Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?
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Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?
Just simply adjusting the size of the image takes so long. -
@djh I haven't seen any problems with LayOut 2024 being slow. Share the LO file so we can see what you are working with.
What operating system? What graphics card? Which graphics engine are you using with LO? What is the image file format? How large is the image file?
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@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
What operating system?
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz
16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
Windows 10@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
What graphics card?
NVIDIA Quadro P2000
I speeded things up by working in Viewport/Raster. I had thought that one must work in Hybrid to get Hybrid PDF exports. I had always worked in Hybrid in LO 2023 and it wasn't so slow. Anyway, working in Viewport/Raster seems to be the solution.
But, I have a different problem. The PDF/Hybrid export is not as sharp as it was in LO 2023. Instead of ~1000 dpi I get only ~600. I set File/Document Setup/Output Resolution/High & High/Output Override/Hybrid ... but not getting high quality results.
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@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
NVIDIA Quadro P2000
Are the drivers up to date? Don't trust Windows to tell you. Go to the Nvidia site and get their latest drivers.
In LO go to Edit>Preferences>Performance. Do you have the experimental graphics engine enabled? Try changing the state of that and see if you get any performance change.
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
I had thought that one must work in Hybrid to get Hybrid PDF exports.
Prior to the release of SketchUp/LayOut 2023 you would have to render viewports as Hybrid before exporting to PDF if you wanted the vector linework in addition to the raster textures. Working with Hybrid rendering is more resource intensive so performance tends to suffer. With the release of Lo23 they added the ability to allow you to work with the viewports rendered as Raster to speed things up and then let LO render them as Hybrid during export. This can be useful especially if you have to go back and forth to make frequent edits in the SketchUp model because Raster rendering is very fast. You'll still have the longer render times with Hybrid but at least you would only have the delay once, during export.
I don't know what you're modeling but I'll guess that you could probably do things to improve your model and speed up Hybrid rendering. Earlier today I looked at a LayOut file from someone who was complaining about "impossibly long" Vector render times. The SketchUp file had over 2.2 million edges and an excessively large image as a texture. It was about 10 times larger than SketchUp or LayOut can display and he had hidden the group and wasn't using the image anyway. I reduced the texture size to something reasonable, unhid the object and turned off the tag for it. After sending the file to LayOut I rendered the viewport in Vector and it was finished before I could walk over to the coffee pot to top off my cup and walk back to the computer.
You don't have to be working with the viewports rendered as Hybrid. If you have no textures to display, Vector would be faster than Hybrid and again, you can leave the viewports rendered as Raster until you are ready for export.
How are you using the exported PDF? How large are the pages and how are they being printed that you need 1000 dpi?
Again, I expect there are things you can do to improve the quality output and most likely that's going to start with improving the SketchUp model.
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@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
Do you have the experimental graphics engine enabled?
Yes.@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
Are the drivers up to date?
I'm not sure.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
Don't trust Windows to tell you. Go to the Nvidia site and get their latest drivers.
Nvidia doesn't support it anymore. i'll have to trust Windows or Dell, I suppose.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
How are you using the exported PDF?
I'm printing a book.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
How large are the pages and how are they being printed that you need 1000 dpi?
22.5 cm by 30 cm. They being printed on an offset color printer. I just noticed a big difference in the detail from the images I used from LO 2023 vs. LO 2024.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
start with improving the SketchUp model.
I'll look for a tutorial.
Dave R, thank you so much.
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@djh
In LayOut's Preferences switch off the Experimental Graphics Engine.If that doesn't improve things, go back to using SketchUp/LayOut 2023.
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
Nvidia doesn't support it anymore. i'll have to trust Windows or Dell, I suppose.
That doesn't bode well for improving speed. If the graphics card is so old that Nvidia is no longer supporting it, Windows and Dell won't be supporting it either. It also doesn't sound promising for getting higher quality exports.
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
I'm printing a book.
At 1000 dpi?
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
I'll look for a tutorial.
If you share the .skp file I'll take a look at it and give you suggestions for improving your model. I expect that unless you're willing to update the hardware to something current, optimizing the model is going to be especially critical.
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@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
In LayOut's Preferences switch off the Experimental Graphics Engine.
Okay. Printed more clearly & DPI is also a little higher.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
If that doesn't improve things, go back to using SketchUp/LayOut 2023.
I didn't know that was possible.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
I'm printing a book.
At 1000 dpi?You're correct. I read an article, "Some people send images with 1800 dpi, 2400 dpi and more and this only creates much larger files, but does not increase the output quality. You’ll see it better on screen if you zoom in on the image, but the printed result will be 300/400 dpi." I must break the habit of seeing a clear image on the screen.
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
If you share the .skp file I'll take a look at it and give you suggestions for improving your model. I expect that unless you're willing to update the hardware to something current, optimizing the model is going to be especially critical.
How do I share the .skp file[link text](link url)?
I'm in the middle of a big project and it makes problems with the fonts to start with different software and hardware (at least it was that way in the past). -
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
How do I share the .skp file
Upload it to DropBox or We Transfer and share the link.
@djh said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
I'm in the middle of a big project and it makes problems with the fonts to start with different software and hardware
I haven't suggested starting with different software. I've only suggested that things can likely be optimized to improve performance.
