Orbit tool not working in LAYOUT

LayOut
1

I am just learning about how to use LAYOUT in conjunction with Sketchup.

A video on YouTube showed me how I could make three copies of a model and orbit them individually within LAYOUT to show different views of the model. The YouTube author was able to accomplish this by merely depressing the scroll wheel on his three button mouse. I, however, cannot make this happen with my three button mouse.

I can easily orbit in SketchUp by clicking the orbit tool or depressing the scroll wheel but cannot replicate this in LAYOUT.

In case it matters I am attempting this with Sketchup Pro 2017 on an iMac running Yosemite 10.10.5

I did not see any shortcuts in the Preferences Dialog Box to make this happen.
Should I be looking somewhere else to enable this really cool feature?

2

I think you’ve got something confused. There is no Orbit tool in LayOut. LayOut is a 2D application and as such, Orbit makes no sense. You can double click on a viewport and orbit SketchUp’s camera with the center mouse button but that creates issues down the line. You’re better off making adjustments in SketchUp and saving them in scenes to use in LayOut.

If you double click in a SketchUp viewport in LO to adjust the SketchUp camera position you will disconnect the viewport from its original SketchUp scene. Although this can be done, it means that any scene specific changes you might make in the SketchUp file will not show in the viewport in LayOut. This defeats one of the key benefits of using LayOut with SketchUp and that is the dynamic link from SU to LO.

3

Thanks Dave,

Well you cleared up a couple of things for me.
Was not aware of what happens when you double click a view in LO.

Other than disconnecting dynamic link between SU & LO what are the other downsides to rotating within LO?

As I type those words my brain is suddenly understanding why I would want the dynamic link.

But what about if I just wanted a down & dirty presentation without building formal scenes…Any downsides to modifying orientation while in LO?

4

You could orbit for down and dirty presentations but they are just that, dirty.

The thing is, if you don’t use scenes in in SU the viewports in LO will be tied to Last Saved View. If you make changes to the model in SU, save, and then update the reference in LO, you can have viewports changing which screws up things like dimensions and labels as well as the way the viewports are cropped.

You’ve probably already found that while it might be faster at the front end if you are sloppy in SketchUp, that sloppiness comes back to haunt you later by making the model more difficult to work with. You easily lose any time you saved early on and actually spend more time than if you make clean models from the beginning.

The same sort of thing applies in LayOut, too. If you’re making a one off sort of throw away document, it’s probably alright to be sloppy but if it’s anything that’s going to get more attention later, it would be smart to keep it clean and neat.

5

I see the wisdom of your advice.
Better to develop best practices at the beginning.

6

That’s a good way to put it.

I’d guess better than half the problems users have could be blamed on not using best practices. Of course that’s not unique to SketchUp or LayOut, is it?

7

I found a great article that describes what you were trying to say.

https://blog.sketchup.com/sketchupdate/connecting-sketchup-scenes-layout-model-viewports

8

oops…

9

Have you wrote in the wrong thread by mistake John?

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10

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