I am creating a technical drawing for a set I have created, because some of the elements are above floor level I wanted them to appear as dashed lines. I created tags in my SketchUp model and then took my model into Layout with all the scenes created. I then went through and changed the line weights to make them all dashed with auto as the scale. I thought this would fix their appearance but it hasn’t - does anyone have any advice? For some of the tags they seem even but others not so much.
It varies depending on how far you are zoomed in. Best to check appearance will be to export to PDF and look at the resulting document.
Make sure you are using tags correctly in your SketchUp models. In this one you are not.
ALL edges and faces should be created and remain untagged. ONLY components and groups should get tags.
Oh - so when I create a tag I just click on the group - create a tag instead of triple clicking the entire object in the group?
Yes. Basically. You put a tag on the selected group or component.Leave the geometry inside of the group/component untagged. This workflow is easier and you aren’t chasing tags as you edit the model.
Here’s a thing I did a long time ago regarding groups and tags. Maybe it will help.
Hi - just removed all my tags and retagged them all just using the groups but the dashes are still not even some lines are completely solid. I just exported as a PDF and it is the same there as well.
Did you try what I suggested with exporting a PDF to compare them? Again, the zoom level affects the appearance of the dashes. Don’t get hung up on the appearance while you are editing.
Here are two screenshots showing dashes from two different tags. They all appear the same to me.
This is what I get exporting from your file. I reduced the paper size to A2 and rendered the viewport as Vector.
dashes trial 2.pdf (3.4 KB)
I need it to be AO to print - will this be an issue later on when I complete the drawing?
Also is there a way of covering the dotted lines in my second drawing as it is an elevation or should I just draw a rectangle over it to hide the dots? Thanks so much for your help!
No. I just made it smaller to make whatg you show fill the paper better. Page size won’t have anything to do with the way the dashes are displayed in print. On your computer it will if you are trying to look at the entire sheet at once. If you are using the same zoom level, though, it’ll be fine.
If you set the dash style for the tag in LayOut instead of in SketchUp you can show those lines as solid in the elevation viewport or you can turn off the visibility for the tag altogether and not show it at all.
How do I get to the elevation viewport?
You should have a scene in the SketchUp model for each view you’ll need in your LO document. Then you can copy the a viewport in the LayOut file and change the scene in the SketchUp Model panel.
Yes, I have done that - I just don’t know how to turn off the visibility of the tag. I have used SketchUp layout before (about a year ago), I am just trying to further my knowledge and make my tech drawings more accurate to industry standards. How do you turn off the visibility of the tag?
