Not disagreeing with you, but wondering why the output resolution affects the orientation of imported images when exporting to PDFs

Just a heads up that Dave is working with the LO team to resolve the issue. However in the meantime I would suggest using the ROUNDUP and IFERROR functions in Excel. For example:

=IFERROR(ROUND(O11/5.678,2),"")

This has solved my issue in LO.

@pbacot said:

if you have linked scenes and want to put unlinked SU model views into the same document?
You can't use unlink can you? And besides this has to be done for scores of references each time? Probablly better to just use an image.

It is not 100% clear to me what exactly the OP is trying to accomplish. (Not being critical)

I do know "unlinking" a SU model causes a file "prefix" save of SU model.

So, and based on OP workflow.........seems to me...... if he unlinks the "primary" SU model reference in LO (now unlinked SU model is also unique/separate from original file w/(automatic) assigned prefix to SU file)

Any modifications to original SU model/file will not affect "unlinked" SU model file........but....of course the original file, if modified will no longer be updated in ANY LO viewports.

Now....here is where it gets interesting.......if OP is working with the original SU file and "sends to LO" any revisions/etc. and then further "pastes" from another LO file to the original LO file, it would seem a new (active) link to the SU original (pasted) file would be created.

Effectively having the live viewport(s) limited (isolated) to the "pasted" viewports from original SU model

IDK......seems really muddy and fraught with potential negative implications.....just my two pennies worth.

Charlie

I usually use a line thickness of .1 for these types of details being the display of screws and bolts

i am not big on scrap books for inserting in my eyes cad objects i use them for boiler notes weld symbols section cut lines elevation symbols etc.

Thanks for the info.

266mb? Have you tried purging unused stuff? I'd bet there's some.

Yes, you would use File>Insert if you are starting a new file from LO or you want to add other SKP files. You want to avoid creating multiple references to the same SKP file. That creates problems.

FWIW, the LO file contains a copy of the SKP file so the LO file size is directly impacted by the size of the SKP. If you had multiple references to your 266mb file, the LO file would be grossly overweight. And for no benefit.

Good enough. I t would interesting to see how you went about making and placing that weird dimension, though.

I guess the alternative at this point would be to make tab separated columns and draw the lines in LO.

I've asked for this before too. It would be key.

There's a huge gap between what happens in SU and LO. It will get better over time I guess, but...

I really do think LayOut is close to becoming a better idea of what BIM could be for many architects and design professionals. The other side of it that makes me more interested is it can become what BIM isn't: for everybody else that has a great idea and wants to communicate it easily. But to do that, LayOut seriously needs to embrace itself as a drafting program and the ability to draw to real a scale inside of the program, copy/paste back into a SketchUp model and continue to get as fast and easy to use as it's big brother.

I have utilized LayOut more and more in my daily practice with the help of Nick Sonder and Mike Birghtman's approaches. I see these methods of thinking about developing design (not just architecture) as a workflow from SketchUp to LayOut that fits more accurately in a true design process (i.e. You don't have to know everything you want in a design prior to starting- discovery and "happy accidents" abound.)

I really do hope Trimble understands this and continues to tie SketchUp and LayOut together in a fluid way so much that they are two sides of the same coin, rather than separate entities. Together with an ability to connect information on the web with components in models, sharing information as a project database with Trimble Connect and pushing the client use of incorporating models into a VR or AR delivery is exciting.

Anyway, here's to hoping, y'all!

Eric

I'm wondering if you have an installation problem.

I don't have SU/LO2015 on my Mac anymore so I can't compare behavior with LO2017.

Still, as I wrote before, you really should be making style changes to your scenes in SketchUp, not in LayOut.

I was adding an image over the top of my Layout file to act as a watermark, before I exported a PDF.

As Layout doesn't have opacity control for shapes or text (at least, I don't think it does?), I created an image in photoshop and saved it as 20% opacity. This was too light, so I kept re-saving the file in Photoshop at higher opacities (25%, 30%, 35%) etc until I was happy with how it looked.

Rather than re import the image every time, the quickest way was to overwrite the original watermark.png file, that I'd saved on my desktop, and then right click in Layout and update the reference (similar to the workflow of editing a Sketchup file and updating the Layout document).

I also deleted this watermark at different times, and then copied and pasted it back from other pages within the document.

Edit: Further to this. Leaving the image in the file is fine (and I think it does save). The issue comes when the image is deleted. I also tried Edit>Undo to undelete the broken image. The image comes back, but it still won't save. Also purging the image out didn't bring back the save feature.

Good luck. If you still want some help and you don't want to share your file publicly, send it to me via PM or send me a PM and I'll give you an e-mail address.

smustard "set centerpoint.rb: is one of my most used plugins, may help if not you will find it useful anyways

Yes, it is weird that the bundled template behave different to a freshly created one.

I also get weirdness when I start to tweak nesting values where I end up with an empty column in the report that say 'Add Group Attribute Here'.

Seems Generate Report is still a WIP. I did hear a whisper that the guys at 3skeng have a new tool coming that deals with reports

What scale bar are you looking at? I only find one in site. It appears to scale to 1/2"=1' (Use a dimension on it and adjust the dimension scale until it agrees), which is not appropriate for a site plan.

Make your own scales and save them. Or fix the one they've got and save that. If you try just simply scaling it you may have stupid problems like wrapping text.

I would humbly suggest you export your keyboard shortcuts regularly keeping a copy of the file in the cloud such as your email, dropbox or gdrive. In the event you lose your shortcuts or you are working on a new machine, you can easily retrieve your keyboard shortcuts in a flash

Thanks guys, something I obviously missed with upgrading to 2017....

Yes, that don't print read but couldn't work out why some were red and some weren't.
@bmike, pey I have a DIMS layer and that's the workflow to adopt. Cheers to you all.

Finally found it. I had everything set correctly under the File/Document Setup and File/Page Setup menus, but didn't realize that there are also settings under SketchUp Model in the Tray. Thanks.

Thanks Dave I stand corrected