It was said a bit earlier, but I believe the feature upgrades to the new version of SketchUp were held off due to the (rightfully) assumed backlash of the new pricing models. My bet is that SketchUp will have some substantial upgrade in about the next 6 months after the weeping and gnashing of teeth of this release. John Bacus' post of "...we have to earn your business over and over again every day you are under subscription" enforces my assumption that Trimble was wise not to bundle good news with bad.

SketchUp, in my own personal philosophical sense, is a lot like me. I can think quickly and creatively at many different scales and represent an idea to someone else via a sketch or narrative (written or in person - with a lot of hand gestures!). The making of a 3D model is always easier for me in SketchUp, because at its core, it wants to keep things simple. I know of no other program that has a nearly intoxicating effect for presentations on clients and contractors alike. It is fine to point and grunt at some paper with 2D black and white plan diagrams, but open a SketchUp model and nearly everyone goes "Oh! Now I get it!" It has become my de facto tool for more than a decade that helps describe ideas to someone else. Still, to this day: it is transcendent.

When we continue to think that SketchUp should be anything and everything from a high-poly 3D modeller to a complete BIM package, then we reach a place of deviation from our different backgrounds, approaches and needs. "It can't do what you want, because I want it to do what I want!" That path leads to complication, unnecessary features, and bloat.

What I truly believe the solution will be is the interoperability of software and users. What I see happening in real-time 3D rendering programs is exciting. From Thea Render, Podium Walker to Lumion LiveSync, we are now at an age of easily linking a model to another program for a re-presentation of that idea. Take this a step further and we should be able to have SketchUp models link between other software for a real-time update/collaboration. From 2D CAD drawings, syncing to a more robust 3D/rendering package or just more "I" in BIM, SketchUp can become a bridge to add value to a working process, rather than another jeweled island in the sea of 3D. Combine this with having a model be accessible online and in any browser for the designers, consultants and clients to comment is fantastic. This is beyond BIM and having a project, at any scale, be a sort of wiki-based approach of hyperlinking thought with ease of delivery (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, paper, etc...) is the future.

Apologize about the ramble, and I know I probably derailed this thread, but I am more hopeful than ever that we are more near an age of true sharing of ideas than ever before! But, before that happens, can we have just have LayOut link to .dwg files with correct line types?!

@iandefazio said:

I found a work around for this annoying issue.

X-Mouse Button Control > Scroll tab > Advanced Window Scrolling > Scroll Method = Method 1 > Vertical Lines = 8

Holy cow. Does that ever help! I would advise any PC user to take this advice and use it. It has made LayOut immediately more useful with this workaround. Hope the issue gets cleared up at Trimble, but until then, this will work just fine on my end.

Thank you, Ian!

I was only joking about the Intern part, JQL! Although I am not a regular contributor on this forum nearly as much as I used to be, I still read and learn from it almost daily. Your posts and insight, in particular, are more valuable than you give yourself credit for. I will think about the best approach on the possibility of resource and workflow sharing as my tiny office is taking on more work and I need to think about how I will want to get even better at what I do.

I would love to see or even start another conversation with other architects on how they use SketchUp and LayOut in their personal workflows. The closest that I have seen the promised land was from Nick Sonder, Matt Donely and Mike Brightman. The approaches are somewhat similar, although Mike’s team developed plugins specifically built for documentation in LayOut.

I found both books, plugins and investigations fulfilling and worthwhile, but I have gravitated back to more of a hybrid Nick Sonder approach, as I still find it easier to iterate and share plan work in CAD but utilize LayOut more and more as it is becoming a better end-to-end solution with SketchUp.

Maybe we can get a small band of Sketchucationers together to share a Google Drive folder of projects, templates and workflow examples? I would be willing to share with a select few the things that I know work and the things I struggle with that could use some enlightenment. Or, just fly me to Europe and I will be an architectural intern for you, JQL. You wouldn’t mind a 40+ year old student, right?

@jql said:

There's a recurrent story here about a studio that delivered the renders of a preliminary version and the full CD of the final version. They built the rendered output and disregarded the CD's.

And therein lies the problem. The CDs are contract, but the renders are infused design descriptions. Unless both are referenced or linked to one another dynamically then architects open themselves up to errors and omissions. This is where BIM makes sense. The difficult part, especially for me, is navigating the strict nature of BIM implementation versus the flexibility and speed of SketchUp.

