A tip on copy/paste from Sketchup to Layout

Edson · 26 Feb 2013, 14:10

after watching nick sonder's videos I adopted his way of generating sections (by creating a group from a slice). well, the next step in that workflow is to work in 2D in sketchup to complete the section cut. after one that copies the group and pastes it in layout.

it worked for me many times until it did not work a couple of times. I would get nothing in layout! I almost went crazy trying to figure out what was happening as I was not doing anything different from when it worked. after some days one of the kids who works for me came up with a suggestion: could it be because the section cut was on a hidden layer in sketchup and thus will not show in layout? bingo!

to make it plain: the section was visible in sketchup when I copied it but it was on a layer created with the plugin add hidden layer. somehow, layout reads it as still being hidden. the workaround is to move the section cut temporarily to a layer created the usual way (I call it, you gessed it, _temp) and then proceed to copy/paste. the procedure is now working for me 100% of the time.

I am not saying add hidden layer is buggy. it is a most useful plugin that I use all the time. I just spotted a quirk in its usage in tandem with layout.

dale · 26 Feb 2013, 14:51

Great tip Edson.
I know first hand how frustrating some of these circumstances can be, so it's always good to have something like this on memory file.

sonder · 26 Feb 2013, 21:52

Hi Edson, I stopped doing the copy paste and do everything by scenes in SU. Thankfully someone from Base Camp set me straight. So in SU you just need to isolate the line work in a view. In Layout you can simply copy your su view and paste (which will set it exactly on top of the other view). Then vector render the line work view. Very simple and easy. I've also been playing around with Tig's plugin for the section slice. So far so good!

Mike Lucey · 26 Feb 2013, 22:24

Good to see these workaround / methods being developed

Edson · 27 Feb 2013, 10:29

@unknownuser said:

Hi Edson, I stopped doing the copy paste and do everything by scenes in SU. Thankfully someone from Base Camp set me straight. So in SU you just need to isolate the line work in a view. In Layout you can simply copy your su view and paste (which will set it exactly on top of the other view). Then vector render the line work view. Very simple and easy. I've also been playing around with Tig's plugin for the section slice. So far so good!

nick,
please help me get this new workflow right.

isolate the line work in a scene.
send the linework scene to layout or duplicate any other scene there and change it to the LW scene.
then you copy/paste this view onto a layer that is on top of the view that shows the uncut part of the plan or section. or do you just copy/paste the LW view on the same layer as the rest of the plan/section?

thanks.

porch_unplugged · 27 Feb 2013, 13:59

@edson said:

@unknownuser said:

Hi Edson, I stopped doing the copy paste and do everything by scenes in SU. Thankfully someone from Base Camp set me straight. So in SU you just need to isolate the line work in a view. In Layout you can simply copy your su view and paste (which will set it exactly on top of the other view). Then vector render the line work view. Very simple and easy. I've also been playing around with Tig's plugin for the section slice. So far so good!

nick,
please help me get this new workflow right.

isolate the line work in a scene.

send the linework scene to layout or duplicate any other scene there and change it to the LW scene.

then you copy/paste this view onto a layer that is on top of the view that shows the uncut part of the plan or section. or do you just copy/paste the LW view on the same layer as the rest of the plan/section?

thanks.

Have a scene for your plan (including textures etc.)
create a hidden layer "plan line work" or something similar
add a section cut face to the plan section plan and put on the new "plan line work" hidden layer
make a new scene from the plan scene & turn off all the layers except the "plan line work"
send both scenes to Layout so you have 2 viewports on the one page
put the line work over the plan view (layers etc.) et voila!
dimension from your linework (as per Nick's videos)

don't think there's any need to copy and paste anything. apologies if i'm completely off the mark .

I came across a similar issue to you in regard to the add hidden layer plugin. I had a number of scenes set up, but then had to add some new geometry which i didn't want shown on my existing scenes. plus, i also wanted to make new scenes showing the new geometry with some of the existing geometry. so i drew up, and put the groups and components on the hidden layers. THEN i added my new scenes only to see all my new geometry disappear. I had just turned on the layers needed when i clicked that it was probably the 'add hidden layer', which proves that it works retrospectively.

sonder · 27 Feb 2013, 18:33

Porch got it. I don't typically "send to layout" though. I usually insert the model in Layout, then make a copy of the same viewport. In layout, I set the model in raster mode on a layer called "SU Model", and the line work in vector mode on a layer called "Line Work".

If you set your scenes correctly, this mode allows you to simply render each view to scale without any re-positioning of the viewport, since both scenes are identical with regards to position in SU. This process has really sped things up, especially for building sections where I typically have around 12-20 section on a typical home.

I'm going to really test the efficiency this spring as I just took on two projects that I am hoping to submit in mid-April.

utiler · 28 Feb 2013, 00:08

@unknownuser said:

Hi Edson, I stopped doing the copy paste and do everything by scenes in SU. Thankfully someone from Base Camp set me straight. So in SU you just need to isolate the line work in a view. In Layout you can simply copy your su view and paste (which will set it exactly on top of the other view). Then vector render the line work view. Very simple and easy. I've also been playing around with TIG's plugin for the section slice. So far so good!

I do just that. I first realised when I wanted to show a black & white plan in Layout but wanted to solid fill the walls. Obviously with TIG's SectionCutFace plugin you can set the fill color but if you're only viewing the one scene in Layout you have to go with a 'Shaded' or "Shaded with textures' style to get color filled walls.

So I create a section cut with the plugin, create a new scene, isolate only that layer visible. Ensure your floor plan scene is 'Hidden line' style [I have never understood why its called that rather than monochrome..] and the section cut scene is 'shaded style and overlay both scenes in Layout. Change the section cut scene to hybrid and wha, la!!!!

sonder · 28 Feb 2013, 00:14

Yes, that is exactly what I do. Works really well.

Aureus · 3 Mar 2013, 01:57

@unknownuser said:

Yes, that is exactly what I do. Works really well.

And may I ask you what do you do when you need to put height dimensions of this sort (attached)?
So far I haven't found them in SketchUp nor in LayOut.

sonder · 3 Mar 2013, 17:31

@aureus said:

@unknownuser said:

Yes, that is exactly what I do. Works really well.

And may I ask you what do you do when you need to put height dimensions of this sort (attached)?
So far I haven't found them in SketchUp nor in LayOut.

In layout, use the stock scrapbooks or create your own.

Aureus · 3 Mar 2013, 22:17

@unknownuser said:

@aureus said:

@unknownuser said:

Yes, that is exactly what I do. Works really well.

And may I ask you what do you do when you need to put height dimensions of this sort (attached)?
So far I haven't found them in SketchUp nor in LayOut.

In layout, use the stock scrapbooks or create your own.

OK, thanks, Nick.
I knew that. I was just curious if I missed some other way, more automatic like in the case of usual dimensional work. In this way you need to type height values yourself.
Luckily, there's not much of manual work here since usual construction documentation doesn't require so many of those symbols or at least requires much less than typical dimensions.

Greets

P.S. Your videos on YouTube are fantastic and I have just found out on other topic that you got even better working machine.