Exists in Sketchup. Need it in Layout.
Need goes back to origin of Layout. I make do for now, but with a negative impact to performance and quality and appearance of documents.
thanks,
will consider it doh, unless it fails to function.
It sounds to me from this comment and others that you’ve already decided LayOut’s no good.
The offset tool was added in LayOut 2017.
If you simply want to extract 2D from a Sketchup model it’s definetelly the best option, better than CAD imho.
However if you need to draft on top of your 2D drawings, it still needs a Fillet/Chamfer, Trim and Extend on single and multiple objects, a stretch function, as well as components (or blocks) and a couple of other features like working on viewport’s scale, and easier control of tools like move, rotate and scale (my sugestion would be that these tools would emulate SU’s functions).
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Layout is a work in progress.
Needs more attention to it.
No, I am not 2d drawing with it.
I am annotating the model with it.
But there are holes, inconsistencies and refinements to get it over the hump.
If you want, I can create a list, prioritizing issues that are not wants or wishes. But rather needs and expectations.
One,need that still exists from 2015 is editting text.
I find it more effecient to cut and past out of word. Than to edit a single letter of a word within a 20 item list of notes in Layout. Especially how it rescales the text block when editting without control for scrolling or magnifying the area for editting.
That would be very nice. Those lead to great discussions though sometimes sidetrack.
Even so, I’ve seen many improvements to Layout coming from user requests. Some of them have been fundamental to it’s development.
I cannot imagine I would go so far in my Sketchup use, if it wasn’t for Layout. I can do a lot more with SU+LO than I did with CAD, but it’s true it requires an “imaginative” workflow in order to be effective, and the process is full of workarounds for inconsistencies between SU and LO and a standard workflow.
For me it’s great, but I hate standard workflows… and it could be much better with just adjustments to how it works.
It bothers me to see that it’s the lack of these “adjustments” or “details” that’s driving people away from SU+LO huge potential.
I have been following SketchUp since 2007 when, if I remember correctly there was no “Pro” version. I keep thinking that there will be an improvement in Layout as that is how plans are submitted to the Building department across the USA. Having been a Plans Examiner and a Building Official I would like to see Layout actually work correctly. I tried to send a SketchUp floor plan to layout and it copies the page like a photo and not the floor plan itself. My trial version won’t allow anything but metric in Layout even though I’m in feet and inches in SketchUp and most of the functions are greyed out and don’t work. I really don’t want to buy a program for even the low price of $700 to only NOT be able to actually create 2D drawings which are the standard for actual drawings. 3D is nice for visualizations but most like to sketch the 3D by hand for the artistic effect. If Layout would work correctly as a 2D drawing platform SketchUp would be a winner. Until then it is still just a toy CAD program, however, it has really come a long way from where it was in the beginning. I was hoping not to have to use Autodesk products for reasons I won’t go into and not just price but it looks like I may have to adopt them anyway, as I need real 2D drawings in my “retired” life. I also hear over and over that people use SketchUp to show the conceptual look and then use AutoCad to generate the drawings. So has anyone actually gotten their drawings they did in SU/LO approved? I’ve never seen any that could be approved. I’m wondering that as real CAD program if Tribble has painted themselves into a corner. I would sure like to see this work. But as you said; “adjustments” or “details” that’s driving people away from SU+LO huge potential. I agree many are not willing to buy a toy CAD program that won’t generate real approvable drawings for any price.
I’ve been toying with my SU+LO CAD for professional work since v8. I’ve got no problem transfering a 3D model into 2D drawings, though I’d like the process to be simpler. Layout team have proven over the years that they are doing what they can to keep up to competition and it has suffered this improvements since then:
- Much faster than initially up until a useful state;
- Better tools for organizing layers;
- Way better export to PDF and DWG methods;
- Better drafting tools like offset in 2017;
- Better dimensioning and leader tools;
- Better text tools.
So, Layout got better and better but still isn’t perfect however it can, from the start, produce “real 2D drawings”.
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So has anyone actually gotten their drawings they did in SU/LO approved?
Often.
It isn’t the CAD program that enables a set of construction documents to be approved by the building department; it is the information contained therein and the accuracy and ease of reading that information.
SketchUp is an amazing tool for creating 3D representations of real-world objects, from furniture to sky scrapers, and LayOut is, with all its inadequacies still the best way to present that model to those who need 2D documentation. I will venture to say that the combination is equal to AutoCAD’s model space/paper space, and is especially attractive because it costs a whole lot less. I can whip out a 3D model in 1/10th the time it took me to produce the same thing in ACAD, and while I do miss some of the functionality of paperspace (one being it’s part of the same software), LayOut is leaps and bounds better than it was, and I have full confidence that it will soon become a major competitor to AutoDesk products or ANY OTHER CAD PACKAGE AVAILABLE TODAY.
I agree many are not willing to buy a toy CAD program that won’t generate real approvable drawings for any price.
Google SketchUp version 1 might have been initially looked upon as a “toy” CAD program, but those days are long gone. The current version is robust, capable, and easy to manipulate. To call it a toy is to demonstrate unfamiliarity with its capabilities.
I will confess: when I could no longer afford ACAD, and when SU/LO wasn’t up to my expectations as a CAD package, I purchased a copy of TurboCAD. THAT was the biggest waste of $130 I ever experienced. If I could afford ACAD, would I buy it? Probably not. SketchUp does everything I need, and while I’m often frustrated by some of the kludges necessary to produce the documents I demand, I can’t imagine working without it.
I am publishing a permit set of documents for a large and complex residence this Friday. It is immense, compared to my earlier SketchUp document sets, containing 30 36X24 sheets. I’ll post here again with my experience at the Building Department.
Thom
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“Often.
It isn’t the CAD program that enables a set of construction documents to be approved by the building department; it is the information contained therein and the accuracy and ease of reading that information”.
Yes I do agree to a point, having been a CPE for a number of years content and clarity rule. The price is attractive but I think I can hand draw working drawings and digitize those “easier” than using Sketchup. Revit and all the iterations, MEPs etc. have become more affordable for a business but it is nicer to own if you don’t use it ten hours a day. Archicad is looking very reasonable and thought out and other than it’s European origin, has an international presence.
At versions 1 to 5(if I remember right) Sketchup was not yet a Google product, but produced by a startup company called @Last Software. I started using it at version 3. You needed to export to AutoCad to generate 2D Cad output. That might have made many see it as a sort of toy, but essentially, as a modelling tool, it was mostly quite the same as today.
@Anssi Oh, now you’re just making me feel old. 
Actually, I don’t remember the actual version number I started with, but I do remember it was authored by @Last Software but I got it from Google.
For free.
And because I grew up with the likes of ACAD, 3D Studio, FormZ and the like, I thought, “Wow, this is pretty limited.” Until I started using it. And then I began to wonder why those other packages were so darned complex, to produce something as simple as a 3D representation of the world.
Yeah, OK, you don’t animate aliens for Pixar using SketchUp (or at least you don’t do it easily), but how many of us really do that kind of thing? What impresses me, is that our favorite little “toy” is supported in all aspects by third party developers who write utilities, renderers, animation tools, and etc., and that the result is far from immature.