Well, that was an amazing tutoring session that Dave just gave me. It's great that people want to help. It gives me a really positive feeling about this community. I'll donate some bux to our local dog rescue organization http://www.sbdawg.org.

Having someone point out Sketchup basics will hopefully allow me to make some progress.

@dave r said:

Where on the planet are you? Maybe we could do a little confab and look at this together. It might be easier.

I'm in California but am a night owl.

That said, I have a very flexible working schedule.

Well this is humiliating, but here's a reduced drawing. How much storage space are we allowed for free? Can I delete this drawing to save space?

I've been drawing 2D floor plans on the "floor" of the model. Is this reasonable or should I be actually sectioning the building with a horizontal plane? Note that I have drawn the floor plan in component <Floor Plan>.

Reduced info attic drawing

Thanks Dave. I'm working on the simplified Sketchup model. It's a bit embarrassing for Babby's first SU model, but you've got to start somewhere.

@dave r said:

Where to start?

It would be helpful to see your LayOut file. Perhaps you could post it?

You shouldn't be using Hide to control visibility between scenes. You should be using layers. That's what they are for.

Let's see exactly what you've got an go from there.

Thanks. I had seen a video tutorial or read an article where the author was adamant about not using layers. He claimed that layers were a holdover from previous generations of CAD applications such as Autocad. I think he also claimed that it was a holdover from 2D drawing programs and did not work well with SU's modeling paradigm. Although I don't recall seeing another person restating this sentiment, it solved some problem I had. I believe that the problem was the hidden layers still interacted and caused quite a bit of grief. I use layers in Illustrator all the time to great effect.

I'll reduce my SU model to a very simple model as to minimize my identity and post it. It will also be useful to allow me to learn the fundamentals. I'm doing some pretty ugly things regarding my model to brute force the drawings because I was reluctant to build the entire model stud by stud. In other words, I realize that the truss should be 3D and I should probably be using sections to show a cross section. I also realize that the truss is no way able to support anything and is merely a placeholder for the truss building company.

It's pretty obvious that I'm clueless so be patient with me. Here are a list of simple questions. If anyone could point me towards an article or video educating me, I'd appreciate it.

1. When using Styles, I'd like to a create a simple collection of styles. I just now figured out that I can create a custom collections folder and save styles to it. Is this the best way to manage styles?

2. I'd like to learn learn how to use arrays of components. Can you point me to a tutorial?

3. I've got a copy of Sketchup for Dummies. It's useful but my particular copy is dated. Can anyone suggest a good book or series of videos for SU 8 specifically?

4. What are the important upgrades to SU 2013 from SU 8? I've got Sketchup Pro 8 and I'm reluctant to upgrade since the $500 out of pocket expense was not insignificant for me and I'm reluctant to pay a subscription fee for an application that is kind of a one time deal.

Thanks again.

Is there a tutorial for using LO3 and SU8 for architectural drawings? I am doing something fundamentally wrong and I feel like an idiot.

I've been poorly building a model of my hoped for remodel.

For simplicity's sake, I'm only showing my attic and one truss. I've got 3 JPEGS to simply illustrate my problem.

Pict1: AtticSketh.jpg Isometric drawing of my attic:

Pict2: RoofSketchTop.jpg Top view of the roof.

Pict3: Truss1.jpg Front view of a truss:

I manipulate the model until I have the model displayed the way I want it on the architectural drawings. Once done, I save the scene. In this case I am using Scenes "BackAtticRoof" and Truss1"

I've been using a custom Style with Wireframe facestyle and White background.

I basically hide everything I'm not interested in. In this case, my initial image is the top View. I save this scene and Save the SKP file. I then send the file to LO using File>Send to Layout.

LO pops up and allows me to choose a template so I use ArchD Landscape Sidebar.

The proper model shows up and I manipulate it to show the roof on the lefthand side of the document.

Now comes the part where I'm clueless.

I'd like to put a front view of a roof truss on the same page. I copy and paste the viewport of the Roof mentioned earlier on the same page. I was assuming that I could choose another scene which shows the front of the truss (Truss1.jpg). I choose the Scene Truss1, which shows the Front of the attic, but with the same components shown. In other words, the scene does not remember what I've hidden.

This is also how it works in SU when I switch scenes. Each time I have to hide some components and show others. Is there a way to embed this Outliner component information in the scene or some other way?

I suppose I could save many different copies of the file and load them in Layout, but this seems to defeat the purpose of the programs.

Are you not allowed to hide and display components arbitrarily in different scenes?

What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance.

For what it's worth I managed to print out my ArchD drawing by exporting it to a PDF and then printing that from a PDF viewer. It tiled the printout to letter sized paper like normal. Not sure what I did wrong before.

In any case, I'm improving my skills in LO and may just get my drawings done entirely in SU/LO.

One more time, are we notified when we are allowed to post in the regular forums?

Hi, I'm Reekardo. I'm trying to make plans for my house remodel. I'm a newbie in drafting, construction, and Sketchup.

I've bought Sketchup Pro 8 and naively thought that Layout 3 would be adequate for this project. It seems to me that Layout 3 is pretty unpolished and I've been struggling with it.

I've been trying to proof my ArchD sized drawing on my HP LaserJet printer. Everytime I print, it only prints the upper left hand corner of the drawing. Is there someway to get tiled pages printed so that I can tape together a full size drawing?

I've tried to export to a PDF and have used two different third party PDF print drivers without success. I've tried to do this on a Windows 7 64 bit computer and my ancient Windows XP desktop. I'm upgrading to a much hotter desktop with a boatload of memory very soon running Windows 8.1 and hopefully that will help.

Ultimately I might just use InDesign because I just bought a 64 bit version of Adobe CS6 and I'm kind of familiar with Adobe products.

Any suggestions for successfully printing? Is it possible to layout on a letter size drawing and then somehow scale it up to a D size (36" x 24") drawing?

When can I join the forums as a member in good standing?

Thanks!