenes. No lag issues. I was just writing this in another thread…tag control of entities is of paramount importance in the performance game. Know what you don’t need on and keep it off as much as possible. It means a much more robust understanding of how to use tags, groups, and components. But that can only mean that we are all smarter with the use of this tool.

As an update to all this, I have now had a chance to use LO2021 a bit more and it does indeed seem to be faster than it was before.

I would like to say that all of LO’s glitches have been ironed out. I’d like to but I can’t as many of them still exist. But it is at least a small tweak in the right direction.

It’s a small patch but a huge improvement. I have been working smoothly lately since the patch.

Now, there are many improvements that should still be implemented, but Layout 2021 feels now the best version I have worked with.

i find it works better, i used to watch it bounce back and fourth 100 times like viewport ping pong before they changed it

Hi everyone,

I wanted to hang back and see if the mid-January update to SketchUp Pro 2021 has helped out @calypso. I’m glad to see it has benefitted a few other posters, but I can’t tell from the thread if calypso has updated.

Regardless, I want @calypso and others to know that my colleagues and I are aware of the poor experience you are having in LayOut. Yes, there may be some ‘best model practices’ you can deploy to improve LayOut’s efficiency. (If you’re willing to DM me a problematic file, we would be happy to advise). But really, there is no excuse we can offer when you experience poor quality in our software.

In addition to an apology – I really am sorry that after years of SketchUp use, some of our customers are getting slower, not faster – I can offer help (we are definitely willing to audit your LO file) and a promise that colleagues of mine are witnessing your experience and that we are doing what we can to improve. In addition to the 2021 patch release, we are actively investigating other improvements to LayOut aimed at improving click-to-click and document navigation performance.

For those of you who’ve read threads like this before on our forum, I am not trying to placate your frustration. I agree with @KeithBrooks’s that it’s important for Trimble to have this feedback and frustration concentrated in a thread like this… especially one that is so cordial and productive. Thank you for sharing your candid feedback with us. I will make sure others at Trimble see it.

Mark

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Mark! wow…this makes my day…not because you mentioned me but because you are here acknowledging the issue. Takes great fortitude to do that as a company and individual. To have you all say that in the forums goes a long way for me. I’m not just mentioning stuff that is going out into the nether. In a time in this country when listening has become a talent of by-gone days, it warms my heart to see you all listening and engaging the conversation.
I might even upgrade…might…:slight_smile:

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Hey @Mark thanks for replying. I’m been hanging back waiting to add anything more to the discussion to see if others were having the same issues as me. I did notice a tiny bit of improvement after that mid-January update. Unfortunately it was just a little bit better.

I’ve noticed that some people who aren’t having as many issue seem to be working with smaller SketchUp models than what I tend to build. Layout may run just a tiny bit smoother if I’m only documenting a small one room kitchen project for example. But most of my projects are entire homes with exterior elevations, building sections, interior elevations, and details. So when I’m dealing with a larger amount of detail that requires a larger amount of documentation I still need Layout to work efficiently.

I typically draw my floor plans and lighting plans in CAD and build the house model in SketchUp. Layout is the reason I made the switch from elevations in CAD to elevations in Layout since I design so much in 3D. I just wish it worked as smoothly now as it has in the past. I love these programs and love some of the great improvements since first using SketchUp in 2006. I just hope that these continue to improve.

Thanks so much to everyone on the SketchUp team for listening to the community feedback and looking to help as best you can.

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Thank You Mark,
I appreciate your continued efforts and attention to improving LayOut!
I hope you (and Adam/LayOut team) can deliver more upgrades to the overall speed and performance of this promising software.
Hopefully Trimble will give you the budget and staff you deserve for this needed priority!

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I don’t now which “layout is slow” thread to reply to, so i’ll just use this one.

I’ve been doing a bit of work recently with large neighbourhood-scale plans that include numerous Texts (leader text) created in SketchUp (there’s a good reason for this…)

I noticed when I have lots of leader text in SU, that LayOut responds slowly, particularly when resizing and moving the viewport (an issue that others have raised, often).

I put up with the lag until today when I have a new site plan with 470 faces, each with leader text (giving the area of each face). The lag in LO is insane…20mins to resize a viewport and a long time to select any object or make other changes. LO has “hit the wall”. Strangely, it isn’t even using much CPU power. Even more strangely, rendering and model updates are not slow at all.

So…I wonder… are the users who are experiencing this slow performance in LO also using leader text or other text in SU?

