How to print a top view parallel projection plot plan

gm52

How do I print my top view, parallel projection plot plan of a house and yard to be used as a 2 dimension plan (41 feet by 65 feet)for a landscaping plan?
I'm using Mac OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with GB 667 MHz DDr2 SDRAM of memory.
I can readily print on 8.5"x 11" or 8.5"x 14".
I would like to print one page if possible.
Thank you so much.

Dave R

Have you tried printing it directly from SketchUp? File>Print or use File>Print Preview first. Before you print set the camera in SketchUp to Parallel Projection and hit Zoom Extents to fill the drawing window with your model. If you've tried this and it didn't work, what happened?

Edson

the best way I know is sending it to Layout (sketchup's companion) as there you can control the scale of the plan. of course, it should be a top view in ortho mode.

Dave R

Edson, I agree with you however it doesn't appear that the OP is using the pro version of SketchUp.

jpalm32

Printing in SU reminds of printing with AutoCad DOS in the 80's.

Edson

@jpalm32 said:

Printing in SU reminds of printing with AutoCad DOS in the 80's.

that is probably why Layout was created.

gm52

Thank you for the help. Yes I’m using SketchUp8, not the Pro Version.
The Zoom Extent tip is really appreciated. Here is my work around. It does not give me perfect results, however I can work with.
Because of my work around, the Document Setup Dialog Box Scale reads 1” in Drawing and 10’ 8” in Model. I won't be able to use an architectural ruler with the drawing.
From the Camera pull down menu in SketchUp8

Before printing select Camera>Parallel Projections. Also select Camera>Zoom Extents.
a. Zoom Extents will fill the drawing window with the model.
b. For my drawing I also selected Camera>Standard Views>Top (I don’t know if this is necessary, I created it with this view)
Print directly from SketchUp 8
File>Print 8.5” x 14”. It was by trial and error I determined to use this size paper.
c. Orientation is portrait.
d. Scale is 185% (this is NOT the scale in the Document Setup Dialog Box)
i. 185% is a work around which gives me a near full page size drawing that I can work with.
ii. At 185% the result is 4 printed pages. The good news is that 3 of the 4 are blank and 1 page contains my drawing.
There is probably a better way and when my next drawing are created I’ll probably have different issues, as the plot plans are larger. I might need to create them in 3 different drawings because I have no interest in taping together pages.
Thank you for the feedback and if you have more suggestions I’ll appreciate them.

Dave R

It would be helpful if you could post a screen shot of your SketchUp window to see the arrangement of your model.

You didn't indicate in your first post that you are trying to print to some scale. With your second post it seems you are. One sort of obscure detail related to printing is that it helps to size the drawing window tight to the model so you don't have a great deal of unused background around it. You say you are printing in portrait mode so I'm guessing your drawing is taller than it is wide. You could resize the drawing window to be the same or rotate the model and use the landscape orientation. this should eliminate the need for those three extra sheets.

The downside to this window resizing is that it often scrambles toolbars. If you don't need to do it often, it's not so bad but if you do this regularly and your time is worth anything, you would benefit from springing for the pro version. Then you can export to LayOut and set the scale there. No gymnastics to go through.

jeff hammond

@dave r said:

The downside to this window resizing is that it often scrambles toolbars.

he's claiming mac so the toolbars shouldn't be a problem..

the reason your drawing is spilling out onto multiple printed pages is because you have borders set up in your paper preferences… sketchup considers these borders as part of the drawing which leads to the spill.. (bad sketchup! bad )
[EDIT].. well, actually, it doesn't consider the borders as part of the drawing.. so it will calculate the scale for the entire sheet of paper then once the print happens, the boarders have been added to the info provided by sketchup (i.e.- if you set up in sketchup for an 8.5 x 11 print but you have 1/4" borders designated, the printer sees that you're trying to do a 9x11.5" print so it spreads it across multiple sheets.. if that makes any sense )

go File -> Page Setup…

then click the 'paper size' drop down.. if your selected printer has borderless options available in your desired paper size, choose that.. otherwise, click on 'Manage Custom Sizes…' and enter desired paper size but leave all the borders at 0..
it will prevent your spillage..

i have an applescript which will resize your sketchup window to the same aspect ratio as your chosen paper.. it will then zoom the drawing window to the maximum allowable scale for your paper size and drawing (i.e.- it will show the window as, say, 1/4" = 1' then give the option to zoom to a smaller scale if desired (if you go bigger, the drawing won't fit on the single page so that's not an option)) …. i didn't post the script publicly because i soon found out that older OS's need adjustments in order to work and getting that type of compatibility was harder (or definitely less exciting) than making the script work in the first place..