SketchUp_an oldtimer's view

[r2d22]

After reading the recent post regarding Blender and how it is the best thing since sliced bread, I thought I would offer some views on SketchUp and Layout from and old timer (79).

It was the fall of 1964 when my father sat me down in front of a drawing board with a T-square, Set Square, pencil and eraser and gave me a set of drawings and said copy these, thus began a life long career as an Architectural Technician.

In 1990 the office I worked for bought a Mac llci with a 12” colour monitor and a program called Power Draw. I entered the digital world.

In 2009 I purchased Google SketchUp Pro 7 for $95.00 US.

I used PowerCadd (Power Draw) up until the end of last year for 2D drawings combining it with SketchUp models and moving between the two with .dwg files. Last December my employer moved the office over to Revit. I have worked remotely for the last 25 years for the award winning firm of BurgersArchitecture.com. I therefore endeavoured to use Revit on my Mac, this lasted two weeks, need I explain more. I told my employer that I would only work in SketchUp to which my work flow dropped.

I was given one project, a house, and I choose to do it in SketchUp and Layout and after working thru the learning curve with Layout it has proven very good results.

SketchUp is my tool box, it along with a few extensions contains everything I need to produce highly detailed construction models of high end houses. I show all the various components involved in the construction including framing members, steel sections, and using components various materials which are repetitive in nature. Using Quantifier Pro I am able to take off all the material quantities to assist the contractor.

With SketchUp’s simplicity and elegance I am showing my employer it’s benefits and the work flow has increased, Revit simply can not do what I am able to do in the time I do it in. The next step is the preparation of Construction Documentation in Layout and having now gotten a good understand of it I am creating drawings just as I did in Powercadd only better. The secret is Tags, every different entity has it’s own tag, grouped in folders ie: main floor etc.

Regarding crashes, SketchUp crashes occasionally but not 10 times a day and what I am finding it is usually because of some geometry being askew. It is not a big deal as SketchUp has saved my recent work. The 2024 version is very fast and I love the flip tool giving it the key short cut of F.

With Layout things are different, it crashes more frequently. The biggest problem is the updating of references. I just did some simple models of an as built and the update really fast but the big model I am working on which 20.3 mb took in excess of 16 minutes to update, likewise when printing to pdf it takes far to long. I am very careful in keeping my models clean ie: removing excess lines and errant bits floating in space.

I have no use for SketchUp on the iPad, what is useful is SketchUp viewer but I would not be building models on a iPad. The time spent producing this would have been much better spent on Layout. Layout is full of potential but waiting 16 minutes for it to update is unacceptable. The iPad app is a toy, Layout is a work horse. This is coming from a professional user who has been paying for SketchUp since 2009.

In 1964 or 1990 I could not of imagined what I am capable of doing today with the tools that I have being given and I am very grateful that 6 months away from turning 80 I am still able to do what I love, my work which is really my art all through the use of SketchUp.

And finally to our friend with Blender, I was going to offer him some cheese to go along with his wine, perhaps he could put it all in the blender, may he enjoy his journey.

[endlessfix]

@r2d22

I am working on which 20.3 mb took in excess of 16 minutes to update,

20 mb is not a “big” file and something else is likely going on here as that is not a typical updating time, I have 100+ MB files that update in seconds. Where are your SU files stored, how do you have your viewports rendered (vector, hybrid raster?), whats your display quality set to and are you using output override.

Can you attach one of your layout files here as your experience sounds atypical.

Agree about the rest, SU and LO get the job done.

[DaveR]

@r2d22

In 2009 I purchased Google SketchUp Pro 7 for $95.00 US.

You got a huge deal! I paid $495 for SketchUp 3 in 2003 and $95/year for annual upgrades until the prices changed.

You’re right, SketchUp and LayOut get the job done.

I agree with @endlessfix that the long update time is not normal. It would be useful to see your file.

[cdmotl]

Want to “second” your wish for the blender crowd. I Just turned 80 last December and started my architectural career in 2nd grade when the teacher assigned homework of drawing our house, my brother, 8 year older then I, was taking architectural drawing in high school and let me use his board and tools, so my homework was a accurate floor plan of our house. Took drafting in high school, became a Engineering Aid Draftman in the SeaBees for six years in the Navy, college and working full time in architecture for multiple firms till I became a registered Architect in 1974, private practice for 11 years, branch office director from 1992 till retiring in 2012, and still do small commission work. I have used every drafting system from paper and Pencil to Autocad, Revit and various other systems. Got into Sketchup when it was “At Last” out of Boulder and have been an avid enthusiast of Sketchup and all its ownnership transitions. Have tried Blender with no satisfaction. Sketchup and Layout both on desktop and iPad are my only hardware system now, developed a workflow that suits my needs for conceptual design and Presentation,as-built documentation, design and construction documents and field inspection.
Sketchup and Layout are the most efficient and coordinated system I’ve found.

