Output Override is a Document Setup setting so yes, you can save that as part of your template like the rest of the Document Setup options.

Plugin: ene_camMemory by Julia Christina (eneroth3) Eneroth "Saves the camera position in just 2 clicks so it can be retrieved later. Works between models. Perfect for version comparison for instance." "Put To Memory"/"Retrieve From Memory"

@djh Scale doesn't make any sense for Perspective views. That's why it is only available for Parallel Projection. Create scenes that show the model the way you want to see it in LayOut. When you insert the SketchUp file into LayOut, the boundary of the first viewport is determined by the size of the paper. It's unlikely that the aspect ratio of your paper matches the aspect ratio of the SketchUp model window. If the paper is oriented in Landscape mode, the height of the viewport will be set as a percentage of the height of the paper. The width of the viewport will probably get cropped a bit. That depends on the aspect ratios. If you only want a single viewport on a page, set up the scene so the model is well within the resulting viewport. You can use the Advanced Camera tools to show the safe area in the SketchUp model window. Figure out the aspect ratio of the paper you are using and either select a camera with the same ratio or create a custom camera to do that.

@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.

@TIG Thank you.

@djh Only tool I know of is 3DBrowser which has implicit support for skp files. https://youtu.be/LiKCZul4ucA I've tried it a few years ago and while useful I found it not too approachable. I recommend trialling before buying.

Dave R, Presently, it's working properly again. Thank you.

No. It's a per-viewport thing. Generally those aren't the sorts of settings you would want for every viewport at least from the beginning. Preserve Scale will automatically be activated when you set a scale for the viewport. Note that you should make sure as you are working in your LO project that you aren't modifying the Camera properties for the viewports. Avoid having the Reset button appearing in the Camera section of the SketchUp Model window. BTW, there is a LayOut forum category. You should post your LayOut questions there.

Dave R, thank you. I finally understand.

That's a Windows File Explorer thing and yes you can do that, not a SketchUp thing. [image: L5w8_open.gif]

For a curve you have two choices : 1 - Use the same method as what was shown for a straight edge. 2 - Explode the curve then delete unwanted segments. Of course parts of segments can be deleted if method 1 is used.

@dave r said: I can't answer for Rich but I would select the area I want to keep and then invert the selection (Edit menu) and press Delete to get rid of what I don't want. That's exactly what I did.

You asked the question 'over there' after we had both replied to you here. I have now replied to you 'over there' and will add the related gif here. The context menu offscreen is Explode. [image: gL71_Seamless.gif]

Indeed! If the 3D object was simpler it would work.

It could be useful indeed. In the meantime, if you've got a mouse with extra buttons you could assign the keyboard shortcut to a button.

Simple, native tools operation. Set Camera to Parallel Projection, select a standard view (I choose the Right view), turn on Hidden Geometry, edit the group and with a right to left selection select the faces that cross the horizontal plane. Right click and use Intersect Faces>With Model, then erase everything below the waterline. This method limits the number of faces SketchUp has to look at for the intersections so it goes faster. [image: R24X_cut.gif] By the way, your model has a lot of reversed faces. You should correct them. Only white front faces should be visible in your 3D model. Someone will likely come along and suggest Zorro2 which can be a good way to do this but knowing the method I show is useful.

From what I can see in your SketchUp file and your PDFs, they are showing what I'd expect for the direction of the light and the camera position. I've already shown you how to eliminate that difference if you don't want it. Removing that shading will make the model look flat, though.

Thank you, Rich. I didn't realize that clicking my profile name in the upper right corner would open the "User Control Panel". [image: 3kwr_ThereisControlPanel.jpg]