LOWERING JPG COMPRESSION is applicable only to LO files containing stuff other than vector linework?

First, there are no pages in SketchUp. Create scenes in SketchUp that display what you want to show in LayOut as viewports. When you send the SU file to LayOut, it will open with the last saved scene. Change the viewport to the desired scene in the SketchUp inspector window in LayOut. If you need to change the size, you can drag the edges or corners of the viewport. Note that Shift and Alt impact what happens when you are dragging the edges of the viewport. Play with them to see first hand. You can set a scale for a viewport if the scene in SketchUp was made with the camera set to Parallel Projection. Do not open viewports to change the view with Orbit, Pan, or Zoom and do not set the view in the SketchUp inspector window. Doing so will disconnect the viewport from the original scene. Then scene-specific changes you make in SketchUp will not get translated to the LO file.

I have a similar issue - Layout does not remember the Page Setup dialogue boxes at all. I have A3 landscape set as the default in Preferences, which works fine, but if I then open Page Setup, select my A3 printer and A3 paper, save and close the file, when I reopen it those settings have reverted back to the default. This can’t be the correct behaviour surely? Update - I see that it uses the default printer settings from System Prefs - I have an A4 laser as the default. If I change that to my A3 laser, it shows the correct settings in Page Setup. That doesn’t excuse it as bad behaviour though, in my view. SketchUp Pro 2016 - OS 10.11.6

You're right. There's no sliders in LO for shadow weight. Even just turning on Shadows or adjusting the time and date in LO results in the modified scene for the viewport. So if you make the scene show as modified by changing the style or something in LO and then go back to SU to adjust the weight of the shadows, the change won't show in LO because you've already disconnected the viewport from the original SketchUp scene. Make style changes and shadow settings in SU and leave the viewport tied to the original scene and you won't have any problems. It isn't good practice to create modified scenes in LayOut.

Some of these are pretty great! I didn't have any idea you could assign a texture in SketchUp layers. Switching from Shaded With Textures to Hidden Line + Color By Layer you can have two ways of describing a surface. Very cool for representing a realistic material along with a traditional hatch! Looks like this might be in the next D'oh! book. Right, Rich?

True. You can change the scale of the drawings. I don't know what font size you are using but it will probably still be legible. Contractors often reduce-print our drawings to half size (as-is), especially for large projects with lots of sheets, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone. Our usual small print is 10pt.

@mattw0711 said: Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. In actuality, you are doing the exact same thing that the plugin you referred me to does, just a different path to get there. Totally makes sense, thanks again! Then I remember why I'm not using it... She won't mind, I use a couple of her plugins daily...

Then do as you please dear Sir!

@kyeric said: Hello! I have been reflecting lately (as I have a lot since turning 40) on the idea of architecture as design and implementation. I have been using SketchUp for about 13(!) years in some form or fashion and in my growth as a practicing architect and designer I have always fallen back on the trusty, intuitive tools that SketchUp has to offer. My nature is to continue to investigate many a new whiz-bang technology that preaches BIM capability, but I continually find those types of methods too cumbersome and...well, let's face it: not fun. As I have circled back around again to a more concise SketchUp and LayOut lifestyle thanks heavily in part to Nick Sonder, Mike Donley and Mike Brightman (you all rock!) I am wanting to ask not what would be the next great feature release of SketchUp and LayOut, but what experience does this community have with moving away from the traditional CAD plans/elevations/sections/details and into a more inclusive 3D representation of a design? I still think this is such an interesting subject as plans and sections tend to rely heavily on being diagrammatic and representative, where elevations land more on becoming pictorial. Utilizing some of the methods of Nick and Mike in SketchUp and LayOut, I have found that making all of the 3D information becomes bogged back down in translation back into a more standard graphic standard format. I am hoping to hear some of this community's experience dealing with breaking away form an architect's conception of graphic standards to how an owner or contractor relate directly to visual communication in 3D? How do you all make a new standard? No wrong answers here, just appreciation of not only this wonderful software, but the users that make it sing. Cheers! interesting sir, i find su/lo good,fast,exactly fun and doing great for my job. been 6 years riding with skp/lo to reach the project completion. i see it not braking away from architecture, rather engineering graphics standard while it is adopted and acceptable by the concerned trades and professions, owner and contractors alike, with some blocking issues, i have to create and export another raw 2d plans exerpted from the 3d model for the allied proffesion use, more exactly ,structural designer, plumbing, elec engr. so on.to do their thing using their beloved 2d software. cumbersome sir, yes it is but it can do the job. but when u master the workflow. it gets better and better, and faster. interoperation is the big thing to conquer in there. the call for the software developer integrate some of it capability to work together, and make it faster, i make new standards by pursuing this creative endeavor and sharing and encouraging others the expirience and benifits of this new technical instruments of society development.