[r2d22]

[

Rik Negus

2893 Seaview~.layout dropbox.com

[bmike]

Please remove your personal details… no reason to have your email address on the forum like that.

Also - the ~ means it is the backup file. Post the proper LO file.

[DaveR]

Although as Mike points out, the file you shared is the backup file, not the working file, I had a look at it. I opened the SketchUp model and went through my standard cleanup process of fixing incorrect tag usage …

… and purging unused stuff from the model.

This reduced the file size by nearly 60%. That will improve performance in LayOut. There’s quite a bit of geometry in the model that needs to be rendered as vector which will add significantly to render times. Leaving viewports rendered as Raster until you’re ready for output would speed things up.

I also wonder about your model. It looks very nice but in some cases there are details that add a lot of weight to the model but I wonder if they add any practical vale. For example, the panels for the standing seam roofs. Are they important enough to show in ther views of the house?

The same for the tongue and groove lumber under the metal roofing.

Again, the bolts have geometrical representations of threads but is that detail important enough to include in this model? Each of the 206 bolts with their washers and nut contain more than 12,600 entities. Most of those are edges that LayOut will have to “think” about when rendering viewports as Vector or Hybrid. That takes time.

Of course you have to decide what details are worth including in your models. Maybe those things I point out are critical but if not, you could greatly simplify your model so there’s not so much for LayOut to process when updating the reference.

[r2d22]

Thank you for your review, how do I go about reducing the file as you have noted?
The roofing and siding are components, my understanding is they occur once and are repeated as ?? what am I missing.

The bolt I download from the 3D warehouse yes it is overkill

[DaveR]

@r2d22

how do I go about reducing the file as you have noted?

I used Default Tag Geometry to fix the tag usage and Purge All to purge unused stuf from the file. Both of these extensions are available from Sketchucation.

@r2d22

The roofing and siding are components, my understanding is they occur once and are repeated as ?? what am I missing.

The multiple components don’t bulk out the model as much as the same number of different groups or loose geometry but each instance still adds entities (edges and faces) that LayOut need to consider for rendering.

@r2d22

The bolt I download from the 3D warehouse yes it is overkill

I would suggest that for anything you download from the 3D Warehouse, you do so in a separate SketchUp file so you can check them out and clean them up or reject them before copying and adding to your project.

FWIW, after my previous cleanup there were 2,184,508 edges listed in Statistics. I deleted all of the geometry between the “washers” on the boolt component and just that reduced the number of edges to 873,485 a reduction of almost 60%.

From the outside you can’t tell and the roof didn’t collapse.

There’s something odd about the references in your LayOut file. The References list in Document Setup show only one SketchUp file.

But there’s a second one the file. It’s the larger file in the next screenshot.

Strangely that file doesn’t show when I open the archive either.

See if this version of the file performs better for you on your computer.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q6wikh6zzjamj3gpwe5l9/2893-Seaview-purged.layout?rlkey=bes6lp2syap926cgwexjzcj4n&st=xg6i8w7j&dl=0

[r2d22]

I have got my reference update down to under 6 minutes, I recognize that I pay a price for the detail I like, my SketchUp file is now 13.7 mb.

[DaveR]

Good deal. The trick with all of this kind of stuff is to put in detail where it adds something to the story you are trying to tell. Don’t add extraneous details. Think of your SketchUp projects as having a budget. there’s a finite amount you can “spend” in edges and faces as well as textures and things like shadows or styles and even the amount of your time invested in creating the objects in the model and waiting for your computer to catch up when you ask it to do the real heavy work. Figure out what to invest in for the project and remember, coming in under budget isn’t a bad thing. Also consider that time you might invest up front can save you more time later on. Thinking about those bolts, for example. Certainly, on the front end it’s faster to download the thing from the 3D Warehouse and stick it in your model. However later you might spend more time waiting for viewports to render in LayOut that the few seconds it would take to cleanup the component before you even get to adding it to your model.

[r2d22]

I have learned some new things today, cleaned up my model. So my metal roofing and T&G boards are components, in SketchUp everything loads fast no matter how much detail I have in the model. I can open Quanitfier Pro and instantly get the linear feet or metal roofing or T&G boards including the cost if I enter it. Like wise for every other element in my model. I can zoom in and out, rotate around and around and there is no lag. There is no impediment to to the speed.
But I am told I need to trim down my model, to degrade the detail so that it will render in Layout in a timely manner because Layout can not handle the model created in SketchUp.

