Your experience of utilizing SU/LO for a project
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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!
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The question is interesting enough. 2D drawings have the advantage of being easy to measure as all measurements are scaled.
I don't think they can be replaced, specially plans but sections and elevations too.
However, they can be used as a complement of an higher level of information too if you find ways of using your 3d.
What I do in a standard basis is:
- Develop a 3D for every communication with client and help on construction site;
- Use Layout for Plans, Sections and Elevations for permits and construction documents, in a pretty standard fashion all the way to 2D details.
- I rarelly use 3D details, but my models are fully modelled in their visible parts and also on their most complex parts so I can use that 3D info for whatever is required in terms of construction comprehension and there's nothing stopping me from delivering the 3D model to construction site.
I don't think reinventing the wheel is needed most of the times, but I do think there are very interesting stuff you can do with a 3D to communicate your ideas and it's very interesting to have a full 3D as a design process.
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Definitely have gone to using more SU-LO for exterior elevations plus the 3d presentations. It allows me actually be able to do the 3d work exterior for projects where, before, rendering would not have been feasible. Plans, as you say, are more diagrammatic and full of symbols. Plans and sections are rapidly updated in CAD during design development where notes and symbols reflect the detail of information at each stage. The exterior skin and the inside (plan and section) follow different paths for me at present.
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@jql said:
The question is interesting enough. 2D drawings have the advantage of being easy to measure as all measurements are scaled.
I don't think they can be replaced, specially plans but sections and elevations too.
However, they can be used as a complement of an higher level of information too if you find ways of using your 3d.
What I do in a standard basis is:
- Develop a 3D for every communication with client and help on construction site;
- Use Layout for Plans, Sections and Elevations for permits and construction documents, in a pretty standard fashion all the way to 2D details.
- I rarelly use 3D details, but my models are fully modelled in their visible parts and also on their most complex parts so I can use that 3D info for whatever is required in terms of construction comprehension and there's nothing stopping me from delivering the 3D model to construction site.
I don't think reinventing the wheel is needed most of the times, but I do think there are very interesting stuff you can do with a 3D to communicate your ideas and it's very interesting to have a full 3D as a design process.
Appreciate the reply, JQL. I am enamored in breaking through towards a more SU-LO centric workflow and am encouraged to see that others have really found better ways of doing just that. I agree that plans are very diagrammatic but absolutely standard in building and construction communication, but trying to get SU and LO to do what CAD can crank out in a short amount of time is my biggest obstacle.
I concede that the SketchUp model always beats a CAD drawing in either the office, with the client or a contractor. I am just interested in how best to streamline a way to get all of that lovely information back into a translatable "standard" visual format, but as Nick and other gurus here have shown, maybe the way we represent our designs must change.
Fast and flexible is key in a small practice, too. Still honing the workflow, but I am happy to report that I have not jumped from CAD to Revit. Too much for my small brain to handle.
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@pbacot said:
Definitely have gone to using more SU-LO for exterior elevations plus the 3d presentations. It allows me actually be able to do the 3d work exterior for projects where, before, rendering would not have been feasible. Plans, as you say, are more diagrammatic and full of symbols. Plans and sections are rapidly updated in CAD during design development where notes and symbols reflect the detail of information at each stage. The exterior skin and the inside (plan and section) follow different paths for me at present.
Yes! This is more of the hybrid approach that I usually fall back on, as no other program can make an elevation as information rich (and beautiful) as SU-LO. I have seen many examples on this forum that truly make me excited to try and replicate it in my own workflow. Plans, sections, details, schedules are just usually more expedited in CAD. I hate that the 3D model becomes separated from those other drawings but it becomes old hat to utilize CAD as a digital pen, replete with easy control of making lines, offsetting, copying, etc. all with a nice line weights.
I would love to know how you combine your own hybrid CAD/SU-LO drawings? Do you have (2) separate titleblocks that match in CAD and LO? This is very interesting and might help me stem the tide of my own work till I can be totally on SketchUp and LayOut...someday.
Until then, I really hope the next major release of LayOut gets some major love from the Trimble Troops!
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I usually print to pdf from LayOut, usually a basic set of exterior elevations arranged for the sheet (sometimes plans) and place them as references in PowerCADD. So I have the CAD title block. (I have also made a title block for LO if I need it.) Then I draw over them. Sometimes I have already added many elements like notes and linework in LO. It's yet another removal from the design file. If I resave the pdf print from LO, I can update the reference in PowerCADD and it reloads in location with mask etc.
