Hey Sketchup community! I would love to know the structure you guys use for tagging your models! This would help me and I’m sure so many users to know what professionals and others who use Sketchup use as their tagging structure. If you’d like to share, put in the following syntax below when you share your structure:
How Do You Use Sketchup?: Please specify - (Hobbyist, single family home designer, multi residential design, commercial design, etc?)
Attach a photo of your tagging structure that you use to keep your sketchup models organized!
This is a recent massing study exercise for two residential towers with basements, retail podium and apartments above. Main function is to determine development volumes/areas, functional disposition within planning constraints.
the tag structure allows individual isolation of every floor, the structural elements , slabs, columns beams, core walls.
Tags layer names use the AIA layer standard to maintain consistency and reduce tag name length
They are grouped using prefix symbols {still wary of using sub-groups) s I want the structure portable into other software.
“#” = tags applying to entire model
“+” = tags applying to zones / floors within the model
“-” = construction assemblies
My tag list has been lifted almost without change from the Sketchup Workflow for Architecture and is part of my standard template. I do purge it and add to it in use though. Because I am on a Mac, I am not allowed to see much of the tag names. This is a known bug and is super annoying. How it got past beta like that, goodness only knows.
Wow I love it, so clean! Great work! How long did that take you to think of this structure you think? I’ve probably spent weeks of my time on mine, fortunately and unfortunately haha… Thanks so much for the awesome feedback!
Ha! I was actually going to ask if you could show the names as I thought you did that by accident. Crazy bug!! Super cool! Can you explain some of the tags you use that are not apart of that book and why? How do you both view tags? Do you use them for layout purposes only to create a kind of automated viewport setup in layout, or do you use it to show presentations in sketchup more or less? Would love to know more! What are some of the biggest things you’ve learned with tags and what are your best tags that you’ve made of your own, or most useful to you guys?
Oh, been using a simplified version of the AIA CAD layering standards since 1990 when I developed the CAD standards for a large architectural firm in Australia using Autocad LT.
Never like typing long layer names and consistency is very important in a large firm.
Added the prefixes initially file names in Autocad [eg Xrefs had prefix codes to identify with the 8 character file name limit what was the content of the file.)… but refined this SU as all the information was in one file.
Here is the file naming convention I wrote back in 1990 for DWGS which is the basis for my SU system
I don’t think I could work if I could not see the tag names fully… would drive me crazy and agree no CAD software should be so compromised… I think you could abbreviate the broader catergories and don’t imagine you really need ARCH. isn’t that implicit in work?
I just used the Michael Brightman approach and stuck with it. I agree that I don’t need the ARCH or CONC or SITE or LINES prefixes now that we can group tags. I have just been lazy about updating my template.
But I agree with you that no software should go out of the door with such a basic problem unresolved. Maybe it says something about the interest Trimble has in this branch of its software stable.
My models are usually so simple that I don’t need to use Tags at all, except one for things that appear only in 2D views. If I had to do a more complex project I would use our national industry standard in some kind of simplified version.
One of the things I like about Revit is that it manages to do without layers altogether.
if i’m doing work with ACAD projects, i use my ACAD template, if the architect is using AIA layers, i use my AIA template, but mostly on smaller projects i just have a bunch of nested tags for each area which i apply to groups and components, and then nest the related objects into “location” (e.g. a room) tagged groups which lets me select via location or type within a location to display and hide. simplifies the creation of views.
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Maybe it says something about the interest Trimble has in this branch of its software stable.
Are you sure SU/LO still has a place IN the stable?
I’m thinking we’ve been relegated to one of the back pastures some place?
No, and no one here has either. Or if they have, they are not allowed to say.
It’s disappointing that, with all the beta testing that I imagine goes on, bugs like these either don’t get picked up before release or, worse still, are released anyway because they are too difficult, or maybe time consuming, to correct.
The Prefix ‘$’ Categories were started before Tag Folders, but still helpful when assigning Tags from the Entity Info Pull Down as they appear at the top of the list, and also helps differentiate from any Architects Imported Layer Names. (Credit and thanks to Whomever I Appropriated this from)
