Construction & Working Drawings - Discussion

Charlie__V

changing from raster to vector or hybrid sharpens the line quality but does nothing though to achieve what i want: namely, sharp, 90degree corners that aren't rounded.. =(

anyone have any other tips?

I had not noticed this before(unfortunately I do not have an answer).......you appear to be very close up in the attached image........are you creating documents at that scale?

Obviously the smaller the scale the less likely one will notice the rounded corners.

Also...It appears (at leat to me)it is related to the pen settings.
IOW.....in an exported .pdf.......if I turn the display pen settings off...the lines are crisp 90°........I know......Still does not help you.

C

pbacot

It doesn't look like the shape dialog will help with ports. (this deserves a LO thread-not related to this topic). The SU references all appear to have round endcaps. I think the mention of raster is because raster pixelates the lines so they look squarish.

The only way to square it would be to explode the port so the elements become LO linework which defeats the SU-LO link.

Tandem

@pbacot said:

It doesn't look like the shape dialog will help with ports. (this deserves a LO thread-not related to this topic). The SU references all appear to have round endcaps. I think the mention of raster is because raster pixelates the lines so they look squarish.

The only way to square it would be to explode the port so the elements become LO linework which defeats the SU-LO link.

So where is the documentation when you need it?

I think bulbangs' question does very much belong to this thread as controlling lines in LayOut is at the core of creating construction drawings.

What is the correct workflow? I tried to search the SU Knowledge Base and have to yet find anything there that covers this topic.

A detailed Reference Manual for SU and LO (preferably in PDF) would be very helpful and save everyone a lot of time. I am getting very tired of scouring the web for tidbits of information that should be properly documented by Sketchup.
</rant>

bmike

@tandem said:

So where is the documentation when you need it?

I think bulbangs' question does very much belong to this thread as controlling lines in LayOut is at the core of creating construction drawings.

yeah, but buried in here, 14 pages deep, few people, including the SU team, will ever see it.

this should be asked in a new thread, and maybe reported as a bug.

Tandem

You are right, plus the goal of the OP was to see/show examples of drawings. Sorry, the title throw me off.

ashscott

I'm currently working on a project for a kitset company doing some assembly instructions. They have previously just used jpegs from SU to show the parts of the kitset apart so that the user can understand how they fit together but this seems like a frustratingly slow way of doing things. Has anyone managed to do this kind of thing in layout showing parts in different positions based on SU scenes etc?

I tried this a long time ago with proper animation but layout couldn't recognize the animated part positions.

Any clever ideas are much appreciated

Krisidious

there are a few exploded view type plugins... I forget the names.

ashscott

@unknownuser said:

there are a few exploded view type plugins... I forget the names.

Yeah I have used them, my problem is that layout doesn't seem to recognize their geometry positions unless I save a scene for every single position (like tweens from Keyframe Animation) which is super slow and confusing.

I just wondered if anyone had a more efficient hack for this

Krisidious

None of them make the scene for you? I thought they did. made the blown up version and done version.

ashscott

Oh perhaps they do. I just haven't seen one that translates those positions to layout - layout seems to only be able to read on position of the geometry for each sketchup file.

Can you remember which plugins you had seen?

Krisidious

A have a few ...

(www.smustard.com)

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24390

Dave has a tut on it.

(www.finewoodworking.com)

ashscott

Both great tools, but layout doesn't recognize the geometry positions

Krisidious

what? it doesn't? you're saying you have a scene with the geometry blown up with the plugin and ;layout won't show it as blown up? share the model?

bmike

no plugins, but I use my model and then either pull it apart and save scenes, or if i need multiple views use scenes and layers, to keep the camera in the same location. the problem i had with the plugin(s?) i tried was that i always needed to tweak the 'explode' distance depending on the view and the part... if i had to manually adjust them anyways it made sense just to do it by hand.

but that could be tedious if you have lots of products to illustrate.

ashscott

@unknownuser said:

what? it doesn't? you're saying you have a scene with the geometry blown up with the plugin and ;layout won't show it as blown up? share the model?

I think we might be missing each other's points. If I have geometry in unexploded position and create scene 1, it will register the geometry in the position. If I then explode that geometry and create scene 2 the geometry will now be registered in the exploded position. If I go back to scene 1 my geometry can switch back (if I've used the right plugins). But when I send that file to layout the geometry is in the same position for both scenes.

@unknownuser said:

but I use my model and then either pull it apart and save scenes

Yeah, I was hoping to avoid this

sonder

In case anyone is interested, Trimble came to my office and did an in depth series that will be highlighted in much more detail in the upcoming book I'm co-authoring with Matt Donley.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bndkJaV8A6tVUVIlqFHMAcodO8aATrh

ashscott

This is great work Nick. Thanks very much.

I've been working my way through a set of mechanical engineering working drawings and have been surprised how few plugins I really need once I get a good process organized.

I recently heard someone referring to the programming language PHP as "messy" and someone replied that PHP isn't messy but is accessible which means that learners can use it fast and as a result can make a mess but once you know how to use it properly you can do amazing things with it (Facebook runs on PHP).

I feel that Sketchup falls into this category - there is a lot of messy stuff done with SU because it is so accessible (which is great because the barrier to entry is so low) but once you really know how to use it you can create attractive, tidy, practical work.

Nick, you have demonstrated this last point to me many times - thanks.

EDIT: Added the first video for to get people started.

juju

@unknownuser said:

In case anyone is interested, Trimble came to my office and did an in depth series that will be highlighted in much more detail in the upcoming book I'm co-authoring with Matt Donley.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bndkJaV8A6tVUVIlqFHMAcodO8aATrh

excellent! Thanks for the video link...

now stop wasting time on the internet and finish the book already, take my money dammit!

JasonWD

@ashscott said:

@unknownuser said:

but I use my model and then either pull it apart and save scenes

Yeah, I was hoping to avoid this

I would be super interested to know if you find a solution to this...

I have always been in a position that I need to get drawings out so fast that I just do it the manual way!

Normally my furniture drawings have a Furniture_exploded.skp file next to them that I pull all the elements of the model out (for instance) 500mm to get the right look.

Explode example

Also this kind of thing (can't find the layout file it is attached to). Odd that it has notes in SU for me!
Shelf Supports01 explode.jpg