BTW, I just made a PDF export from LO 2024 from one of my models. Is the quality high enough for your needs?
Watt Micro.pdf -
@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
Upload it to DropBox or We Transfer and share the link.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/slg3yx03kyvcj71vpkmlw/448-B-2-010.skp?rlkey=4olgo5iuepbzikcgww2vj327h&st=wp586baa&dl=0@Dave-R said in Why is LayOut so slow in 2024?:
BTW, I just made a PDF export from LO 2024 from one of my models. Is the quality high enough for your needs?
Yes. Perfect. That's exactly what I need. The blends around the curves are beautiful. Don't see any pixels. -
@djh I'm about to start with an online student but when I finish I'll look at your file.
And thank you.
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@djh OK, this is what I got after sending your model to LayOut. I only did the one scene but rendering as Hybrid was almost instantaneous. I set Line Scale for the viewport to 2 pt and used A0 paper to make it large.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kzpt1in2jl12y9ifeq6y5/DJH.pdf?rlkey=bht6vawz32jzi7ggrgtzf2cpt&st=0mey22sa&dl=0I do see incorrect tag usage and some unused content that could be purged. Most of the textures in your model are not very high resolution. At 1000 dpi, the "Sketchy Siding Scale" should be 0.25 cm wide.
The largest texture in the model is for the cover of a book and that book's spine is all that is visible. I don't really think that most of your textures will hold up if printed at 1000 dpi
If this SketchUp file is causing LayOut 2024 to run slowly on your machine, I'd suggest it's time to upgrade the machine.
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@Dave-R DaveR,
It took awhile. I got a new hard drive and a clean installation of Windows. It seems that it's all running much smoother so far. -
Your reply to this question is very helpful, I'm an Architect who loves SketchUp, but the rendering time issue is a true roadblock in my production. 2025 was crashing a lot, and 2026 seems to not crash, but is taking forever.
Do you have tips on finding problem-textures or anything like that may be jamming up the Layout update process?
I'm pretty experienced in SketchUp, but Layout performance is a real issue once my models get over 100mb (which is every model one in my world).
Any help would be appreciated, because Layout is a real jam in my professional work.
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@mrcjryan I get to see a lot of LayOut files from a variety of users, mostly when they are having difficulty with things like rendering times. Most of the fixes are actually done to the SketchUp models to streamline them. My standard process with the SU file is to do the following, in this order:
Fix incorrect tag usage to ensure ALL edges and faces are untagged.
Use Materials Tools to remove materials from edges unless they are required in scenes. (I often find the edges in the model have materials that aren't otherwise used.)
Also with Materials Tools I will remove back face materials for the same reason. In some cases I wind up undoing this step.
Purge unused content.
Check for excessively large textures and reduce them to something reasonable.
Depending on the model I might run CleanUp3 to merge coplanar faces (reducing the number of edges.)Those steps simplify the model and reduce the file size. The simplification means that LayOut has less work to do to render the viewports and thus improves the speed.
Look seriously at any entourage you insert from the 3D warehouse or other sources. Avoid high-poly components. Take the time to clean up the entourage components you add to your models or reject them and look for simpler ones. You probably don't need a detailed strainer in the bottom of the kitchen sink, nor racks and convestion fans in ovens, nor punts in wine bottles. Distill everything down to just what you need to tell your "story". Some of this may seem time consuming but I guarantee you it will pay back in time and effort saved as the project goes forward.
It also helps to turn off tags for any objects that are not visible in a given scene.
In LayOut, leave viewports set to Raster render as much as possible. Raster rendering is much faster than Hybrid or Vector. In most cases there's probably no need to render as Hybrid. At least do a test PDF export to see what you think of the output. Make sure to disable the Output Override in Document Setup>Rendering.
I would tend to use Vector rendering for Hidden Line plan and elevation scenes because dimensioning is easier but for persective views Raster is almost always adequate. If you decide you need Hybrid, save switching to it until the end and only do it for viewports that really need it.
If you like to show textures in elevation and plan views, start out by using a Hidden Line style/Vector rendering while dimensioing and while updates to the model are still likely. Change to Raster or Hybrid to display the materials before export.
If you enable Output Override to render viewports during export you can leave viewports with displayed textures rendered as raster.
Also, keep the LayOut file clean. Purge the unused references. Make sure you start every project from a clean template. Don't reuse an old project for a new one. Do not override the Camera properties for viewports. Ensure you are using the correct SketchUp reference files. Do not copy from SketchUp and paste into LayOut. If you are using a Mac it's easy to wind up inserting the backup file instead of the original work file because the only thing that differentiates the backup from the original is a tilde at the end of the filename
Last week I worked on a LayOut file for someone that was very slow. The file she sent was over 1.3 GB. It had more than a half dozen SketchUp references and images from old projects. She was just deleting the viewports and images from the pages but never bothered to purge. In her case she also had several SketchUp reference files which included the original, a backup, and in several cases she had files with multiple tildes indicating she'd not been editing the original model file. She complained that viewports weren't updating (she thought LayOut was just being slow) but it was because she wasn't editing the file linked to the viewports at all.
If you are inserting images into your LayOut projects make sure they are of reasonable size for the dimensions they are displayed on the page. There's no point in using very high res images if they are small on the sheet.
Sorry. This got longer than I intended but ...
I hope it gives you some ideas.
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