I'm wondering if you have an installation problem.

I don't have SU/LO2015 on my Mac anymore so I can't compare behavior with LO2017.

Still, as I wrote before, you really should be making style changes to your scenes in SketchUp, not in LayOut.

Hi, am very new to Layout - what do I do with the download files please - and how use in Layout
thanx

I was adding an image over the top of my Layout file to act as a watermark, before I exported a PDF.

As Layout doesn't have opacity control for shapes or text (at least, I don't think it does?), I created an image in photoshop and saved it as 20% opacity. This was too light, so I kept re-saving the file in Photoshop at higher opacities (25%, 30%, 35%) etc until I was happy with how it looked.

Rather than re import the image every time, the quickest way was to overwrite the original watermark.png file, that I'd saved on my desktop, and then right click in Layout and update the reference (similar to the workflow of editing a Sketchup file and updating the Layout document).

I also deleted this watermark at different times, and then copied and pasted it back from other pages within the document.

Edit: Further to this. Leaving the image in the file is fine (and I think it does save). The issue comes when the image is deleted. I also tried Edit>Undo to undelete the broken image. The image comes back, but it still won't save. Also purging the image out didn't bring back the save feature.

@zain01 said:

it won't copy and paste or rather paste.

What are you copying from to paste in LO?

smustard "set centerpoint.rb: is one of my most used plugins, may help if not you will find it useful anyways

Good luck. If you still want some help and you don't want to share your file publicly, send it to me via PM or send me a PM and I'll give you an e-mail address.

Yes, it is weird that the bundled template behave different to a freshly created one.

I also get weirdness when I start to tweak nesting values where I end up with an empty column in the report that say 'Add Group Attribute Here'.

Seems Generate Report is still a WIP. I did hear a whisper that the guys at 3skeng have a new tool coming that deals with reports

What scale bar are you looking at? I only find one in site. It appears to scale to 1/2"=1' (Use a dimension on it and adjust the dimension scale until it agrees), which is not appropriate for a site plan.

Make your own scales and save them. Or fix the one they've got and save that. If you try just simply scaling it you may have stupid problems like wrapping text.

I would humbly suggest you export your keyboard shortcuts regularly keeping a copy of the file in the cloud such as your email, dropbox or gdrive. In the event you lose your shortcuts or you are working on a new machine, you can easily retrieve your keyboard shortcuts in a flash

A lot of Sketchup (and Layout) is limited to a single core speed, even the 64 bit versions.

A 12 core computer is amazing for rendering with external plugins, but a higher clocked dual or quad core computer will probably get you a lot better performance modelling and producing documents in Layout.

Thanks guys, something I obviously missed with upgrading to 2017....

Yes, that don't print read but couldn't work out why some were red and some weren't.
@bmike, pey I have a DIMS layer and that's the workflow to adopt. Cheers to you all.

Thanks Dave I stand corrected

Finally found it. I had everything set correctly under the File/Document Setup and File/Page Setup menus, but didn't realize that there are also settings under SketchUp Model in the Tray. Thanks.

@utiler said:

Just revisiting this thread; when converting colours to vector and exploding down to base elements, any colours with opacity levels altered will come in as full colour.

You could then just reapply the opacity level, though I'd be inclined to change the mode of the colour editor and add white.

@bmike said:

That looks great...

Couldn't you create the drop shadows in LO? Copy all the arrows to the side, shift them all, then force them behind the arrows, shade in a transparent color? Or use layers?

I know that they aren't as pretty and fuzzy, but with layers its pretty easy.

[attachment=0:1d7spjwp]<!-- ia0 -->Screen Shot 2017-03-23 at 3.44.08 PM.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1d7spjwp]

For sure mate, I tried this in the past with floor plans - though the hard shadow is a bit harsh, plus it doesn't represent so well as the shadow cant be set as multiply like you can in photoshop or indesign. So in the end it all ends up a bit flat!

Richard should probably tune in here! There are a ton of DWG tree files of this type all over the internet. Download > drag into SU > compile > drag SU file to LayOut page > vector > explode > ungroup > you may need to run the join tool around > set outline and fill > save as scrapbook.

Be mindful you can have some really heavy geome'tree 😄 in Layout as a result!

The beauty is that you have both, a nice set of trees that match for use in both SU and LO.

Managing section cut widths isn't such a terrible thing, setting them up is quite easy, after that just a case of picking the right material, I use the "by layer" method, it is a little easier to manage IMO.

Just a wild guess.......perhaps LO is trying to regenerate a (heavy/complex) model on said page......maybe you could temporarily unlink the model(s) specific to that page in your LO file.

If that allows access to that page (after unlink) than............bobs your uncle.

Charlie

I just ran across this topic this morning, as I was having this same issue yesterday while drawing some building sections. I thought a hidden line in the plane of the section cut that was missing was causing the issue too. After playing with the model (unhiding the line) and trying, I found that the issue wasn't solved. After reading here, I went back and checked that no groups have textures.

Late last night, I came to the same conclusion as others have reached here. Include a third (for me) viewport to stack with my light and dark viewports for only 2d graphics. These would include faces to hide things beyond what I intend to show. Such as something touching the far end of a beam. Or things within a wall.

Question about stacking viewports though. If I stack my "2D Graphics" viewport on top, will its edge properties ovverride the properties of the cut edges of my main viewport? Or can you set a style with no edges, so that only faces are shown and the edge properties of a viewport below would be visible?

LOL