And yes, I have followed so many approaches to utilizing SketchUp and LayOut as another method of crossing this divide, but I continue to find that most of the time, the client and contractors constantly refer back to a 3D view.

The hope is to have LayOut become more of integral part of SketchUp and not so much what I think it is now, which in my opinion is a bit too slow and precarious as compared to its older sibling.

I would really like to see that thread, JQL. Do you mind linking it in this conversation?

Most of this is from my own practices and experiences, but I have found that many of the architects I have been either taught by or apprenticed under had an infatuation with the re-presentaion of architecture. The product was not the actual construction, but the delivery of the idea...the drawing. Line weight, scale, complexity distilled into a perfect diagram took an enormous amount of time to create. But, when this was complete, you were left with a sense that you understood the project more fully. I am absolutely infatuated with the representation of an idea as built form and have spent the better half of my career seeking out how to make it better, more legible and, well, beautiful. I love a great set of CDs!

The problem with this line of thinking is leaving out the other players in the project, namely the client and the contractor. In both of these cases (again from my own experience) they have utilized less of the time-consuming "beautiful" drawings and instructions that I spent a certain amount of time to create and opted for more of a schematic approach of 3D representation. Why? Well, SketchUp has become somewhat of a Rosetta Stone for design professionals, clients and stakeholders and the guys actually swinging the hammers. You can get an immediate response from the friendly face of a SketchUp model. I have never experienced this form of openness in any other software, and believe me, I have tried them all.

I find that the diagrammatic portion of architecture (plans, sections and details) are still absolutely essential not only for quick design iteration, but documenting and describing space to a client and construction to a contractor. The more pictorial parts of a project are getting less formal for me (exterior elevations, interior elevations, assemblies) and I find that more can be garnered from the textured 3D perspective with dimensions and annotations than anything that I have completed previously with 2D CAD.

Again, I am not trying to be Yoda and burn architecture and it's sacred methodologies of representation to the ground, but thoughtfully considering what is really used and not confused during a design presentation, on a review board and on the jobsite.

I love a good dialogue. Thanks for the critical responses, and YES, I loved The Last Jedi.

Eric

Just a quick question on the evolution of the way you all have been describing projects recently.

I have had more than a few contractors make comments and take better instruction off of a SketchUp + LayOut 3D perspective with dimensions and notes, rather than creating a more standard set of flat Interior Elevations. This got me thinking (or rethinking) the entirety of how to continue to make better work and represent it to get built with less mistakes or RFIs.

What purpose do Interior Elevations serve more than to describe basic heights and spacing of elements as well as a place to show finishes? Can't this be better served with more color 3D perspectives with call-outs of critical heights and alignments that show real materials?

I am not trying to do away with them, but wondering what the next evolution of how best to represent ideas to someone without creating more work that could more easily be shown and updated as the project evolves.

Any and all comments welcome!

Got it to work. Thanks, TIG!

@tig said:

You can use some simple 'one-liners' in the Ruby Console...
I'll explain the parts, then assemble them into a single line you can copy/paste into the Ruby Console, editing the component name 'cn'...
You need to manually make the layer and assign the selected component instances to it...
That process could also be included if you like...

cn="^Wall"

the component-definition's name pattern.

note that "Wall" selects just wall, "^Wall" selects all starting with Wall, "^[Ww]all" includes those starting with upper and lower-case W, "^Wall[0-9]" limits it to those named Wall + a number 0 to 9 [and anything following]. To end a pattern use a final $ - so "^Wall[0-9]$" would NOT then match "Wall01" !

Edit this string to suit your needs...

m=Sketchup.active_model
ss=m.selection
ss.clear
as=m.active_entities
cs=as.grep(Sketchup::ComponentInstance).find_all{|e|e.definition.name=~/#{cn}/}
ss.add(cs)

And in just one line:

cn="^Wall";m=Sketchup.active_model;ss=m.selection;ss.clear;as=m.active_entities;cs=as.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance).find_all{|e|e.definition.name=~/#{cn}/};ss.add(cs)

juju: Nope. I usually only use Groups, Components that track to Layers. Outliner is still pretty unused in my workflow (for now).

TIG: Thanks so much, man! I will try to get around to doing what you are suggesting a little later today and report back. I really appreciate the guidance!