Excellent move. I achieved things with Rhino Grasshopper (you have to be interested in Grasshopper!) that were impossible with SketchUp, and there is push-pull in v8.
Be careful if you have just purchased it that you are guaranteed v8 free of charge (it is now a final beta since a few days), which will be released soon. If not, Rhino has an infinitely nicer licensing policy as you said, and it will cost you less on several years. I’m not a fan of VisualArch which still has some flaws maybe.
We use Rhino and Sketchup in our company. Rhino is definitely the software where I can get more stuff “out” (to production) and “in” (to the software). Sketchup is a lot more fun and I use it for our creative process. I personally continue to love the separation of Sketchup and Layout - once you dig it, it makes total sense. I continue to hate all the workarounds that people come up with (Viewport stacking, wtf?) in order to get ANYTHING decent out of it and the lack of different hatch-fills. These are solvable problems for a team of programmers that manage to get Sketchup onto the iPad. @Sketchup. SOLVE THEM!!!
I startet this post over a year ago and rereading it I still think this is a practicable solution that won’t confuse new users (as if that would be an excuse) or blow some sort of development budget that Trimble has with Sketchup development. And it would make EVERYBODY that ever needed to output a plan from Sketchup a lot more happy.
Sketchup competing with Rhino in terms of output (Output meaning - things I can get OUT of the software once I am done with my design)? That would require an entirely different magnitude of commitment for the Sketchup-Team. So that feels like a lost battle in my opinion. But hatches and some love for DWG output (and - MAYBE - step at one point or the other) - it could be done!!!
Hello every one
I just received the following message by “system Discourse Staff”
Please, I think this post is a very good discussion on what, where, when, why to use different software for architects.
I would like to keep it alive.
I do appreciate SU and am still using it !
Hello,
This is an automated message from SketchUp Community to let you know that your post was hidden.
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/proposal-of-how-to-solve-the-section-fill-color-problem/197937/34
Your post was flagged as off-topic: the community feels it is not a good fit for the topic, as currently defined by the title and the first post.
This post was hidden due to flags from the community, so please consider how you might revise your post to reflect their feedback. You can edit your post after 10 minutes, and it will be automatically unhidden.
However, if the post is hidden by the community a second time, it will remain hidden until handled by staff.
For additional guidance, please refer to our community guidelines.
It happens – just happened to me and some others in another thread 
Hi paul
“It happens – just happened to me and some others in another thread”
For what reason ?
And did you get more precision about who is “the community feels” ?
we were off topic 
You do realize you only set it up once? I don’t set that up for every project, only my template that uses a proxy model. All I do for every project after is simply update the reference.
Hi Nick
I do use intensively Layout
(because of you or thanks to you)
Having a separate file for layout helps connecting to an-other file than the original one has some advantages
I do so when I version my files (from 01 yo 99)
On another hand, it has a lot of disadvantages
Biggest is that all-inserted models and views cannot be replaced from one file to another if scenes are not the same. I mean not only the name but the internal SU ref. to the scene.
This means I would have to always use the same SU file with all scenes created by advance, and correctly zoomed !
This I can’t do, my projects are too different
1st
Layout file size are big as they actually store the SU file
(so you have twice the size in the hard drive)
2nd
Updates (I use ONLY raster views) are really slow.
Not the only one complaining.
I have more than 20 pages in each Layout file, and some pages include 4 or more views.
As soon as you have forgotten to draw a single line in SU you need to update.
I do this all the time.
3rd
Layout does not actually detect all the times if the SU file has been updated
4th
You better not forget to update the SU reference before sending the PDF to clients…
5th
You cannot - I didn’t find anyway to - relink a scene to another SU file.
I mean, you can insert as many SU files in Layout, but cannot choose to switch a scene you have placed in Layout from one SU to another
I’m not talking about the missing features like dim and text styles, components, real accurate dimensions and so on.
Still, I use Layout every day even though it has all these negative points.
The original post wasn’t at all off topic. It was on topic. It stqrted deriving, as a lot of posts do, but it didn’t sidetrack the whole thread dramatically. It was based on the ongoing discussion and allowed us to be able to compare two pieces of software which are comparable, from the perspective of people concerned with sections, output and similar tools. I learnt a lot from it.
It didn’t offend anyone and was very polite too.
The real problem of that post, in my honest opinion, might have been that it affected the sensibility of a bunch of sketchup groupies.
Being a sketchup groupie myself, I feel that it was censored, it ashames me that this happened, I’d like to see the post being put back on.
Sketchup is a great piece of software, I love it. I don’t want it to be defended by not being able to discuss other software.
This is a problem that you will not have on the Rhino forum
I don’t reuse a project as a template. I have specific LO templates that tie to specific SU templates. Obviously it all starts in SU. Once I am far enough along in a concept, I know which LO template to select.
Typically most projects will have 4 elevations as an example. I then select the template that has N,E,S,W orientation. If I have a SU project that has oblique angles I then select the template that has N, NE, E, SE, S, SW,W, NW elevations.
All the stacked viewports are already setup in the template to the scale I want. Yes you sometimes have to resize and position the viewports, but that takes seconds since you can select them all at once.
