Why does the spinning beach ball appear so much and it take so long to switch between layout sheets?
Any advice?
This is costing me money!
I need a more efficient approach so I can get more done…
Why does the spinning beach ball appear so much and it take so long to switch between layout sheets?
What version of SketchUp and LayOut are you using? Please complete your profile.
With nothing to go on, it’s only possible to guess. There are a number of things that can cause delays such as you describe. If you have viewport rendering set to Hybrid or Vector, rendering can take longer than if rendering is set to Raster. If you have many textures in your model, especially large ones, you might see a delay in rendering. If you are modifying scenes in LayOut,you might see increased render times. Frequent changes to the SketchUp model and frequent reference updates might be an issue. Shadow display might also be a cause. Display render quality set to High will most certainly cause delay. Incorrect SKP file insertion resulting in multiple SKP references for the same file will cause delays. Bloated SketchUp files can cause delays, too.
More efficient approach: Leave viewports set to render in Raster mode until you are ready to make exports. While you are working on the project in LayOut, set the style in SketchUp to a fast style. No textures, no shadows displayed, no sketchy edges. Change the style to show textures, shadows, sketchy edges, etc and update references just before export.
Make sure you are creating multiple viewports correctly. After creating the first one in LO, copy it to make the others. Don’t insert the SketchUp file multiple times. Make sure you are creating scenes in SketchUp for the viewoprts you’ll need in LayOut. Make sure you aren’t doing anything to make the scenes show as modified in LayOut.
If you need to make changes to the SketchUp file but the changes won’t affect all scenes, turn off Auto Render and manually render only those scenes that need to be updated. When you’ve got the project ready to export, go through and do a last render on all scenes.
Purge unused stuff from the SketchUp model to eliminate file bloat. Make sure you’ve got efficient components in your SketchUp model. Overly detailed components such as many of the kitchen appliances and household furniture components are frequently way over detailed. They bring huge liabilities without any real benefits. Clean them up before you use them.
I’m sure there’s more but without seeing your LayOut file, it’s hard to say.
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Dave,
I use SU and LO mostly for furniture design and plans. I recall a previous project where, using Layout, I saw the spinning wheel quite a bit. Now I’m on a new project and hope to avoid that.
Many of the items you mention in your response to the OP I am doing now.
I still wonder about the best render mode for Layout viewports for certain scenes.
Currently, for my SU Perspective and Exploded Assembly View scenes, (camera is set to perspective, with style using either color texture or monochrome), I use the raster mode in Layout viewports.
For my plan and elevation view scenes (ie standard views, camera is in parallel projection, and style is monochrome), I use vector render mode in Layout viewports. Is this a good approach or can you suggest something that may work better ? Perhaps, Raster or Hybrid for everything ?
It sounds like what you are doing is a decent work flow. Generally while you are working it is probably best to keep all viewports set to render as Raster because this creates the least work for your graphics card. Once you get things about finished–all of your dimensions and text and such in and the pages all laid out, you could go back and render the viewports as Vector or Hybrid as needed. Hybrid will give you vector linework with raster textures. If Raster linework gives you acceptable images in your exported PDF, don’t bother changing the render type.
Thanks so much Dave. That sounds like a good way to go. Maybe a bit of misunderstanding on my part about rendering. I use the vector mode for the elevations because I thought dimensioning was better suited in that mode. Maybe the rendering mode is really only visually apparent in the quality of the project printout and not the on screen view. In that case, as you say, raster is best at keeping the spinning wheel away.
I do find sometimes it’s easier to do dimensioning after rendering as vector but it is possible to dimension with raster rendered viewports.
Raster rendering tends to be kind of ugly when you are working in LO but with high quality output, it’s not so bad in export.
Dave,
I was re-reading your Oct 18 reply to the OP again and you state:
Make sure you are creating scenes in SketchUp for the viewoprts you’ll need in LayOut. Make sure you aren’t doing anything to make the scenes show as modified in LayOut.
I never invoke SU via the Layout viewport to change the camera position. If I need to make that type of change, I go back into SU and orbit, pan or zoom the camera, update the scene, save the SU model then go back to LO and update the reference model.
I do however regularly use Layout’s Model window-style, and Model window-tag features to modify my original SU scenes. For example, I have a style defined as dashed/wire frame. I use a single elevation scene from my SU model, stack viewports and change the style on one in LO using the dashed/wire frame style. This greatly deceases the number of scenes needed in my SU model.
Some features like dash lines are recent so may not have been around in your 2018 reply.
Should these modifications of style and tags be avoided to decease spinning beach ball/delay between LO sheets, or is it enough to just avoid creating scenes with a modified camera position in LO.?
The main reason for avoiding any changes to the Camera section of the SketchUp Model panel is to avoid creating issues related to the model appearing to move within the bounds of the viewport when an update is required. This is a huge part of why labels and dimensions get screwed up.
Typically the spinning beach ball thing occurs when viewports have loads of geometry that needs to be rendered. Setting a different style probably won’t have much impact. Turning off the visibility of some tags might help to reduce render times. The other day someone was experiencing the spinning BB and it turned out that this was caused by some geometry heavy plant components in the SketchUp model. Removing them from the model eliminated the beach ball. It all comes back to clean, efficient modeling in SketchUp.
Things have changed since I wrote what you quoted. With the release of 2021 I’ve been able to greatly reduce the number of scenes in my SketchUp models. I also now only have my default modeling style in SU and have no need to set dashes for tags in the model. I’ve created a collection of styles that I would typically use in a given document and I can select from those in LO for the viewport(s) as needed.
Dave,
Yes, like you I also have much fewer scenes now in my SU models using tags and other defined styles which I use within LO.
I have been coaching a fellow woodworker who is taking his design from SU into Layout for the first time. I am trying to alert him to best practices for Layout and will forward him this post. Your responses on the forum continue to be a valuable resource and have greatly helped make my use of SketchUp and Layout more efficient and fun to use.
Zaz1