Let's Talk Layout Topic Suggestion

LayOut
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This goes out to @TheOnlyAaron ,

I’ve been polishing up my Layout-Skills over the Hollidays by watching all Let’s Talk Layout Videos. Surprisingly there was at least one thing in every video that I didn’t know yet so - thanx for making these!!!

Since you ALWAYS remind us to leave you feedback and topic-suggestions. I would LOVE a detailed video about how to accurately draw, edit & move things around Layout. This is the one thing that I don’t get. It’s the one thing that so super-easy in Sketchup and super-hard in Layout and if you watch your videos you will notice that you kinda Lord-of-all-Sketchup-Videos wiggle yourself around these delicate points “I’ll just draw a box here”, “Let’s just make a circle here and not worry about the dimensions”, etc.

Examples could also include aligning views (Left, Top, Front) precisely. Or how to pick an object / view and move it 20mm (sorry) to the right. Or how to pick up an object and precisely snap one border/point to a board/point of another object…

So that’s the challenge for a new video. How. To. DRAW/EDIT/Move. Stuff. PRECISELY.

Will you accept it?

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There are some very usefully courses on learn.sketchup.com
Did you already did those?

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LayOut has this little move handle thingy in the center of the selection that can be moved (e.g. to a corner) and then you grab the selection (anywhere but at the move handle) and move it with snapping from that move handle. As a SketchUp user myself it took me some time to figure this out and use it efficiently.

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Me too :wink:

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I’d be lying if I’d say I did them all. :grin: I feel comfortably saying that I am not a beginner at Layout any more, Layout has become a very essential tool in our workflow. What I love about these videos is that they talk about ONE aspect and you can basically fill the gaps that you have.

@ene_su → In theory I understand that. It’s just - like if I want to center-align two items it’s really tricky because that rotating handle is placed at the center. If I want to edge-align it’s tricky because if you mouse close to the edge the mouse will offer you to scale the geometry. I usually take a point somewhere in undefined-land and hope for the best. Or I nudge it to where I want it with the arrow keys. Which feels - so - unprofessional.

I’d just love watching @TheOnlyAaron deal with that on a video to copy a few of his tricks… :slight_smile: If there are any.

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Can you elaborate…?

Just that if I understand you right, this is quite simple to do… :thinking:

Centre-align

layout_align_01

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With this edge align the trick is after the two corners meet and you move the grey box down, pressing shift aligns the grey box horizontally

layout_align_02

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See - I knew there is a video out there for worth this topic. @PaulMcAlenan Great Explaination. The first one is not that usable for me because BOTH boxes are jumping (which would be a horror in an almost done Layout the second one is great if it is a simple box.

Once it get’s a bit more complex - say something like the attached screenshot I sometimes need to allign let’s say a point of the roof to the same point of the roof in a different view.

image
image1813×1154 298 KB

And that gets a bit frickely - especially if you compare it with Sketchups way of solving the same problem. :slight_smile:

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The video kinda makes me wonder - did this magically align because of the line? Is it aligned or just “sorta-aligned”? In any case I always feel like I am just cheating my way through these plans… :slight_smile:

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For sure, it can get a bit finicky, for me especially when the gizmo disappears in a sea of selected blue :scream:

As Christina said, if you move the gizmo to the point that needs to align with something else…

layout_align_03

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Another option, which does require that you set up your scenes in SketchUp correctly, is to copy a viewport, paste it and then move it using the cursor keys and Shift.

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Aaaaah - now I get it. You can move the gizmo (is that the official name?) to a point and it will use it as a snapping aid later. Oh boy. That - yes - I mean - ok - sure - one can solve the problem this way, too I guess. But if anything deserves a “Let’s Talk Layout” it’s that “workflow”. :joy:

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Wikipedia: A gizmo is a gadget, especially one whose real name is unknown or forgotten.

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now that’s bravery…admitting to just cheating thru…humpf…I feel like I do that every day, especially with this topic of alignment. Starting to believe professional means that I know how to cheat so well that you can’t tell I do.

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(That’s what being a professional is all about) Btw - I found this brilliant program that solved the “how to move an object problem” rather beautifully - They created this separate “Move Object” Button in it - I don’t think it will fit Layouts overall design-philosophy and who wants to just steal ideas from other programs but it sure looks rather logical to me. Made a small video…

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Not sure if I inspired this but if so: thanks @TheOnlyAaron ! (?) ! :raised_hands: Precision Movement - Let's Talk LayOut - YouTube