This way I can have a file in PowerCADD which includes every drawing--albeit the imported SU pictures are not editable. BTW I can explode a copy of the vector pdf and have an overlay of lines to snap to etc.
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I do not use CAD at all. What's the real use for it if you have SU+LO?
I do export to CAD so I can share with consultants, nothing else.
The only problem is that Layout isn't as smooth, intuitive and fun as sketchup... but neither CAD!
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I find that the 2d tools with PowerCADD are too good to leave behind at present for LayOut. Part of that is my ease of use from experience with it. LayOut is still a little clunky, lacks many tools, short cuts, and features (such as real easily created/modified hatches). Often slow both in use and in rendering and printing. If I put enough into it I could see using it, but it still wouldn't be as good in graphics, accuracy, and smoothness, as you say. I don't think of SU as more smooth or intuitive, just a different use.
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Yes, I see that kind of workflow is a lot like mine at the present. It is a cobbled effort, for sure and I am finding that the time invested in going to a more SketchUp-Layout centric methodology works a lot better, though I do struggle mightily at times.
Your question just reiterates my original question. CAD, at the moment is the fastest way to put an established, industry standard visual communication device to the world. Yes, you can build things faster in SU (or your choice of BIM software), but the way we must translate that visual information back into an accepted standard is slower. Maybe it's just my age or experience, but CAD is just a necessary evil that I must account for on nearly every project.
I am honestly hoping to alleviate much of this through the continued tweaking of how I practice and represent an idea of the built environment.
Appreciate the comments and look forward to anyone else wanting to chime in.
Cheers
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@kyeric said:
Your question just reiterates my original question. CAD, at the moment is the fastest way to put an established, industry standard visual communication device to the world. Yes, you can build things faster in SU (or your choice of BIM software), but the way we must translate that visual information back into an accepted standard is slower. Maybe it's just my age or experience, but CAD is just a necessary evil that I must account for on nearly every project.
Are you really sure about that?
I've been using LO and as I don't look at that the same way. Nothing beats the relationship you get with your actual model. It can be cumbersome when many details are envolved, but, sincerelly LO might become faster than CAD on your workflow.
I'd say this with total assurance:
- Layout will help your docs be more pretty or, if that doesn't matter to you, more readable;
- Layout will help you reduce mistakes by having a continued link with your model;
- Layout might be slower to work than CAD but you must work much less with it than you have to work if you choose to integrate CAD in your workflow.
- Layout is capable of much more, but it's not standard and it has a steep learning curve, not in the software, but in the workflow;
- This learning curve, might be questionable nowadays as Sonder's book, wich I haven't read, seems to be promising for people thinking like you do.
I could, of course, be wrong, but I'm telling you all that even if I don't like working with Layout as I don't feel it's intuitive or fun...
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I totally believe Sonder has got the proven way to make SU-LO work for serious intense architectural work. I am just not sure I need that full workflow yet, but I'm exploring it.
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@jql said:
@kyeric said:
@JQL
...I've been using LO and as I don't look at that the same way. Nothing beats the relationship you get with your actual model. It can be cumbersome when many details are envolved, but, sincerelly LO might become faster than CAD on your workflow.
I'd say this with total assurance:
- Layout will help your docs be more pretty or, if that doesn't matter to you, more readable;
- Layout will help you reduce mistakes by having a continued link with your model;
- Layout might be slower to work than CAD but you must work much less with it than you have to work if you choose to integrate CAD in your workflow.
- Layout is capable of much more, but it's not standard and it has a steep learning curve, not in the software, but in the workflow;
- This learning curve, might be questionable nowadays as Sonder's book, wich I haven't read, seems to be promising for people thinking like you do.
I could, of course, be wrong, but I'm telling you all that even if I don't like working with Layout as I don't feel it's intuitive or fun...
Exactly my hope. I understand that most of the time, it isn't the software nor the developers that needs to change...it's us.
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@kyeric said:
Exactly my hope. I understand that most of the time, it isn't the software nor the developers that needs to change...it's us.
Yes, but LO needs a lot of change too, it has a lot of potential, but people are banging against it...
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@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.
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