I have now been working 2 years with SU, and the frustrating interface between SU and Layout is not getting any easier. I am appalled by the quality of Layout, it just is not up to scratch!
Some of the things that happen :
When setting up a new Scene, sketchup does not update with this new information, let alone updating the information, even if this is ‘Sent to Layout’ from SU
When swopping between scaling (Preserve or not, scale on resize) i am lucky to get a view of the subject matter. Often times, the scene dissappears, or shifts withing the view or resizes even if I have ticked the box that it should not or vica versa.
Even with ‘Last saved SU View’ selected, this is a hit and miss situation. The latest thing that is happening is that the selected scene is forgotten and replaced with another scene.
When changing from raster to hybrid, for example, the entire scene dissappears more often than not.
Layout works best when everything is exploded and then grouped. But why does one have to go to these lengths?
On reloading the drawing in SketchUp, some text and dims get red highlights. At this stage this means deleting the offending input and redoing the text or dim.
I closed SU, then re-opened. Some scenes dissappeared completely out of Layout … just gone!!! On closer inspection, the scenes reverted to ‘Last Saved SU View’. I certainly did not change this.
The overall experience is very, no. … VERY painful. This is not what I expect to happen. SU 2014 and 2015 worked just fine!
Right click a red dimension or leader. ‘Reconnect to Model’
Or not. They don’t print or export red. They change color to let you know something in the model changed and layout didn’t know what to do with the connected information.
Last saved is dangerous to count on. If you want to have total control, set it is a Scene in SU and set a model window to that scene in LO
To update or refresh after you make a change in SU go to Document Setup>References and update the file in question. But, if you right click a model view to ‘Open in SketchUp’ this will automatically update LO when you save the file. In both cases, the trick is to make sure you save the LO file.
Last Saved SketchUp view is exactly that. It’s not a scene. It’s where you happened to save the file. So if you orbited the model, turned a bunch of layers off, and hit save, any window in LO that was set to 'Last Saved SketchUp View will update to exactly that - whatever you were looking at the last time you saved that file.
If you do it right it simply works, though it could always get better:
You have to update your Sketchup model inside Layout for the new Scene to show up.
That does happen and it’s very annoying. It should change. It’s easier if you have your scenes in Sketchup centered on your subject and your subject fills the most screen area it can.
“Last Saved SU View” should never be used. It’s not a scene. It’s the working camera you had when you saved SU file. You have a dropdown menu that you should use to select a scene from your model. If you do that, Layout viewports will only be affected when you change something on that specific Sketchup Scene.
That’s because that change forces a reload and you have not set a specific scene in your viewport. If you happen to save your viewports based on the Last SU view, then that change reloads the model to an arbitrary position based on the Last saved SU view, which is, by default, arbitrary
You don’t, you should read about connecting LO views to SU scenes
What the red dims mean is that your dimensions were connected to some element on the model that disappeard with one of your model editions. If your model is edited and no element was deleted the dimensions autoupdate and stretch to fit the new position, however if the element got lost the dimension becomes red as it doesn’t automatically know what to grab to anymore. If it happens that you have a new element under the dimension, you can right click on it (or several at the same time) and reconnect to model.
Either you set them up originally based on a Last Saved SU view, or you changed the scene names in Sketchup so LO can’t find them and reverts to Last Saved SU view.
I really admire how you sticked to use SU+LO like this for 2 years. I also find it hard to believe that it was working fine with 2014 and 2015 if your methods were like you describe.
I hope the above helps but I think it would be better if you’d read the things in the following link:
Never use Last Saved View as it changes each time the model is saved. I don’t know why that option even exists since it’s just a trap for new users to fall into.
I can agree that much work is needed on the connection between SU and LO.
Exactly Eneroth, it seems that feature is there due to the Layout not updating quickly enough. This is especially evident when one creates a new scene, and when you then look at the layout file, this scene is nowhere to be found. (Yes, I update from the model, save the file, update the scene etc. … in some instances I reboot the Mac, and if I am lucky the new Scene is included in the list. This piece of software reminds me of ArchiCad’s Plotmaker, something Grahpisoft have long removed!)
It seems a bit odd that the ‘Explode’ feature even exists. If the software did not have these ‘glitches’, there would be no need for this. Ok, so one explodes the scene, which also takes out the chance to dimension the drawing! So, the way I understand it, is that one opens a new scene in LO, sets up the dimensions then explodes the scene. Something not right here…
Why are you exploding scene views in LO?
Unless you have a specific reason for layering / stacking views and graphics, it doesn’t make sense to do it to dimension.
Something seems terribly wrong - either how you are working, where you are storing your files, or something else behind the scenes. The flow should be pretty painless:
Working in LayOut, I notice I need to fix something or update my model.
Switch over to SketchUp.
I make my changes, refresh any scenes that might have changed.
Save the model.
Switch to LayOut.
Go to File>Document Setup>References
The file that changes will be in blue (on my Mac), click the file, press ‘Update’.
LayOut will refresh the viewports as needed.
Continue working.
Seamless from my end, unless I do something out of the ordinary - like forget to update a camera location, or save the wrong style to a scene, etc. etc.