I have been working on a fairly complex model of a factory and because of time was considering using layout to prepare construction documents other than having to export it to another application for annotation but for the longest time layout seems to have failed to address performance. Layout really would have the potential to be one of the best and easiest documentation programs but performance renders it almost impractical to use for larger more complex models. I thought at first it was computing power that was lacking so I purchased the ASUS ROG G703GX at the time acclaimed to be the most powerful laptop on earth and thought it would handle anything I would throw at it (…but how fast time flies) and still layout suffers performance issues. Could layout perhaps be rebuilt from the ground up with this consideration in mind like Sketchup was for I do recall many years ago when Google still owned Sketchup, someone commented on whether Sketchup would one day support multithreading and the response was it couldn’t because it was coded using C language that didn’t support multithreading but in the end, Trimble listened and Sketchup is as powerful as it is now
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Maybe it is because Sketchup is the main program and has more active users then Layout?
Did you change display options while working in layout to speed things up?
You may find a satisfying answer to speed up layout in this post:
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There are some big changes for LayOut in 2024, let’s wait.
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And this is one of several example from your post of how disinformation flourishes.
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Your memory is faulty in several regards. Please do more careful research before posting such disinformation.
First of all, Trimble made no such change to SketchUp. They couldn’t, because, as has been discussed almost endlessly for years, nobody has yet succeeded in making the key parts of any interactive 3D editing app multi-threaded. Improvements in SketchUp performance have come from better tuning of code or changing to different algorithms, as well as from newer and faster CPUs and GPUs, not from multi-threading.
Second, the lack of multi-threading has nothing whatever to do with the C programming language. Thread and process management is included in the standard libraries of C. In fact, C has for years been the preferred programming language for most OS’s and their libraries. It is so low-level that with enough effort, one can code anything in it. But to multi-thread, you need to have a workflow that can be broken into parts that can proceed independently in parallel. Editing a 3D model is almost entirely sequential.
That said, complaints about poor performance in LayOut are numerous and frequent. The Trimble team is fully aware of them. I’m not a Trimble employee, so I don’t have any inside knowledge, but I’m sure they are looking intently at this (and other) issues with LayOut. How much effort would it take to rebuild it from the ground up? Probably quite a lot, as it has grown to be pretty complex.
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The modelling/UI part of all 3D modelling applications is single-threaded. SketchUp is no exception. Almost 30 years ago Autodesk announced the imminent release of a multithreaded version of the 3D Studio Max modeller. Users are still waiting.
Use High resolution in LayOut for your output. Your screenshot shows Low which is OK for editing the document on screen. Or turn on Output Override if your model is not gigantic.
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And just to add to the above, efficient modelling practices will beat any hardware/software upgrades. Some very simple workflow basics can make world of difference.
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This was the response from the google sketchup team, If I recall well was around 2011 or 2012
My Issue is while editing this is the basic option I have for editing if its to be fairly fast albeit agonizing. Hybrid and vector are hardly any options I would tamper with… glad Layout 2023 has raster by default and only renders high quality documents while exporting. sadly while annotating in this mode I can barely see enough detail to stay accurate
Would you mind sharing some of your workflow approach because I am struggling to get any practical output and losing hours of agonizing delays and loading times in layout
Have you watched all of our material available on our YouTube channel? Specifically:
or
I agree I wish some of these UI lags were addressed even if the wider discourse on overall performance are still being explored. In a way It would make great logical sense to incorporate some of layouts functionalities and features directly within Sketchip like print scale properties that would take advantage of Sketchup’s performance, just thinking out loud
Thanks for this, I watched one of his videos and must say he was pretty thorough, appreciate it.
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Are you able to share a file that is causing you problems – some of us could have a look at it…?
My memory serves me well on that discussion of multithreading where perhaps I would stand corrected is my inadequate research on the matter since. Indeed multithreading has been a subject discussed numerous times on many cg, gaming and 3d artist platforms. I was led to believe sketchup’s leap in performance would have been due in part to this possibility but I digress and stand corrected.
Yeah sure certainly, here’s an attachment to the file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FRcRiFX8g8D64MvAZYHMEbMhbu5nYrgB/view?usp=drive_link
We all have our preferred workflow…
I’d say – and I think others too – you’ve got so many ridiculously high poly count components that can either be replaced with proxies for Layout or are not tagged and therefore on Layout pages where they are not visible could be turned off.
Those high poly count components make for nice 3D visuals but are way over the top for 2D drawings – especially that some of your Layout viewports are set at a scale of around 1:400
Layout is attempting to resolve scenes where there is just too much geometry that is not necessary!
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I agree one of my biggest pet peeves is modeling with excess details which indeed isn’t the most efficient approach, one of my reasons for it, or perhaps excuse really, is later when am calling out details I do not have to draw or model them out I just have to call them out from the master file, so definitely a quirk I could work more efficiently without. My concern though is I wish layout had the fidelity of other drafting options out there at a resonable performance as the rest without the compromises we have to make to get the best results
In fact, currently I have not seen any software that displays both vector and texture from a 3D model with a huge amount of polygons well. Therefore, things should be viewed in a fair way. If you let AutoCAD (for example) do the same thing and produce rendering similar to what LayOut can provide, you will have a clearer comparison.
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Let’s hope!
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