Scaled drawing upgrades

LayOut Feature Requests
#1

I work at an architectural firm and I am trying to do more work in Layout. The scaled drawing feature is HORRIBLE! I would like to see the scaled drawing feature work more like a “real” drafting program - AutoCAD. When I am drawing or moving anything in scaled drawing it does not snap cleanly, When moving something the move courser just hovers over the items but there doesn’t seem to be a way to snap to a specific point or intersection. It just randomly drops it - it may or may not drop to the items in the location I want.

It feels like I’m trying to draw in Adobe Acrobat or Bluebeam. This is NOT an acceptable drawing method. It takes me 3-4 times as long to do even a simple construction document like a deck in Layout. I can not officially move to Layout until I can do real drafting.

#2

LayOut is more a presentation program like Google pres then a drafting Program. If you want to move to LayOut, you need to accept that, first. That said, the gizmo to control movements should give you the control that you need:

Select Object
Hoover over (centered) Gizmo, Cursor changes into ‘Hand’
Move the Gizmo to point of interest
Move cursor away from Gizmo and wait till it is the four-arrowed cursor, again.
Do the Move

gizmo
gizmo558×520 2.41 MB

(have A shortcut for 'Object and or Grid snap at hand)

#3

Yes, I understand how to move things in Layout, I just don’t like it. It is not precise. That is why my Feature Request topic is called a Scaled drawing “Upgrade”. If Layout wants to say it can do scaled drawings then it’s my feeling that the Scaled drawing function should work like a drafting program. I’m OK with how and what the rest of Layout does and how it works…

#4

It can be precise if you want it to be.

#5

So I know this is true for most aspects of SketchUp but the move feature and the drawing functions in the Scaled Drawing function in LAYOUT do not work like a drafting program. If there is a way to change settings in Layout I’d love to know about it. Again, this is why I am suggesting this as an UPGRADE…I would love to see this portion of Layout work more like a regular drafting program. In my opinion it is not as user friendly as I’d like it to be.

#6

It’s been over 10 years since I used AutoCAD. My brain struggles to remember how you draft in it.

I do construction documents for a living and I don’t have any issues with precision and snapping with the scaled drawing feature or indeed generally with any other aspect of Layout.

I have a library of common details that I can drop into a page and my scrapbooks contain frequently used drawing snippets and symbols.

But most of the drafting is done in SketchUp and then in Layout I stack viewports to get control of lineweights, shadows, etc. so that the use of the scaled drawing feature is used for annotating and touching up.

#7

Considering that LayOut isn’t really designed to be a drafting program…

You might find it useful to turn off grid snapping and set Precision in Document Setup>Units to a suitable value.

#8

Yup…I’m trying to do the same thing. There have been several occasions where I wanted to put in a dashed line of ‘WALL BELOW’ or in a section showing a dashed line of something beyond. Or any number of other “enhancements” to the SketchUp views. Trying to kind of use the style/ technique of Nick Saunder, Just having some issues with the best way to get certain things to look the way I want - Do I do it in SketchUp or in Layout? - If the scaled drawing function work more like a regular drafting tool it would make the scaled drawing aspect a whole lot easier. I know Layout is not a drafting program - but the Scaled Drawing feature was originally talked about as a way to draw things to scale - thus implying that it should act more like a drafting tool. unfortunately it’s a lot like drawing in Acrobat or Bluebeam. You can do it, but it’s not ideal. just wishing Layout would work better.

#9

Yup understand.
There have been several occasions where I wanted to put in a dashed line of ‘WALL BELOW’ or in a section showing a dashed line of something beyond. Or any number of other “enhancements” to the SketchUp views. Trying to kind of use the style/ technique of Nick Saunder, Just having some issues with the best way to get certain things to look the way I want - Do I do it in SketchUp or in Layout? - If the scaled drawing function work more like a regular drafting tool it would make the scaled drawing aspect a whole lot easier. I know Layout is not a drafting program - but the Scaled Drawing feature was originally talked about as a way to draw things to scale - thus implying that it should act more like a drafting tool. unfortunately it’s a lot like drawing in Acrobat or Bluebeam. You can do it, but it’s not ideal. just wishing Layout would work better.
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#10

Have you come across the issue of Layout linework seeming to not snap to SketchUp geometry in a Layout viewport…?

Perhaps you know that Layout won’t snap to SketchUp section geometry (unless you have created a group from section slice in SketchUp or exploded the viewport in Layout) and, for example, if you’ve been sloppy in SketchUp and below the section cut your floor group intrudes into your wall group, then you can’t snap to the section in Layout. Annoying when it happens but a reminder for me to be more tidy in my modelling.

#11

Oh ■■■■! I totally forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder. I do think that is part of my problem. Ugh!

1 Like
#12

While you can Draft in Layout, it is far more powerful to use it to present your SketchUp model. That is actually the beauty of the interface since SketchUp allows so much manipulation with styles, layering options etc., all integrated into scenes you present in Layout.

Don’t give up on it. Just don’t approach it like ACAD, since that’s not it’s intention…Thank God!

#13

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