There’s a feature request I suggested 10 years ago for Layout that will be in the next Affinity Designer update (and it’s a big, nice new one).
Feature requests are mostly ignored in SketchUp and Layout development.
Possibly, if we present as an organized group professionally, it would have more weight.
I am in!
I love your idea. Also @jure I’m in as well. I see no reason why we the community can’t take some of this into our own hands with plugin developers. I am not sure I totally understand “the mission” or objectives quite yet, but I am looking forward to meeting with you and Jure and others to talk about stuff.
Good points!!
Btw, your renderings of that car are incredible.
Thank you all who submitted application to join the ‘think-tank’ group. I’ll soon send out an email to all of you with information on further steps.
Thank you so much, really appreciated.
That said, one of the main reason I did 100% of the modeling for that Ferrari car straight in Sketchup, was exactly to demonstrate there’s no reason to say that “Sketchup is a toy” when it comes to do some serious modeling for rendering/VR/animation stuff.
In regular production work I also use 3dsMax a lot, but I start my projects in Sketchup more often than not.
I feel that Sketchup is the most underrated tool for the initial sketches in this kind of workflow.
Many people in rendering/animation/game industry tend to use some nurbs cad (like Rhinoceros or Moi3d) for the “concept modeling” stage to be more accurate, but then they have to remesh/retopologize their models from scratch to create a good polygon flow to feed their GPU’s.
Using Sketchup you can jump that stage, because SU is already a polygon modeler, but it has that “CAD style” toolset and workflow inbuilt, so you can have full control over vertices and polygon topology, but at the same time you can take advantage of the best tools in the bizness to manage snapping, inferencing, accurate measurement, images and dwg references, photmatches, section planes, guidelines, dimensions, scenes, components, nesting/past in place… and so on.
Of course it has it’s own limitation, so one have to know when is time to switch to Max/Maya/Blender/C4d/whatever… In the car example, I modeled the 7.5 millions vertices water puddle straight in Max because it would have been nonsense modeling such an heavy full-organic mesh in SU.
I believe the same principle should be taken into account from architects and designer… they should know when is time to to switch their model from SU to Revit or something.
Here’s some example of the project I’m workin on right now. It’s the full 3d historical reconstruction for an old train’s restoration. I have to model tons of this '50s furnitures from old photos and incomplete hand-drawn technical sheets. The final model should be suitable for rendering and animation. Most people would say “do it straight in 3dsMax”.
But here’s how I work taking advantage of the above mentioned SU strenght points.
Try to do the same in Max, good luck whit that.
Now, my point is… Sketchup is capable of such good workflow for freeform detail modeling, but it seems that developers don’t believe in it and don’t care at all for “us”. They instead try to force a polygon/mesh modeler that can’t handle true curves or solids into some sort of odd CAD and annotation package.
Well, they can do that… if people like that, I’m fine with it.
But I wonder why they don’t give to people like me a better support, it would be much easier because this workflow is more suited to the “logical” way in which SU works by it’s nature (again, it works on vertices and meshes, NOT curves and surfaces).
Every time I say this, many silly people argue that I want advanced modelling tools such as subdivisions, sculpting and that kind of stuff inbuilt in SU and they complain about it becoming a “bloated” software like Max or Maya.
Well, I DO NOT ask that.
I just want that they give some love to some aspects that could empower better plugins creation in this field.
Because, you know, you need tons of plugins for this workflow, but if they build some more “basic” tools like inbuilt geometrical primitives, splines, chamfers and lofts, extensions developers could have better base methods to build their improved tools without having to reinvent the wheel every single time they write a new plugin.
I also would love to see some “unified” template for plugins, like maybe the ability to create side panels for extension just like the native ones.
In 3dsmax every plugin has the same interface of native Max tools in the side panels and such. In Sketchup every single plugin has it’s own interface, some of them are really cool, but the final result is a complete mess.
I would also like to see some improvements in terms of UV’s and exporters, to better collaborate in a production pipeline (I believe building support for multiple UV channels, which is crucial for advanced rendering, baking and VR stuff could be waaaay easyer to implement than a Revit importer).
And that’s my “constructive” rant. I hope some Sketchup guy will read it.
I totally agree with your comment and…
…Multiple UV channels! I think almost everyone would find this feature useful (Extensions could profit from that enormous as well).
And if not…this is a good example where I couldn’t understand the argument “Sketchup should stay simple”. I mean, if you only need one, fine, but where is the problem having the option to use more?
Impressive stuff, thanks for sharing.
You’re right about the plugins/complex workflow required for such things.
My ongoing issue and #1 feature request for SketchUp in general is that extensions are required for so much, yet the implemenation of extensions (sifting through dozens of 3rd party products, using trial and error) results in:
- A sketchup experience that is far short of elegant (very different functions and styles, sometimes a lot of uncesssary complexity). There could be a lot more streamlining through UX design and modularity.
- Quality and compatibility issues with extensions.
- A large amount of admin is required to research and purchase and update lots of extensions (especially paid ones).
- A lack of widely published workflows means there is limited training and online support.
- Collaboration can be problematic. My sketchup is different from your sketchup, so if you open my model you can’t edit it. We can’t share templates, components, etc.
People who get into SketchUp need a sort of “experiemental” mindset and pioneer their own workflows. The flexibility is good, but it takes longer than it should to start from scratch. In a professional environment there’s a very high degree of reliance on experienced users to train new users and set up their workflows. I don’t see this in other software.
Condoc tools is probably the best example of a industry-specific system - applied to architecture.
