Example project

Jim

Hi Ged,

I made a quick index of some (hopefully most) of the .layout files posted around the forum. See link below.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=300449#p300449

gedw99

Hey Jim,

thanks, but i need skp and layout together.
This is the only way to see the best technical approach to how i design with Sketchup.

Ged

Gaieus

Ged, if you right click on the embedded SU model in the LO document, there is a context menu item "edit in SketchUp" (or something like that). It will be opened in SU then (the skp file is actually in the layout file - rename it to zip and see the content there)

gedw99

Oh my god. I just tried it on my model here and your right.
Layout is a self describing string based file format with the sketchup file encoded inside it.
I never realized.

Feel like such a dummy.
Interesting possibilities.

thanks again

ged

gedw99

Gaieus ,

The schema looks like most packing techniques.
Are there any tools to serialise and de-serialise this schema ?
Will help my worflow allot.

Regards

ged

Gaieus

Sorry but I don't understand this last post. What do you want to serialise?

On a side note, you can also insert rtf text files (just like images, skp files etc.). When adding text to your LO document, this is a good way (instead of typing into text-boxes). First, it can retain certain formatting elements otherwise you don't have. Second, in case your LO file gets corrupt somehow, these text files can still e found "inside".

gedw99

thanks - yes i can see the RTF elements int the xml doc.
But the whole complete description of Font, lines, everything is of course there.
Thats much more interesting to me.

The way the Layout Schema is structured is a very standard software pattern these days. Its the same way that MS Word 2010 docs are structured when you un-zip those too. With The WOrd Automation API's you can load a word code and alter it in code. Its very powerful.
SO what i am saying is that you can do exactly the same with Google Layout.
I am kind of surprised Google did no Obfuscate the xml structure in some way; but that would be EVIL of course

Anyway serialise and de-serialsie means to take that XML and inject it into a memory structure in software. This is very easy. You can go both ways. Forward engineering and backwards engineer.

Anyway, the end result is that you can then generate Layout documents from any Meta data !

So if there is a formal Specification of the Schema Or a Java or C# object library that understands the schema my job would be 90% done.

This is the schema for the Document Properties xml file for example:
http://sketchup.google.com/schemas/layout/1.0/documentproperties

It would make it very very simple to represent Layouts in a normal Web Browser using HTML5 and Canvas for example.
You could also very easily make them editable in a web browser. SVG and Canvas libraries can do all this client side using just JavaScript. There are already other implementations out there for doing this with other Layout Schemas.

But just saying its very very easy and well you would not need Google Layout anymore. Opps did i say that

Also now that i see that the PaperSpace viewports to the 3D world are just image instances, I can see why the PDF outputs are so crappy with Google Layout.

I will stop ranting now.
I wonder if there are other people here interested in this ?

Regards

Ged

gedw99

For example if you put this into a browser you will see the actual Schema definition for Pages in Layout:

view-source:http://sketchup.google.com/schemas/layout/1.0/page.xsd

From this you can generate Code in Java or c# to interact with the Data.

Maybe this is the easiest way to explain it to you.

Regard

ged

Gaieus

OK, now I understand. But of course, I cannot answer any of your questions nor could I contribute with the slightest idea to all this.

@gedw99 said:

I can see why the PDF outputs are so crappy with Google Layout.

Are they? Maybe it's just some setting issue: I have never had any quality problems. You can set the output quality in the document setup to "high" and it will export at 300 dpi. That should be enough for anything. Also, hybrid and vector rendering mode makes sure to get the crispiest lines you can wish.

gedw99

i knwo what you mean but thats not what i mean.

I just tried exporting to PDF with the 3 different view-port settings.
The view-port set to "Raster" looks terrible because its static to resolution.
The view-port set to "Vector" looks much better. About 5 times better because its resolution independent.
The view-port set to "Hybrid" looks about the same as the "Vector".

All are set to "High" when exporting of course.

So moral of the story is to use Vector when Printing. Pretty simple. But takes allot longer i believe.

Ged

Gaieus

Vector does not render image based textures so if you have also those in the model, use hybrid instead. If there are no image textures, there should not be a difference at all.

As for speed - keep it raster based until you get to export. And well, a bit of extra time to render it and export is worth if the quality is better.

gedw99

ok thanks for your help. response a bit late ...

G