SketchUp Layout: Potential for Major Improvement

[_kimga]

My Background & Workflow

I work on translating or making 3D concepts into buildable drawings for various industries:

• Carpenters and metalworkers
• Model makers (CNC files and 3D printing)
• Special effects teams

My typical workflow involves receiving models from concept artists (Maya, Rhino, Blender, SolidWorks) or creating them myself in Blender, Rhino, or SketchUp.

Why I’m Reconsidering SketchUp

What I love about SketchUp: Its ease of use and intuitive interface for conceptual work has made it my preferred tool for years.

Recent challenge: After using Rhino 8 extensively, I’ve noticed their significant focus on 2D documentation improvements in their recent release. While Rhino is less intuitive and has more glitches, their recent updates are impressive and address many drafting needs that SketchUp Layout currently reluctant to improve.

Layout’s Untapped Potential

I believe Trimble has a huge opportunity to develop Layout into a drafting tool that surpasses AutoCAD LT level capabilities. Here’s what I think Layout needs:

Key Improvements Needed:

1. Enhanced Fill/Hatch Capabilities.

• Boolean like operations for fills/hatches. (ArchiCAD still leads in this area)

2. Better Drafting Tools

• More precise drawing and editing tools (Mirror, SketchUp tools like divide…)

3. Workflow Improvements

• Build upon the existing viewport system that already works well

Interface & Shortcuts Issues:

Positive: The introduction of some SketchUp shortcuts into Layout was welcome
Frustrating: Layout shortcuts cannot be imported/exported - this seems like a basic feature that’s missing
Request: More SketchUp commands should work the same way in Layout (while keeping useful Layout-specific features like arrow key nudging)

My Experience Across Software

Having worked in film design and architecture with many software packages over the last 25 years (some now discontinued), I still prefer SketchUp’s approach. However, Layout really needs to step up to remain competitive.

What I’m Planning

When I return to SketchUp/Layout from my current Rhino work, I’ll compile a detailed list of specific improvements needed and share it here.

Call to Action

I’d love to hear from others: What Layout improvements would make the biggest difference in your workflow?

I understand Trimble faces the challenge of adding powerful features while preserving SketchUp’s greatest strength - its intuitive, user-friendly interface. But I believe it’s possible to achieve both.

[StudioDROM]

Overall, I think LayOut has seen significant improvements in 2025 compared to past versions.

I love the auto text features and would love to see more auto text options in the future. Connecting a leader and toggling off its visibility works but feels a bit clunky. It would be great if the viewport was identifiable in auto text without having to physically be connected to it (like you can do with page names).

Adding a no-print option on layers so you don’t have to go back and remember to toggle off layers you don’t want to see on the final print (some annotations for example).

Columns in text editor please!

I’m also surprised/ shocked that there aren’t any platforms (as far as I know) where you can number sheets in AIA format natively. We have a workaround in LayOut that works well for us but I’m surprised it’s not native. In all fairness, AutoCAD does not support that either or even decent sheet numbering for that matter.

[Barry]

@StudioDROM

Columns in text editor please!

The Mac version picks up the normal text options for column editing (and you’re on Mac): hold down the option key, and you’ll get the ‘+’ crosshairs cursor that you can cut and paste with.

[StudioDROM]

@Barry thanks for the response. I seem to be doing this incorrectly because I’m not getting an option for columns within the editor holding the option key. I’m able to select as a column but how do I go about say, adding four columns of text to a blank page?

[Barry]

A sloppy but quick video. I was using tabs for column separators. Notice in the first cut operation, I didn’t get the trailing tab \t marker, so everything stayed in the same column. I undid the operation, then cut the text plus the tab.

ps - the same behavior is in TextEdit.app and in Terminal.app when you use vim.

[bmike]

I want linked columns like inDesign or (I’m dating myself) QuarkXpress… not the ability to pseudo tab and setup column formats within a text box.

[Barry]

My apologies - columns IN text editor, not column editor in text… haha

For that, couldn’t you insert table, and change it to paper color (white)?
I know - sucky workarounds, but Adobe & Quark spent a lot of time & money because their market was huge.

Set your color to white in Shape Style inspector and draw a table:

[bmike]

I can essentially do that now, but just copy my text boxes. We need text to flow for proper page layout.

Manually copy / pasting data like in the above screen shots works, but is tedious. Would be nice to automate the creation of columns that flow.

I think this is possible in Word… but it’s been a long time since I’ve used it. Maybe in Pages as well. I’ll have to check.

[kevin58]

Does anybody use excel? I think there’s a ton of potential importing spreadsheets into Layout. You can increase the cell height to match a Layout page and format it using Wrap Text. You can basically create whatever you want to. You can include data based on formulas, or import it from other sheets, you can format everything in excel and even make the data link live. The potential is endless.

[_kimga]

Layout Feature Requestt to bring 3D to the next level with drafting for faster Documentation / for clearer Communication and to bring Layout up to SketchUp’s level. The reason why I Iike to use layout it’s because it doesn’t need to be pre-set and I think it is important to keep it’s simplicity, but just like SketchUp, it needs to be updated and developed yearly:

• Hatch/Fill - a must - draw hatch, magic wand fill shapes with hatch, hatch Boolean operation (being able to have a hole in a Hatch , intersecting Hatches , joining Hatches…
• **Mirror - a line ( flip horizontal and vertical is restricted to the main axes )
• Extend Match Properties / Pipette - to pick up layer allocation for example
• pre set Revision Cloud - not essential as many of as created it already manually , but would save time to new users.
• visual SCALE tool - like in SketchUp
• Component / Blocks - Scrapbook could have this capability, if you would have a command to actually update previously placed instances. A little bit like you can replace Components in SketchUp. (this is what I mean when I say bring the same function into Layout that SketchUp already have, and keep the logic, so people can apply the same logic they already know. This would give a new skill to people who already know how to use SketchUp well. They don’t have to “learn” Layout, they will already know the basic commands and hopefully shortcuts.)
• Import/Export - Shortcuts - would be great to be able to us the same shortcuts as we use in SketchUp - The amount of time saved with workflow and setting up is obviously underestimated…
• consistent text management - I have problem editing the text. It is very hard to re-write it, sometimes - not sure why but it doesn’t seem to edit it. It’s hard to explain, but the backspace doesn’t always work if you start deleting the text from the back…
• vector PDF import - being able to open a pdf saved in a software using vector linework. It should keep the layer hierarchy (if stored in the PDF) and it should be editable to make changes.
• Silhouette create a silhouette of the actual view = outline. We could use this many ways…

[Barry]

Thanks! Great suggestions.
You may know some of these (and they may fall short), but for those that don’t know:

Hatch: is in Pattern Fill Inspector (for those that don’t know), but we can do much better and good suggestions.

• Mirror: we have flip, and you can pull an object’s left or right grip while holding down alt(win)/option(mac) key to make a copy, and use the measurements box to make sure it’s 1:1 scale.

consistent text management - I’m primarily Mac for this reason, where the text system has more thought put into it at the OS level. And I readily admit my bias, while trying to make Windows better.