Back edges are a raster thing to begin with which is why they only show when you render in Raster. One option that I find works well is to leave the viewport in Raster for the time being and then trace with the line tool over the back edges. Those lines can be set to dashed or dotted or whatever works. You can adjust the line weight and color if you wish. When you're finished with the back edges in the viewport, change to Vector rendering. Frankly, this is a good option for me because I have more choices for the sort of lines I'm showing. I generally put all those lines I'm drawing in LO on a layer higher in the list than the viewports.

Perfect! I'm glad it works now. Maybe you weren't holding your mouth right before. 😉

I came accross a very interesting website with more info on this product: http://www.archiexpo.com/architecture-design-manufacturer/spanish-roof-tile-1342.html

I just updated my nvidia graphics and it works like a charm! Thank you all for your replies 😄

You need to make at least one scene so there's something for the viewport in LayOut to tie to in SketchUp. You don't have to make a lot of scenes but you need one for each view.

Here's a simple example. Suppose the black lines represent the existing floor plan. The blue, the new construction and the red as the wall that needs to be demolished.
Untitled_1.jpg

I create three scenes in SketchUp each with a different style, made three overlapping viewports in LO, one for each scene in SU.

Thanks for the replies. It's intriguing - a built in ability to explode the view of your model into a 2D graphic than manipulate it in an image editor without having to go through a whole export / import / insert process. For most CAD applications like AutoCAD, layout is really just a window on to the model space with some limited controls, primarily scale. This feature of LO suggests something entirely else.

Thank you Rich & Dave. I had this exact problem yesterday & I hadn't appreciated that you could type in a scale for inserted bitmaps.

You're quite welcome, Paul.

Long story short, it sounds like moving aside the LayOut .plo files fixed the crashing problem. Funny thing is that the permissions looked ok, but there must have been something else going on.

YES PLEASE!

The rtf ( rich text format ) is not really a text format. EXCEL has the option of export a CSV ( comma separated variable ) text files that may be better for you . Have you tried that?
I guess you have not looked at the link I took the time to post for you. Nick Sonder posted a number of videos answering some of your questions and probably worth a peak at least.
I do not know how layout materials and SU ones interact I do not use layout, free user here , but It has been my experience when file size grow like that many times it is related to photo texture materials being used. Try using monochrome rendering style to reduce load on the graphics processor and see if that helps. You can also save your materials as a collection which creates a skm file you can look at and give you an idea of possible areas to check for large texture files. That is a zip file format so if you want to actually extract and check the image file with an editor then you will have to unzip them or at least the large ones of possible interest.
BTW Nick Sonder makes a specific comment about using raster vs vector rendering in layout to help with file size.
BTW 2; Given you have 32 memory implies you have a 64 bit machine. However, SU runs as a 32 bit application and such it can only address 4 Gb of that , the kernel can use more than 4 depending some what on your MB and what can be set in the BIOS. Unlike x86 machines where in the kernel and application split the memory ( so each only can use 2 Gb of the max 4Gb addressable on 32 bit machines)
One of the first steps is to purge the skp file to remove all unused items.

@agrazdi said:

Now that you are reseting your work area, i would suggest to create your own paths to templates, scrapbooks and patterns under LayOut Preferences.

Thanks for the tip.........

Thanks Dave. Been away. The wired mouse is the same. I'll check settings and see if I can find anything. Right now it takes about 3-4 spins of the wheel to get from zoom extents to closs-in, and it's kind of jerky. Gets faster once I get in closer.

Is there a "zoom window" command on layout that can get me in close? I can't find a command like that on Layout.

That was easy! Thanks, Richard

😳

I updated the feature request - please support it!:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13%26amp;t=56111%26amp;p=509418#p509418

Here you go, mess around with front color in styles. With shadow settings on light and shadow colors. With fog distance and color. Make background disabled in Layout.

Don't bother with model, consider it shreded right away.

EXPORT FOR LO.png

Much food for thought in your reply. I will keep those points in mind as I practice with the file in the next few days.
Thanks for responding!

Thanks to you both, Richard and Frederik! I'm currently working on using both your suggestions to build out my Scrapbooks with certain devices. I guess my biggest complaint may not have been clear in the original post, or there at all. (I think I might have done the first time I wrote it, but my browser crashed when I tried to post the first time. I must've left this out when rewriting it!)

My biggest complaint was the lines between the plates and devices, especially the line-breaks/jumps at intersections. I know it can be done using 'Start' and 'End' arrow styles, because I've already made a riser diagram in LayOut, but it is certainly more of a pain than using a custom LSP to cut lines, then another LSP to pull the lines back a short distance. This is really the only bit I wish I could speed up (because after taking the time to eventually create/convert any common devices from CAD, I see the lifework connections as being the biggest time sink in LO).