SU Drawing Output
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Hi All,
I haven't posted much for a very long time so I consider myself a newbie. I have been using SU as part of my design process in the office for 4 years now and it has paid for itself 100 fold. The problem I am finding is that I am relying more and more on my staff to produce preliminary design documentation where they start the project from scratch in revit. This is a time waster especially if it is for a speculative developer or the like. I use layout extensively with SU to produce my concept drawings but I am not overly happy with the output since line weights cannot be changed and everything looks ....well...very flat. To counter this I went out and purchased a license of SPIRIT 15.1, this appears to be a great programme that interfaces well with SU, my problem is the learning curve on becoming proficient on a CAD programme when I have never actually used one before. Being the primary designer in the office, I don't want to get bogged down learning all the idiosyncrasies of SPIRIT or Revit for that matter, its just not an efficient use of my time. My question here is, is anyone aware of a plugin being developed to produce more quality drawings from SU with line weight variation and better dimensioning. I have checked out the new Rhino plugin called VisualARQ, something like this interface in Sketchup would be fantastic I feel. It is not overly complex, very intuitive and has simple BIM qualities. For someone like me where time is of the essence, this would be an absolute God send. OR, am I better off just switching over to Rhino????
Anyone's thoughts on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
Stan
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First of all welcome back Stan. I attributed your other post from the old forum to you. I could only find one. If you see any others link them to me or one of the other Mods and we will make sure your name gets properly associated with your posts.
To your question. Our office struggles with much of the same as you. Our CD's are produced predominately in Revit, however there are a few who still rely on Autocad and dare I speak... Datacad (shudder). Using both Revit and SketchUp I still find I am re-drawing after the design phase on some projects. It would be nice if there were a more seamless interface between the two. I do use SU for complex shapes at times as it is much easier than in Revit, import them into a generic Revit Family then insert it into the project. However if it needs to be changed... back to SU and so on.
So I, like you, am keeping my ears open as well and hope for some insight. Sorry I don't have an answer.
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@unknownuser said:
is anyone aware of a plugin being developed to produce more quality drawings from SU with line weight variation and better dimensioning.
I think this would be a great plugin for SU. I wonder if something could be developed that reads projections and profile, in relation to the camera, and orientation (a way to read the difference between things like overhangs and inside corners) and relation to light. We have "profiles" but it is out of control, and many don't like to use it.
Otherwise a process whereby one can quickly go over a view and adjust line weights.
As for dimensions for preliminary presentations, Layout should be the answer here but it seems to have a ways to go.
Putting it all together in one program, which I guess is the point of REVIT is simply going to require a more complex interface and not a fast learning curve. Since early days of CAD it seems that architects, especially the Principals who don't do as much CAD, have been looking for the be-all, end-all program. CAD hasn't been around that long. Someday we'll have ONE interface that one can gesture and wink at to get a building design. Right now that's still called a "draftsperson".
I think the immediate answer would be just what you are asking for, without asking one program to do it all. It would probably be a "renderer" for SU.
In the meantime I find having an intuitive graphic 2d program like PowerCADD, is a great help. It's easy to learn for people who draw for both presentations and CDs, And if I were so inclined I could export a view (hidden line) to PowerCADD and then click lines giving them various weights (wysiwyg), then superimpose on a SketchUp.png inside PowerCADD.
I looked at VisualArq and Spirit. Can't say I found enough at the websites to draw a conclusion from. Spirit "Gallery" is empty and "Spirit in Action" is under construction etc.
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Hey Guys,
Many thanks for your responses, looks like I am certainly not the only one with this little dilemma. I think I might have to persevere with SPIRIT. It allows you to reference a sketch-up model into SPIRIT and work in SU which auto updates. I will have a look at power Cad, sounds interesting.
A good example of what I am talking about came in to the office this morning. It is an upgrade of an existing shop tenancy. They want presentation 3D's to present to the Body Corporate for approval as well as a builders Preliminary price. So if I was able to produce some professional looking preliminary design 2D drawings from my SU model I could knock it out quite quickly and effectively along with an outline spec. I look forward to the day where Google are able to offer a plugin or even a very simple cad system designed around SU and as Intuitive as SU. If I had had the time and expertise I would do it myself
Stan
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