Unpredictability and LayOut

Some quick background. I am (attempting at) using a workflow of sketchup + plugins → layout to produce custom millwork shop drawings for commercial spaces. The niche of our business falls in an awkward no mans land where it is not cabinet-focused enough to justify a Cabinet Vision / Mozaik type scenario, but also starting to become a bit too complex to rely on just 2D line drawings anymore. On the other hand, there is enough architectural design in what we do that we are often required to model quite a bit of context which, in my view, eliminates other parametric options like Fusion 360 and Solidworks. The speed and flexibility of SketchUp is ideal for what we do, and I’ve learned enough about the nuances of dynamic components and plugins like profile builder that I can do a lot of parametric stuff using it, but my seemingly insurmountable problem is LayOut.

No matter how much I learn about it it just seems like there are some brick wall limitations to its use and I’m really coming up empty on the internet in terms of strategies for dealing with these limitations. I have a brand new computer with a decent graphics card and 32gb ram, and when I open a layout file and click on a viewport for the first time, the program hangs for 30-60 tedious seconds. Every time. This is after it has spent about the same amount of time loading the document. Talking about 30 viewports over 7 pages (11x17).

Whenever I batch re-render the viewports on the page,it fails to render hybrid correctly approximately 40 percent of the time. I’ve read that this is because my model is too far from the origin. Well, guess what, the building I’m modeling is 60 feet square and the thing that I’m trying to render is on the corner of that square farthest from the origin. The other corner is on the origin. And this 60’ square is the smallest feasible bite size that I can do for my project.

I see people post issues they have with Layout and it seems like the first reply generally is a SketchUp Sage telling them they’re doing something wrong, like having the audacity to model something that’s greater than 50 feet in width.

Or like how they shouldn’t use the native section fill feature and instead spend minutes/hours that they can’t afford (in a commercial workflow) creating 2d faces of every section cut that has to then be adjusted whenever there is a change to the model. Never mind that the section fill is a 10 year old vanilla feature in a commercial software that costs $350 dollars per year per seat with an international team of developers working on it full time.

Or like how, maybe, he should have just rendered all of his viewports using raster with max settings. Never mind that the result looks completely unprofessional compared to any vector render.

Why is it so slow? Why does it crash on a regular basis no matter what I do, even on relatively simple models and a relatively low number of sheets? Why does it screw up randomly and not predictably? How is this able to be sold at such a high price point?

My ranting aside, is there a sticky in a forum somewhere, or a youtube video, or some resource that gives a general to-do on how to mitigate the issues I’m talking about here? I’d appreciate any help.

Thank you


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When you export, the image quality is high, it is lower quality while working to save memory.

Try curic section lite it’s free.

The best thing you can do is post a Layout file. The forum members that are well versed in Layout can look at how you’re doing things and be able to give proper advice on anything that may be contributing to your issues.

You are preemptively defensive about this issue without reason, in this particular case this is not something you are doing wrong. Modeling excessively far from the origin can cause accuracy and display issues. This generally happens with imported DWG files that import very far from the global origin. However, 60 feet is not too far, much much larger things can be modeled in SketchUp without issue, this should not be a problem for you.

Rendering lots of tiny edges in Vector or Hybrid might be a problem for you, if your model is very poly heavy with millions of edges Layout needs to calculate every one every time for every viewport to turn a 3D model and a camera angle into a flattened 2d vector image. This can take a long time. Many other users leverage stacking multiple viewports with backgrounds rendered in raster under vector line work as a solution to keeping re-render times low.

I do hear your frustration with Layout, most of us who use it regularly have felt that at some point, but I did not hear any specific questions about how to improve your specific workflow, and without seeing a Layout file it’s impossible to suggest relevant changes to your workflow that might speed things up for you. In general I find this a very respectful forum full of people (including Sages) who are genuinely trying to answer specific questions and to be helpful. Sometimes people post here in a heated moment of frustration and with an erroneous understanding of the problem they are having, and sometimes the best answer really is “you are doing it wrong”. I’m not sayin this is the case with you, here are the best answers I can give to the questions I read in your post.

There are many reasons why Layout could be slow on for you, ranging from faulty installation, to out of date graphics driver, to excessive geometry, to having display quality set too high, to… its a long list. Batch rendering 30 viewports with vector edges could take a great deal of time depending on the edge count of your geometry. We need to see your Layout file to have any hope of focusing in on a specific reason.

I don’t know why this happens to you but it does not happen to most users. Layout does not crash regularly for me or for the many any users who rely on it for their workflow. That is not to say that you are doing anything wrong, rather that you should take heart and investigate further, troubleshoot systematically because there is likely a reason, one that might have a solution.

Perception of patterns in systems that are not completely understood is difficult. It might be there are overlapping problems causing crashes for different reasons in different circumstances, or it may be there is a clear pattern that one simply cannot recognize because the governing constancy of the problem is not noticed or understood.

Because it works well for most users, and because it’s bundled exclusively with an excellent 3D modeler.