I just finished prepping a home set with 4 elevations for a conceptual review….12 sheets. It took less than 30 minutes using this method to produce a cover perspective, 2 sheets of all 4 perspectives, 2 site plans, 3 floor plan sheets, 2 roof plan sheets and 2 elevation sheets. This was a 3800 sf custom home with a 1400 sf garage. Total of 2 SU files and 5 LO files.
I’m not sure what you mean by the reference update? I never have an issue replacing the proxy file with the project file. All my projects are different with a wide variety of size and style. The process is the same. I just choose the appropriate template and go. The only exceptions to this process are section sheets and interior elevations since those will vary based on the project, but all the base sheets are easily done with this method.
It may sound complex but it is really simple and the consistency of the process makes it very fast.
Yes, I use templates as well. They are great time-savers. The multistep-Donley-workaround I was referring to is:
I prefer to use seven or so different hatches in my sections instead of solid colors. This means if I want to do it natively, I have to take my SU Donley-section, stack it as a vector viewport in LO, explode it, and then apply my hatches to the exploded geometry as pattern shape style (losing the SU reference after exploding).
Are these on 1/4" scale sections? If so, I can tell you that nobody cares to see that in the field or at the building department. What I do is a solid color for the walls, floors and roof, then another color for items “applied” like cabinets and trim. The assembly of the actual structure is done with assembly details that are keyed into the section. You could still do it the way you want with the curic plug-in but you would have to have multiple scenes in SU and multiple view ports in LO. Still doable pre-setup in a template, but why?
I used to do the same many years back until it became evident that the assembly details were far more telling and at 1/4" scale it really didn’t make sense. Always ask why and who you are doing the drawing for. It’s the same reason I stopped doing 1/2", 3/4" wall sections. There is no need if you provide materials in building sections if you have assembly and specific details keyed in.
Thanks for taking time to share that insight, and for pioneering and documenting so much of your workflow. My context is international, and structures are a mix of confined masonry and reinforced concrete. Having a hatch section fill option would be helpful in my context.
Care to share an example of what you’re drawings look like? @designnest shared a good example of what his plans look like earlier.
I used to use hatch fills but swithced to white fills using the standard section fill at initial stages, then color fill using curic to show walls and slab layers at later stage and intermediate scale.
This allows me to export wall layers for engineers from layout to DWG, using vector viewports, as solid color fills will convert to solid hatches in CAD.
We don’t use typical details here.
I leave hatches only for final hand drawn section details at 1:5 scale. My hatches for doing that use the same solid color base, and I can distinguish between different materials on the same layer.
So, in those details, a mansonry layer which might have plaster, brick and a lintel, still has the same color code as the intermediate drawing, but has all the fine layer separation I need for presenting section details that are project specific.
I’d love to see an example … Can you share a couple of screenshots?
Hi @jure
Of course, thank you for your interest in our work.
The following images are wip of an ongoing project.
All is pure sketchup and layout. No draft work in Layout except dimensions, symbols, leaders and texts. All drawings are based on the 3D model but sections are drawn in 2D, based on Curic, Skalp or SectionCutFace, which is free and very cool.
Best,
João
This is a standard Layout file of the model. Plans in 1:100 scale with standard Sketchup fill in Black (Sorry I exported a PNG so the background is grey)
The model in Sketchup with Curic Section fills with solid color for construction documentation (will be used at 1:50 scale)
The Model with hand drawn section faces (using tools like line, offset, some plugins and paint) it’s based in Curic, but with added detail which is project specific. (This is a particularly demanding project as it’s full of details)
This is how the Layout exported to DWG. You can see that solid filled colors that are displayed in Layout as vector, get converted into Solid hatches in DWG. In the screenshowt you can see one of the solid hatches being selected at the right. I still have an hybrid viewport in the Layout Stack, which exports the image in the background. In this case, the section cut face that is displaying the fill is not the hand detailed section. The undetailed section is enough for engineers as they can see concrete structure in grey, masonry in orange and thermal insulation in yellow.
Adding hand drawn details to sections in Sketchup, allows us to draw everything we need, have the model in sync with details and just enough detail in 3D as most of it is drawn in 2D. When drawing details, if we find that the model isn’t enough to fit all layers and we need to change it accordingly, we do that while designing details. We never add to much info to the actual 3D though,
So, this allows us to draw all construction documentation in Sketchup while keeping a simple enough model in Sketchup and this process allows us to add great detail up to middle sized buildings.
I think that Sketchup has no limitations in what you can draw, but for huge complex buildings, managing all Building information on the go isn’t easy with Sketchup, so we change to ArchiCAD for that.
For all this custom made small projects, we rather use Sketchup. All the interactions Sketchup has with render engines, presentation tools, quick modeling and freedom to design, along with lower demands from customers for BIM standards, allow us to design better with it than with ArchiCAD
I like those 3d details when I see them. In my case I avoid them as they would have to be built differently for every model and disconnected from model, as the model has much lower level of detail.
2D details on section cut faces, however, are very simple to draw in Sketchup model, help me a lot on the design and allow me to add the little corrections to the model I need in order to make everything fit together.
