Im trying to automate the drawing process from Sketchup to Layout and the only thing that occurs to me is that I need 45 scenes to cover all the options that I might have to show on any given project. Not important so much what I am drawing or why 45 scenes. Just know that is a LOT of scenes.
In playing around with this, I have discovered that for a large majority of scenes I have to have a section cut. The fastest way to do this is pick the native elevation view of my model and then go to outliner and pick the section cut that I already placed. Double click it and now I have my scene set. Rinse and repeat for all 45 scenes.
As I have been reminded on numerous occasions, when in Layout, I have a lot more control of line weights by tag so that now I don’t need numerous stacked viewports to get the line weights I want. But then I was sitting there wondering, Why can’t I control the section cuts as well?
It would so great to be able to set up the basic native elevations of any model in Sketchup as scenes and then go straight to Layout and have control of all of the elements as they occur in Sketchup in the Outliner…the Outliner Panel. I could have a viewport activated and pick the tags, set the line weights, establish the section cut I want to see, and even turn off one particular object that is the way of another object I need to see in the view.
Additionally, what would really bake my noodle would be the ability to assign Styles to particular tags in Layout…but that might be adding too much to the fire right now.
To be clear, is your request here for an outliner in LayOut, or for section cut controls on SketchUp viewports in LayOut? Or is it to have the SketchUp Outliner within the SketchUp Viewport inspector in LayOut?
Since section cuts are in the Outliner, I would assume that they would be included in an Outliner panel in Layout.
How you all get that done is probably not my entire focus. A separate Sketchup Outliner panel in Layout or the Outliner in the Sketchup Viewport Inspector would both work in my mind.
45 scenes could be a lot of scenes if they are not organized.
I sometimes have around 100 scenes and it was a mess. Then I developed a scheme to name my scenes. The scheme breaks the scene name into several sections. Each section has a specific group of acronyms the are meaningiful in my work. Develop an order to place the Acronyms and your work is orderly, consistant and understandable
Type of Scene (view)
SEC - Section
PLN - Plan
ELV - Elevation
PER - Perspective
ISO - Isometric
View Direction
Frt - Front
Rgt - Right
Lft - Left
Rrr - Rear
Top - Top
Bot - Bottom
I prefix the Scene name with the area of the building
CA - Cashier
CS - Coffee shop
AL - Alcoholic beverage
Examples
CA PLN
CA ELV Rrr Section A
CS PLN Installation
I have something similar, but the reason Im asking for the Sketchup Outliner in Layout is to completely eliminate the need for this level of organization in Sketchup.
@DaveR has said it so many times that he has converted me…one doesn’t need to do all that preparation in Sketchup for drawings if all the controls are in Layout. This last feature would allow Dave to finally say, “All the tools needed to build scenes in Sketchup are now available in Layout…so why build scenes if you don’t need to?”
Paul…I think that’s the clarification that Adam was asking for.
I want the Sketchup Outliner in Layout.
It’s not just about Section Cut control. I also want to be able to control individual components or groups not just tags. Outliner gives us that control in Sketchup. Would be perfect if we had the same panel in Layout somehow.
thanks for the mention of the other post. That would be a nice feature, and I would use it as well I think, especially for easier control of stacked viewports.
but…I really want more control of what is in the viewport from the Sketchup model. There is so much there already, but having the Sketchup Outliner would give me (not going to assume “us”) that last bit of control of what I want to see in the drawing.
To further explain the Section Cut issue, I would also want the Sketchup Outliner in Layout to function the same way as it does in Sketchup. If I create a scene and need a section cut visible in that scene. I usually select the general view of N, E, S, W and then go to the Outliner and find the section cut in the list and double click it. This activates the cut. Then I look for any components or groups that are in the way blocking what I need to see and use the Outliner to turn those off.
If the Outliner is also in Layout, then all I need is the N, E, S, W scenes in the Sketchup file. When I get to layout, I assign the viewport the correct scene view and then can go to the Outliner and pick the section cut I need and then turn off components or groups I don’t need in the view.
I think it’s been discussed before – a possible even better idea to explore is just the one model scene in SketchUp and in Layout choose the view you want and then activate the relevant section cut.
Then I thought about shadows - I use shadows for artistic effect using the Solar North extension to get good looking shadows for each elevation. One would need to also be able to control Solar North from Layout
I assume the idea is to plan your scenes in SU. Outliner and tags allow us to control visibility of what is in the scene in SU. Limiting objects to what is needed in the scene makes LO responsive.
I dont have any issues switching back and forth to SU and LO. If LO was within SU one would still need to go back and forth between some modules such as model space and paper space.
Actually, no. I don’t want or need to plan my scenes in Sketchup. Im planning my drawings in Layout and use Sketchup to create them.
I think this is major difference in how I approach Layout. Im not an autoCAD, Revit, ArchiCAD, ect. person trying to hack Sketchup to get drawings like I got in any of those platforms. Im in agreement with something Nick Sonder said, “You can’t come into Sketchup thinking like an AutoCAD user”. I have done my best to “free my mind” as it were and realize that there is no spoon! Im trying to use Layout to produce top end design and production drawings with something approximating traditional 2D line qualities.
To me, if I do that, the modeling becomes the means, not the end. I think, for some, that Sketchup is the end and then they arrive in Layout for presentation thinking it will be like AutoCAD. I had to stop thinking that way. Presentation is the end. My models are meaningless if my end deliverable as a pdf is worthless. So I endeavor to think of Layout viewports as Im modeling.
Which, coming back to your point, doing less work in Sketchup then makes more sense. If I know that 75% of my drawings are with the native views (Plan, North, East, South, West) and I can set up all my viewports before hand to take advantage of that fact, why do I need 50 scenes? Why not just have those 5 and my work space scene and be done. No setups, no updates, ever. Just model and save and go to Layout. Go thru all the preset pages, delete what I don’t need, adjust what I do and then Im done.
This of course assumes that all the controls in Sketchup for scene setup are available to me in Layout. The Outliner (and a few others as has been mentioned above) is still a hold out and not available. If it was, there is zero reason for me to setup scenes in Sketchup unless Im including 3D views of my model.