(generally, TBH, I’ve found text in SU to be horrible…can’t display more than a few lines , gets cropped and distorted, and wont export to LO or JPGs. Certain fonts are worse…I think there’s a fundamental issue here in the text handling code)

I would be happy so sacrifice visible lineweights in Layout, (but not in print), and many other cool things like orbiting inside the viewport, just to have speedy viewport updates.Having just a box represent your text when you move it is not a problem. All in for work flow speed, and let us just accept the approximations that comes with that.

ok…so I need to be talked back off the ledge…Layout is making my eyeballs boil today.

Today I’m battling the macOS required floating toolbars…somedays they like to play together in a nice little huddle…some days, like today, they just hate each other and some find a small space off my screen to hide out for while…guh! Please…Trimble?..Please…No, no, no, no…really…Please Trimble?

Hi,
Layout 2021.0.1 was working « normally », but I update to 2021.1 and lagging issues are the worst I encounter with Layout :frowning:
The same for you ?
Thanks

Hi Mark,
Layout 2021.0.1 was working +/- good for me with real performance improvements compare to older versions.
BUT, I made the mistake to update to your last version 2021.1 and now layout is unworkable (3x longer for me to draw presentations because of huge lagging issues).
2 questions:

  1. Does Trimble is aware of this lagging problem ? If yes, when to you plan to fix it ?
  2. Is there some pc configuration we can change to decrease this lags ? (eg. Nvidia parameters )

Thanks

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Hi @BIMworld: we haven’t seen reports of a discrete 2021.1 performance degradation related to a change in this release. I will send you a DM, as it would help for us to look at files that you are having a bad experience with.

re Hi @Mark ,

I am totally disappointed but happy because this morning Layout work fine … I can not understand … I was about to make a video to show the problem and share the example file with you. With the exactly the same file I had with enormous lags, I start to remake test (like moving photos or applying measures) and it is a miracle I do not have any lags any more!

I really do not understand what happens, let say my problem is solved now and Layout works fine.
I hope I will not have to come back for this problem :))

thanks for your help

I was struggling with LayOut and emailed tech support who provided this info which definitely helped!

Blockquote
There are a few things that we’ve found can help speed things up for Layout:

  1. Go to File > Document Setup > Paper and switch the editing quality to medium or low. It makes the images look a it fuzzy, but it will still export nicely.

  2. Keep the SketchUp Model viewports in Raster rendering mode until you’re ready to export, if possible.

  3. Turning off auto-render can help sometimes.

Now, if the slowness is from a problem, it’s for one of three reasons:

  1. Hardware or graphics cards: Sometimes a docking station can prevent an external monitor from accessing the “good” graphics card, so check to see if Layout is using your 3D-class graphics card. If you have multiple monitors try only using LayOut on your desktop or laptop main screen, to see if your other monitors are not accessing your good graphics card.
    One way to check if Layout is using your Nvidia is through the Nvidia control panel. Try this article and make sure to hit “Apply” in the Nvidia window afterwards if it fits what you see: How to manually set a default graphics card: Nvidia or AMD - Tech Advisor

  2. If you haven’t restarted your computer after installing the latest version of SketchUp and LayOut.

  3. If this is only happening in a few files, make sure that the SketchUp Viewports are as low-poly as possible and have any unnecessary layers turned off. In general, the more “agile” the SketchUp model is, the faster Layout can render it. This quick guide may help: Agile SketchUp Modeling Guide - Google Slides

  4. The last reason is if there’s a bug in the software. But we can only know if that’s the case once we try everything else, so let us know how the first things on this list go.

“using your 3D-class graphics card”

I don’t think I’ve heard that term since installing my Orchid Righteous 3dFX Voodoo.

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I want to notice that Section Cuts make LO extremely slow. If you don’t use Section Cuts, Layout is ‘acceptable’ to work with. At least, that is my experience…

I don’t often use the 3d warehouse but I needed some furniture yesterday so grabbed a few items. There are some great items available.

Problem is the vast, vast majority are modelled with hi poly counts. And often with high res materials. They certainly dont follow any guidelines or adiot 2d+3d versions .

So we have this fundamental disconnect where Sketchup models are high poly - because it’s a surface modeller without nurbs capability - yet LayOut hates high poly/high scenes.

Fortunately, as a workaround, I put all my 3d furniture on a separate Tag. Trying tonrender it in LayOut takes forever (20mins per scene).
What would be helpful is being able to lock that tag as “do not export to layout”.
Because 80% of my model size and complexity comes from items on tags that i dont use in LO…why even export them in the first place?

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