The tools it adds are super handy - Condoc Tags for example (being able apply multiple tags to objects, without nesting) is a brilliant enhancement for architects, visualisation pros, etc. The templates and outputs are great.
But… the main reason why I no longer use systems like Condoc Tools, Medeek and PlusSpec (aside from the cost; ie more than SketchUp itself) is the fact that they replace SketchUp’s menus and functions with their own. EG Condoc has its own styles, scenes, tags and component menus that make SketchUp’s redundant and incompatible. I suspect those developers are creating such comprehensive systems only because they have to.
So I dont understand why more enhanced functions arent included in SketchUp Pro or at least developed as extension bundles that integrate nicely with the core software.
+10K
I’ve been begging and pleading for years (6+). 
@thomthom @ChrisFullmer @ene_su We really need this badly!
I still don’t understand one thing. There are really quite a few very clever plugin programmers. And some of those plugins are so good there that they could be directly integrated into sketchup. For example, Curic section or Scalp can very serviceably export DWG by layers (TAGS), including hatching to DWG. If two independent plugin programmers can solve this on top of each other, why on earth can’t this be part of Skechup? I would offer them direct collaboration, or buy out that plugin, or simply the options are many.
It took me 2 months to get the system up and running, and it works very well with autocad because we do the actual designing in autocad.
But I really do consider switching to Archicad from time to time. Doing so doesn’t take that much in my opinion, seeing what plugins can already do…
Currently, I’m glad I stayed in the 2021 version with a perpetual license and pieced together my workflows via plugins. I don’t find anything major in the new versions. I don’t see the point in paying for them, which is really a shame. I’ve been using Sketchup for 16 years… and I’m sorry that the development for years hasn’t at least done a proper export of 2D DWG from, for example, from sections.
I like the simplicity of modelling. But fundamentally missing better options for the actual documentation outputs. In my opinion, we don’t need a perfect BIM yet. We need simple tools to do 2D outputs from a 3D model. Layout is desperately slow. It doesn’t work reliably when making changes to the model (linking of datums and descriptions), Of course there are workarounds, disabling Hybrid and so on, but working in it is more frustrating than enjoyable…
Why not, but almost half of the SketchUp team is dedicated to development. The slow course of development is therefore a mystery.
I do need a better BIM collaboration like many people meed it too.However I don’t need 2D drawings. Why should you have 2D if you can see your hole model in 3D and interact with it?
Because building authorities require it, once they except 3D, a lot of pain will disappear
I’ve built houses straight from the model on my laptop on site, but I ended up drawing measurements and sending screenshots to myself and the other framers. It would have been nicer to have a full set of 2D drawings on paper.
I agree that layout is desperately slow. Although prepare to be told by some that you’re using it the wrong way… can’t win.
For some there is a “way” that works when using Layout - call it what you like Dean, a hack, a workaround, a " I shouldn’t have to do it this way (Layout should work), Trimble don’t give a #£&/!* " but it works…
Because in our country (Slovakia) the authorities still require paper documentation, including authorization stamps. In addition, we do the design of family houses and various companies build those houses after us. And at least zero percent of them are so advanced that they have a laptop or tablet on the construction site. 2D drawings (DWG or PDF) are sent to all sorts of companies for material orders, quotes for execution, etc. It’s simply an established standard and we can only dream of real deployment of BIM in small residential construction for at least 15-20 years…
That BIM can work in a large company where all processes from design to implementation are set up for it I have no doubt it can.
And to give you an idea of what the Autocad outputs look like and what Sketchup helps us with so far, they are in the attachment…
And yet, in my opinion, Sketchup is not that far away from being able to do something like this.
But from how Sketchup works now, the best combination for architects and civil engineers is Autocad (or other 2D CAD) and the best possible Sketchup integration for live linking (referencing) and exports back to 2D. Because Layout is desperately unusable against Layout in Autocad. Just the inability to have different size formats in one file is silly.
AR.01.N SO.01 Základy-tlač.pdf (565.7 KB)
AR.02.N SO.01 Pôdorys 1.N.P-tlač.pdf (998.7 KB)
AR.07.N SO.01 Rezy E-E, F-F-tlač.pdf (932.2 KB)
What I simply can’t understand is that if I (a non-programmer) was able to put together a fairly usable workflow to get quick editable exports of sections and views out of Skechup using a single plugin (Curic section) and a set of 4 separate LIPS codes in Autocad, why can’t Sketchup itself do this.
And anyway that Curic Section plugin was made by one person. Is this really something the Skechup team can’t incorporate? For example, it would be enough to add to TAG the possibility to fill with some material in Sections. Now it’s just uniformly in Style…
To give you an idea, a short quick video of how my process of exporting full DWGs to Autocad works, including associative hatches in autocad, and then how to work with it further comfortably.
The procedure in brief:
- all materials have their own TAG in the sketchup
- The Curic Section plugin exports DWGs with these tags as polylines
- In autodata
- Lisp in Autocad do:
- Bulk hatching according to rules defined by me according to TAGS
- Bulk rename TAGS from Sketchup for a different standard of layer names in Autocad. (The names are purposely different so they don’t mix in Sketchup)
- The final state is actually a converter between 3D Skechtup to 2D DWG, where levels can be completely changed and also rearranged to different ones and called differently. And fully associative hatching…
Short video without sound (I’m not an English speaker and I use a translator for texts): https://youtu.be/Vj0vZKiCGQ0
That’s the reason why we should try to improve IFC sharing in order to work in a real BIM. If we continue working on Cad Software we will never step forward.