I would send you to the SketchUp Campus for basic Layout Training, which might still be of some benefit, but your included images and description make me believe you have progressed beyond much of the material there. For answers to your specific questions I believe the forum is your best resource. Be respectful and focused, include a Layout file that you are having trouble with and ask specific questions, tackle one problem at a time, fill out your profile with the specific version of 24 that you are using (ie:Version 24.0.595). It may be there are some few small things you are “doing wrong”, be ready to hear that and at least give advice an honest try. There is no question that Layout can be frustrating at times, and different users develop sometimes very different workflows to support their use cases, however myself and others here can attest to the fact that it can be made to work well.

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My main issues are general slowness in all actions that I take in the software, incorrect section fill rendering that appears to be random (the same object rendering correctly in other section planes), and incorrect rendering of hybrid viewports that have textures or patterns in them.

I am currently paring down the model to see if that helps. I’ve got 182k edges and 69k faces which I’m sure is excessive for a 60 x 60 x 18 space. For cabinet work it’s pretty important that we show a good amount of detail, but I think I can reduce the poly of the hardware bits like hinges and drawer slides and knock that down some.

I’m frustrated because I’ve blown a deadline on this project by 3 weeks partly due to trying (and failing) to overhaul our company’s processes using SU and LO.

It really does seem like this software is not well supported for the price point. That said, since it unfortunately does the thing I am looking for better than any alternative that I can find, I feel stuck with it.

Thanks for the replies. If I’m still having these issue after I fix the model, I’ll share files here.

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Post a LO and SKP file. If it is too large use DropBox or WeTransfer or similar and share a link.

Are you using the new or old graphics engine in LayOut? Switching to this could speed things up - but it might make your text look odd when you are working (export should be fine).

You can also play with using draft mode when zooming and panning.

Are your graphics drivers up to date (from Nvidia direct, not Windows)?
What are your settings for edit resolution and output?
You can use the output override to work in raster and force hybrid or vector on export.

As others mentioned - the hardware might be causing sluggishness.

I use a mix of Raster and Hybrid for CDs and timber frame shop drawings. The raster looks fine @ High resolution - never had a client complain. I’m working with far more complex models in terms of poly count (entire houses, often with every Simpson hanger modeled when I get into framing drawings…). Share a file and maybe we’ll be able to diagnose what’s going on.

That is NOT a large number of faces and edges for a SU model. I have worked in Layout with a model having many millions of edges and faces.

Are you sure that you checked the box in Model Info/Statistics to include nested components in the face and edge counts?

Until you are able to post your Layout model we’re all still guessing.

This is what @john_mcclenahan is referencing.

redacted

@LinearGraphs - I have purchased Curic Section and am in the process of learning how to use it. I see it being a great option for producing most of my 2D views. Been kind of putting off learning a new plugin but I will definitely prioritize using this. Thank you.

@tuna1957 I’ve attached the files to this one. This is after a round of cleanup and optimization. I have reduced the complexity of the adjustable shelf pin holes, reduced model complexity of the cabinet hardware components by a factor of 2 to 3, and check on textures. They seem to be managably sized, I think 900x1200 was the worst one. And it’s mostly the same texture being used throughout the model.

@endlessfix That’s good to know that its not the origin issue I’m facing. As I just mentioned I did reduce the tiny edges and faces by as much as I felt I could and I am still experiencing most of the same issues in the file that I’ve attached to this post. I have definitely posted in a heated moment of frustration but I think the frustration is pretty warranted. It seems like people have been complaining on these boards about this stuff for over a decade and there hasn’t appeared to be a lot of movement in a positive direction. That having been said, I do want to be proactive about making the program work for me and am very open to being wrong about how I am using it.

@bmike I’ve tried both graphics engines and don’t really see a difference. At this time I have experimental checked on. I use draft mode with disable raster checked.

I’m checking on updated nvidia drivers now, I’ll report back if it makes anything work better.

As for output override, I did have it turned on but in this file there is a viewport that I really need to be raster in order for it to render properly. The RCP on page 5 won’t render the back edges as dashed unless I use raster. Like, I understand people would want to use that override, but it seems like the reason for 3 different rendering types is because you need those three to cover all the use cases that come up. I’d prefer not to be hemmed in.

@john_mcclenahan That is a relief to know. Yes, that number included nested components and groups.

In summary, what I want from this software is to be able to quickly and efficiently compose layout documents averaging about ten 11x17 pages with three or four 2d projection drawings on each page. Plan views, interior elevation views, and section views with some section details and in some cases perspective renderings. Those drawings will generally be one viewport but in some cases 2 or 3 stacked viewports. So lets say 60 viewports of a model that will almost always be under 250k edges and 100k faces. What I’ve attached to this post is about as complex as anything that I would ever do, so if I can get this to work, I think I would be golden.

What I think I’ve discovered here is that it is a problem with batch rendering i.e. right clicking the white space and clicking “Render Models on Page” or “Render Models in Document”. Most of the viewports render incorrectly when I do this, but then when I go in and re-render each viewport one by one it generally fixes them.

