I have a sketchup model of a house that I wish to convert to 2D floorplan using LayOut. I had finished all the videos on learn.sketchup.com, but they hardly helped! I saw several youtube videos how to specifically do the floorplans from Sketchup to LayOut too, but really got confused. I tried many times but couldn’t get things right. Some of my biggest questions:
After inserting a scene, why do we need to copy the viewport and paste in place?
Is there a way to edit or add lines to the floorplan once it’s on LayOut, without affecting the original Sketchup model?
What is object snapping?
Is there a way to remove units (no “inch”, “feet” etc) when I do dimensions?
In what unit should I input numbers in the Measurement box (the box at the lower right corner)? Does it have anything to do with the scale?
Also, I can’t seem to overlay scenes correctly. I created separate scenes for external walls, interior walls, and floorbase. But when I inserted them (made sure the scale is the same), they don’t fall on the right corners, and it’s really hard to move it accurately (grid snapping/object snapping are turned off). How can I make them match each other?
A thousand thanks in advance for all your replies!
Since I don’t know what tutorial you are referring to, it’s hard to say exactly. I suspect that the instructor is doing viewport stacking. This is done for different reasons. It might be that one viewport is set to Raster while the other is set to Vector rendering. Or there could be other reasons. I use viewport stacking for different things like showing hidden details with dashes. Several different scenes with the same camera position can be stacked show different aspects of the model. Lots of different ways to use stacking. When stacking make sure you are putting each of the viewports on a separate layer in LO so you can access the ones lower in the stack without disturbing those above.
After rendering the viewport in Vector, you can explode it so the lines become LayOut drawing entities which can be manipulated in LayOut. Of course this disconnects the drawing from the SketchUp model.
Yes. In the Dimension Styles panel there is a box to tick for showing/not showing units. You need to have dimensions or the Dimension tool selected before that panel is active. In the Architectural units the feet and inches indications are always on, though.
It depends on what you are doing. If you are moving entities on the page or doing normal LayOut drawing, the dimensions will be paper space. If you are doing Scaled Drawing then you would use (typically) real world dimensions and LO would adjust to the scale you have set.
Thanks so much, DaveR. Is there actually a good video tutorial where I can learn further about all you just told me?
How do I do render the viewport in vector?
Does rendering in Vector automatically disconnects the drawing from the reference file (sketchup model) or should I do anything to unlink them?
I don’t see the box that I can tick for showing/hiding units in the dimension styles panel. Is this the one you talked about?
Also, I can’t seem to overlay scenes correctly. I created separate scenes for external walls, interior walls, and floorbase. But when I inserted them (made sure the scale is the same), they don’t fall on the right corners, and it’s really hard to move it accurately (grid snapping/object snapping are turned off). How can I make them match each other?
There’s very little out there on LayOut. There are some good books such as the ones by Nick Sonder and Matt Donley.
Select the viewport and then choose Vector in the SketchUp style panel.
Vector rendering in itself does not discoonect the viewport from the scene in SketchUp. It just makes the edges display as vector lines instead of pixelated raster image. If you seriously want to modify the drawing in LayOut, right click on the viewport after rendering as Vector and choose Explode. Think carefully about whether or not you want to do this, though. It has its uses but you are giving up the dynamic link from SketchUp to LayOut.
That’s the panel. The right-most button in the top row showing a dimension with “3m”. Deselect it and units will not be displayed. You must have a dimension or the Dimension tool selected for this to be active. It isn’t in your screen shot.
How about we take a little time to look at this stuff together. I’ll send you a PM.
You’re a godsend, thank you so much!
Btw, is there a way to glue the viewports (different scenes) together in LayOut? And will doing that affect the original file?
The problem comes from moving the camera between scenes. In order to get viewports to line up correctly and easily in LO, you need to make sure the camera is in the same position for all of the scenes. Here I’ve fixed the last two scenes so the gym wall will appear in the proper place. I added a line to the right simply to show that the camera is not moving between those two scenes.
As you are setting up scenes for viewport stacking, you are only working between the Scenes and Layers panels (and maybe the Styles panel if you are using different styles for different scenes) and you don’t do anything in the model space.
With the scenes set correctly, stacking the viewports is dead simple. You set the first on on the bottom-most layer, set the scale and position of the viewport on the page as needed. Then copy the viewport, make the next layer in the stack active, right click in the paper space and select Paste to current layer. Then change the scene selection in the SketchUp Model panel.
FWIW, here’s an example from an ancient LayOut file where I have 10 layers just for stacked viewports. You can’t tell in the screen shot but there are different line weights as well as details shown that would be difficult or impossible to do in a single scene. In LO2019 I could do this all with maybe 3 viewports now but even when I made this, it wasn’t at all difficult to set up.
@stelle123 To answer your questions if there are any good layout courses. Sketchup Australia has a great one for making construction documents. It is not a full comprehensive course but still gives a lot to people who don’t have tons of familiarity with the program and even if you do there are some awesome workflow ideas that you’ll most likely learn.
