Problem using Standard Views in Layout

Hi everybody

Does anybody have a problem using Standard Views in Layout?

It seems lately that when I create say a ‘Front View’ Group Scene in SketchUp and use Standard Views in Layout to show the ‘Top View’ the model dissapears?

It’s as though Layout goes to the whole models Top View even with everything else hidden?

Cheers

I’ve seen this too. I thought, since SU and LO (are supposed) to work together that “zoom extents” - ctrl+shift+e - would get it back in view. But no - that shortcut does not appear to work in LO. I’ve had to make the viewport larger than necessary to find the wayward view then resize to bring it into the desired area. Of course this is rather tedious since LO is a bit slow rendering changes.

Perhaps the more experienced users have the solution.

It would help if you share your LayOut file so we can see how you have things set up both in LayOut and in the SketchUp file.

Did you use Zoom Extents to center and fill the model window in SketchUp with the model before creating the scene? If you did, and you don’t make any other modifications to the viewport, you should see the model centered for the top view too.

Here’s an example.

The scene in SketchUp with the chair centered and zoomed to fill the space as much as possible.

Switching from Front to Top.
top

I often find I cannot get the view back even by expanding the view ports so I make mutiple scenes in Layout as a workaround.

HI Dave.

I have attached both files. If you look for the last Scene I produced ‘Shoe B1 Elevation’ you can see in Outliner I have nothing else selected. I had to get around it by making multiple views of the same Group.

Thanks for your continued help.

Blenheim Road.skp (4.4 MB)

The Layout file is apparently too large to upload - here is a link to it:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Auxd8hwn1EAakfUKvn4nceZOBjCPvQ?e=zM9T1N

I didn’t use Zoom Extents when I setup the Scene but I have just tried that - and it doesn’t seem to solve the issue.

Just from the .skp file I can see what the problem is. The part of the model you are trying to show is positioned within the group in a way that means switching from the front view to top shifts that part of the model in the space. Selecting the Top view in SU results in the same thing you see in LayOut.

With the way you’ve chosen to set up your model, it would be better and easier if you make a plan view scene in SketchUp to show that ‘shoe’ in plan view. Burrow into your groups until you can select that group. use Zoom Selection to make it fill the model space.


Then select the Top view, find the still selected group and use Zoom Selection to again get it centered and filling the model space as much as possible. Create another scene.

then instead of selecting the standard view in LayOut, select the scene.
top

From long experience with LayOut and helping other users with it I’ve found it’s generally best to make the scenes in SketchUp than it is to choose a standard view in LayOut. Making any changes to Camera properties in LayOut can cause problems for you down the road when the model needs to get updated.

Zoom Extents isn’t all of your problem in the SketchUp model. And since the thing you are looking at isn’t all of the model (I didn’t know that before) Zoom Extents isn’t the right thing. Burrowing in to select the group and then using Zoom Selection would be right.

By the way, it wouldn’t hurt to purge unused stuff from your SketchUp files once in awhile.
Screenshot - 8_3_2021 , 7_21_00 AM

You could improve the efficiency of your SketchUp model to reduce the number of scenes required if you were to use components for these parts instead of groups and place copies of them together setup for the views you need.

That all works perfectly Dave

I now understand how to prepare a single Scene in SketchUp where standard views will work in Layout - but as you say it may be easier to prepare all the scenes in SketchUp and ignore Layouts standard views feature.

Thanks again for your help.

You’re a star :star: :+1:

I’m glad that helps. And thank you!

FWIW I’ve always preferred to set up the views the way I want them in SketchUp rather than selecting standard views in LO. I would only select the standard views in LO for a one-off document that I’ll never need to modify or update. Generally though I always work with the idea that my project will require changes and updates at some point in the future so I try to future-proof my SketchUp and LayOut files.

I’ve shown this sort of things numerous times in the forum but I’ll show it again. The basic ideas can be used in your models, too. I set up copies of the components for the 2-views or 3-views of the parts away from the assembled copy of the model. The model space looks like this.

The assembled copy is at the origin, over to the right and behind is the copy for the exploded view(s), above the assembled copy are the parts of the table arranged for the 2D views, and above the exploded copy are the drawer parts. I could have included the drawer partswith the table parts but didn’t.

So then for the table parts I have a single scene.

That one scene gets used for all of the viewports shown selected, below.


Note that none of those viewports have the Camera showing as modified in the SketchUp Model panel. Those viewports could just as easily be on separate pages, too. In fact the shelf is shown on the second sheet.

Again, in an effort to future proof the project, if some change needs to be made, for example the shape of the curves on the legs, or the length of the feet, I can modify the components in the assembled copy of the model. I don’t need to deal with them anywhere else in the model space. And when I then update the LO file to reflect the changes, I don’t have to go through the document making sure each viewport is correctly updated. They just are.

Thats an interesting idea.

I will use that approach on my next project but I will have to save everything as components rather than groups which will be a first for me.

Always good to try new things.

Are these parts like the shoes custom fabrications for each job or are they off-the-shelf items?

Almost every part for every job is bespoke - we have a few standard extrusions for door tracks - jambs, head track etc but everything else is a one off.

OK. Well you could create a component library for the standard extrusions so you can pull those out when needed. I might consider creating a library for the bespoke parts, too. I expect thaat in many cases a simple modification of a previously modeled part would be faster than creating the new one from scratch.

Agreed - I havent really gotten into component librarys yet but I do lots of copy and paste from previous projects. It seems as though component librarys and more use of the Layout scrapbook could be a massive time saver.

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