Layout: Love it or Loathe it?
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Hi Skupusers,
I will be presenting at the 3D Basecamp UK at RIBA on the 9th of September 2015 - the last slot of the day (some coffee will be consumed).
My presentation is about using both Sketchup & Layout in pitch & presentation context.
Some reaction - brief, monosyllabic, or gastronomic about this posts would be interesting to help shape my final words. LMK if you are happy to have attributations.
Me, I love em all......
Mike Bell
mike@mikebell.eu -
LO needs a lot of TLC from Trimble.
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I use LO on a daily basis and I couldn't live without it...!
Unfortunately I won't be able to come to the SCF Basecamp in London...Yes, there's a lot that need to be improved and lots of new features that could get implemented...
If Trimble decide to implement the Ruby SDK, I'm sure we'll see a lot of great new features, similar to what we've seen with SU...
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Thanks for thoughts so far..
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Fully agree on all points with Frederik
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I use Layout at our Architectural Practice for planning drawings and presentation work.
Layout is much better than it use to be, I have been using it since it was first released, but since the ability of setting a scale to elevations we use it a lot more, mainly because you can get much better looking elevations than Auto-CAD.
Having textures, shadows, and line styles on the elevations is great compared to CAD.
I will be at the Basecamp both days and looking forward to your presentation.
I have attached an example of a recent planning drawing I did at the office.
kind regards,
Nat
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I have a love hate relationship with it... It's still fundamentally flawed, but it's also wonderfully functional and easy to use. Still, it needs to learn a few strokes from the old hands.
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Some light reading if you want to get a finger in the air to check the breeze.
Construction & Working Drawings - Discussion
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12%26amp;t=15911 -
I love it! I use it for all my presentations from schematic design through full construction documents.
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It is, without doubt, the best and only viable solution for 2D from Sketchup for me. I have generated thousands of pages of shop drawings, blueprints, and presentations with it and spend as much time using it as I do Sketchup
That being said, it is clunky, takes 1000% too many left clicks to accomplish anything, and feels like a piece of 1999 software. Just as an estimate, I would say that 40% of the time spent using Layout is wasted due to leader text editing sucking, moving dimension text around, and editing text.
For me, though, by far the most frustrating aspect of Layout is that the developers are not doing sh&%t to substantially improve it. I know, I know, it is way better than it was (true) but it is still way way not as good as it should/could be. Was it the last update that gave us two segment leader text that is awful in every other way? and what else did they improve? It's faster but still agonizingly slow with large vector rendering. And what else?
Would I recommend it to a SU user? Absolutely. Are there any other real options? No, not at all. Let's not forget that Layout was started by AtLast; that was a long freaking time ago, just sayin'
I would gladly pay for $1000+ for a real, substantive update.
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@unknownuser said:
I love it! I use it for all my presentations from schematic design through full construction documents.
I love what Sonder does with it.
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@otb designworks said:
Just as an estimate, I would say that 40% of the time spent using Layout is wasted due to leader text editing sucking, moving dimension text around, and editing text.
I wonder if i am missing the correct methodology as to get what would be appropriate leader text position on any CAD (and hand drawn protocol) takes a lot of extra steps.
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Use it everyday, some issues with it but the Trimble guys are continually developing it.. [and listening!!]
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@otb designworks said:
I would gladly pay for $1000+ for a real, substantive update.
Don't give anybody any ideas...
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I love and hate LO!
I use it and need it badly as it's very handy and I can get great results.
But I hate working with it, hate CAD exports and dimensioning/leader jobs.
It still is the best 2D/drafting output you can get from Sketchup so it's fundamental. I'd love a full revamp on a lot of stuff though.
What I do is push it way to the end of my production line and prepare all things in Sketchup to the full extent I can. The things I can automate inside LO, I do and I try to fast jump in LO and flee the also as fast as I can...
EDIT: My answer doesn't fit your poll...
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@juju said:
@otb designworks said:
I would gladly pay for $1000+ for a real, substantive update.
Don't give anybody any ideas...
The key was the word substantive. I have a long list, posted on this site years ago, that would need to be addressed in a serious manner before that kind of money would be warranted. That said, if I could improve my workflow by 40%, I would happily pay money for that.
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@utiler said:
but the Trimble guys are continually developing it.. [and listening!!]
How do you know?
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Someone is listening from above... creepy!
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Hi Marc! I know you know of the list I speak...
One day I would love it if the Layout developers flew me down to Colorado where I could pull out my years of Layout portfolio and I could demonstrate my workflow over a few hours and they could see for themselves of what I speak. Perhaps a dialogue and beta testing role would be helpful. It's always good to see what the power users are doing every day. I would love that. I would assuredly not show up with beer or anything silly like that..
You guys have the power to vastly improve a large chunk of my everyday existence! Help me!!! I'm on my knees over here:)
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