It happened to me too. Sometimes you're lucky and after reopening Layout you have a recent file, sometimes just nothing and you lose hours of work. I solved it adding few lines to my autohotkey script, it generates a loop that autosaves every 2 minutes. #Persistent SetTimer, AutoSave, 120000 AutoSave; IfWinActive, ahk_exe C;\Program Files\SketchUp\SketchUp 2016\LayOut\LayOut.exe Send, {LCtrl Down}s{LControl Up} return where 120000 is the time in milliseconds.

OK. Now it shows up. This is an issue with your graphics card. Quit LayOut, open SketchUp, go to window>Preferences>OpenGL, and disable Hardware Acceleration. Then try opening LO again and re-rendering the viewports. Very likely this will fix the problem. If it does, it also indicates that the GPU isn't supporting OpenGL properly. You can check for and install driver updates for your GPU which might help. It depends on the card.

You can select the desired paper size in File>Document Setup>Paper. A2 is list in the drop down near the top of the list. If you're modifying an existing template that shows the grid lines, the grid lines will still be displayed with the same spacing. You can go to the Grids page and make changes to the grid spacing, color and whether or not the grid will be printed. While you're in the Paper window, you can adjust margins and other details, too.

Yep, I'm waiting for it ... let(s have a look here it's about Sketchup pro 2016 and Layou C API Using the LayOut C API in a SketchUp Extension "The LayOut C API is included in the SketchUp application, meaning developers may utilize the LayOut C API from within their SketchUp extension without being required to include it in their extension. For an example of how to use the LayOut C API from within a SketchUp extension, see the RubyExampleCreateLayOut sample." source : http://extensions.sketchup.com/developer_center/layout_c_api/layout/index.html another idea to solve my problem ? Thx Frederik for your reply David

You can only search In Model using the Outliner. Local searching is not possible. But a really nice idea.

Option to ensure you get it correct is to draw a line over the SU model and rotate it with "snap to object" on! I do this as a matter of course as it quicker than trying to find the right inference.

a few options: close the scenes-panel change to list-view (icon with horizontal lines in the scene panel)

Understanding the (3) different modes for displaying the model in LO, and trying to avoid any jaggies when printing, none of the three modes are complete. In Hybrid mode, where we want clean lines and full texture, materials print, any lines inside the model, say an interior wall seen through a transparent window material, will loose all its lines and look like a washed out "raster" mode ...why does LO do this? We know (and accept) the limitations of the drawing default styles and non-realistic rendering...but why in Hybrid mode, where we look for clean lines and full materials display (print), does LO do only some lines while eliminating others all together? Anyone got a a clue why or how to avoid this...I'm about to abandon SU & LO after ten years on this oversight alone.

Ahh... Yes. I remember there have been suggestions for exporting from SU that way. I rarely ever need to export PDFs from SU because I get better and more controllable results doing it from LO anyway. Well, you're on the right track now anyway.

Thanks for the help

I hadn't looked at this before, myself. I guess my sketching in LO is just that. Not used for precise work. I kept experimenting to see if there was some trick. As Dave says in the last comment, as way to change the handle of the widget--if indeed we have to continue to use the widget in the future... I imagined using a modifier key that would "free" the rotation arm to be realigned. Other notes. I don't highlighting mentioned in this thread. It is so light on my computer I often can't tell if it's really there. I guess you have to measure the angle then do the move by entering it. This is not that easy, given the odd ways LayOut does things, but I guess you can learn to avoid the pitfalls.