I will check out your file and model later, away from the desk for awhile. Your plans are something LayOut should be able to handle.

Is your operating system setup to force LayOut and SketchUp to use the discreet graphics card? I’m on a Mac so I don’t remember how to do this - but that could also be part of the slow down if your machine it sticking with the integrated graphics.

Did you also restart SketchUp after changing? You need to do that for the setting to take effect…

I had a look at your SketchUp and LayOut files. I did a little cleanup in your SketchUp file. Mainly I got rid of the huge texture image of the original floor plan you were working from. (I would suggest that you import those sorts of references as images, not textures.) and I slightly reduced the size of the larger wood grain textures. I will admit that I am pleased to see no incorrect tag usage and no hoarded entourage. Still, the cleanup that I did reduced the SketchUp file size by about 25%.

I also deleted that “palette” group from the model. No point in having all that geometry in your model. If that’s a standard thing for you, I would suggest you make a local collection of those materials that you can use for future projects instead of having that additional load in the model. Admittedly it’s not a huge object but every little bit has an impact.

After cleaning up the SketchUp model I relinked the reference in your LayOut file. It updated nearly instantly on my machine. I didn’t notice any delay, at least. I looked through the pages and found all of the viewports rendered as Hybrid but one. Here’s the result of rendering this one as Hybrid. This is real time. No editing was done to the GIF. The viewport is rendered as Hybrid when the back edges disappear. Again, nearly instant.
Redacted

You have some viewports that could be rendered as Vector instead of Hybrid and I notice for some viewports you have AO turned on in the style. AO is nice but I wouldn’t have it turned on while working on a file. That increases the work the GPU has to do and I doubt you really need to see that shading while you are working. I would update the style in the SketchUp model to include AO and update the reference in LO right before exporting a PDF or images to send to the client.

One other suggestion would be to embed (unlink) the HSDC logo image in your LayOut template to stop LayOut checking the image file for updates when opening the template or a project file.

All in all I think your SketchUp and LayOut files are mostly good. They are a heckuva lot better than many I see. They seem to be easy enough to work with and there shouldn’t be anything unpredictable working with them.

Edit to add: I just noticed you have Auto Scale turned off in the Dimension Style. This could create surprising dimensions when dimensioing to viewports unless you are riding herd on the viewport scale. I suppose that could be interpreted as unpredictable dimensions if you aren’t concious of what you’ve set. Generally it’s better to leave Auto Scale turned on for dimensions.

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@DaveR: Thank you for looking into this and for your thorough reply.

  • Thanks for the tip on using vector for line viewports. Will do.

  • The palette group is to enforce standards for the materials that we regularly use in each new project. Keeping assets in model has also reduced some issues I’ve been having with collaborating with my team on the same files. I probably have a lot to learn about best practices for that stuff though.

  • As for auto scale, I used to use it and I began trying not using it. I’ve seen arguments for both. I don’t have a strong opinion either way on it so I’ll probably just go back to auto.

  • The speed honestly hasn’t been that bad since I began using draft mode. It’s the unpredictable rendering that is hanging me up the most now. I opened the files you sent back and this is how they look after I “render models in document.”

https://i.gyazo.com/373c1ab173ef4b96313e233554f820e5.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/00a2d585d97fdecd11e5ed4c954728ef.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/b3f1c3956e3b6d20740d0811af3efe16.png
https://i.gyazo.com/f3de8f9ea939fb767fd6d20dd2761ffc.png
https://i.gyazo.com/299ade80bb74fbc57755d0719481d086.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/3f5937ce7ee5934dae57cc22fa8e3fe8.png

  • 13 viewports rendered correctly. These were generally the viewports that weren’t stacked.
  • 19 viewports rendered incorrectly. These were mostly stacked viewports but a couple that weren’t.

Almost all of this rendered correctly on export to PDF. So this is primarily an issue of visibility and being able to work in layout. If I can’t bulk render viewports and see where I’m working, basically this takes viewport stacking off the table for me as an option.

redacted

This is the export.

What happens if you turn off Ambient Occlusion? I don’t bother with it except maybe during schematic phase, and I think it’s hard to get it to look nice. After the novelty wore off it’s not something I use on the regular.

Only one of the elevations had AO on. I prefer showing millwork elevations using it because of the depth it conveys. 12" deep upper cabinets vs 24" lower cabinets appear to be in the same plane in a standard parallel projection and I don’t think the depth cue effect does much. I’d like to have AO on in some viewports if it’s feasible, but I’m willing to drop it if need be.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix the viewport stacking render issue I’m having?

I still haven’'t seen the viewport stacking render issue you mention.

Are you putting each viewport in the stack on a separate layer? Apparently you aren’t doing that in the LO file you shared.

This shouldn’t require two different scenes not stacked viewports.This could be done with a single scene and a single viewport.
Redacted

Yes. Separate layers, though I had the same issue when on same later.

Edit: put them on separate layers since you looked at it.