There is something wrong with this picture.

[DaveR]

@r2d22

There is something wrong with this picture.

The thing is that rendering in Vector or Hybrid takes some horsepower to do. The more edges your model has, the more edges LayOut has to look at to determine if and where they need to be rendered. I don’t think that should be a huge problem if you understand it.

[ivanjones]

Typically on Architectural projects detail that wont ever be seen is not drawn in the model. Most of us create high detail models that we put into scrap books with appropriate notes or dimensions as Architectural Details. Over time this becomes a powerful library for features that need to be clearly defined

.

[bmike]

@r2d22

I can open Quanitfier Pro and instantly get the linear feet or metal roofing or T&G boards including the cost if I enter it.

You can still do this - but do you need the curled seam for the metal roof? Do you need threads on bolts? Do you need the T&G on the boards?

I make details like this only in small separate files where you can actually use / see them. If I’m standing on the sidewalk looking at an elevation of a house I can’t see the T&G of the individual boards, nor can I see (or care) about the crimping of the metal roof.

You can still optimize how you model to show what the building looks like and get quantities out of it.

And regarding your last point - think of LayOut as one part rendering software and one part documentation. The more detail it has to figure out where / how to show it (especially in vector or hybrid) - the longer it takes to draw. Optimize this by turning things off that are not seen in the view.

Again, in LayOut if I’m standing at the sidewalk looking at the elevation I can’t see what kind of toaster you have, or how many bolts are holding up the steel connections buried in the walls… Tag that stuff and turn it off.

[medeek]

The time spent producing this would have been much better spent on Layout.

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been saying this same thing for too long now but I really don’t think I’m wrong here. SketchUp with a slightly improved Layout will be completely unstoppable. RIP Revit.

[SailingSketcher]

Thank you for sharing.

I’m not quite 80, but I started “drafting” back around 94’ (?) using Autodesk software my father purchased called “Autosketch”. He was a Civil PE and had AutoCAD which I could tinker with (back when he had a “digitizer” that he programmed AC commands on) so when I wasn’t doing soil testing or dragging concreate bounds through the woods, I was learning the digital part.

I started using SketchUp when it was still with Google. To me it seemed a little “cartoonish” and so I didn’t really take it seriously until I had to pay for my own system that would allow me to export .dxf’s for the lighting analysis software I used (AGi32) in my first job out of college (weird…because I was a business major).

Trimble has done a fantastic job, in my (humble) opinion. SketchUp really is a “bare bones” tool that becomes quite powerful when you add the extensions that make sense for the work you do.

Blender is fascinating, especially considering the free-ness of it. The things I see people do with it will make me try to sit down and learn it at least 2x a year. But I’ve never lasted more than 20 minutes in it. It’s almost like a version of SketchUp if you installed every single available extension (although SU wouldn’t run as smooth as Blender does if you did this). It’s just dizzying.

Of course it comes down to using the proper tool, right? I can hit a nail into a beam using the back side of a socket wrench, but it won’t be as efficient or effective as a hammer. SketchUp is a great tool for just about any A/E/C (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) application. I now keep a Studio license because I work with a lot of 3D mesh and point cloud datasets to create more simplified CAD models. Could I use Revit and add more parametric features? Sure. Is that a tool that I need? Nope! And that’s why SketchUp is great for me.

/opinion

[r2d22]

In SketchUp in one model I can have all the detail I desire down to the treads on a bolt, I can zoom in anywhere to what ever level I choose, take a screen shot and I have my detail. SU has all the power I can ask for to show whatever.
I am then told because of Layout’s limitations that I should limit the amount of detail in my main model and make separate models of the details I desire because Layout is unable to render the vector or hybrid lines. In my viewports I turn off all tags that are not relevant.
Layout needs to operate on the same level as SU, I should be able to zoom in (scale) in any viewport to the level of detail I want to show, one model all details, I should not be waiting 10 minutes for it to render. The detail is there in SU the problem is Layout, if SU can be so fast why can not Layout do the same.
You have given me the best in SU but you want me to accept 2nd or 3rd best in Layout.
Layout can be much better it just requires will and effort.

[DaveR]

Keep in mind that SketchUp is not rendering edges as vector line work. If you leave viewports rendered as Raster in LayOut, it will be much faster

[r2d22]

So then what is the purpose of having Vector or Hybrid lines? You are arguing that I should accept Layout as it is not what it could (should) be.