I just wanted to mention somewhere on this forum that I'm excited EVERYDAY to go into work and use Sketchup. It really destroys all the competition for the designing I do. I will concede (grudgingly) that other programs can at times be better suited for other types of design.

I spent almost a year using different programs to find the absolute best for my company. I was trained in, and used each software for 2-3 projects (enough to do somethings right and somethings wrong and have a chance to try again). Sketchup Pro beat out Rhino, Viacad, Autocad, Revit and Archicad.

I am of the opinion that Sketchup is the absolute top of the heap for malleable 3D design. There is no other program out there that will let me make something and completely change it at any design stage so quickly, efficiently and accurately. It is an absolute pleasure to work with this program.

At least every week I hear "you did that with sketchup?" and I reply "yes" with pride.

ps. much of the credit goes to the likes of Fredo6, TIG, GOHCH, ThomThom, Chris Fullmer, Fletch and all the other amazing plugin coders and dreamers, THANKS!

I'm not saying it's difficult to use layers, just an extra step if you're already setting up scenes for visibility out of necessity.

Don't you agree that it would be faster to just set scenes for each component you need to isolate in Layout rather than scenes AND layers? Just to note, this is possible already in Sketchup by hiding geometry, it's just that every scene needs to be updated constantly to hide any new geometry.

I'm always trying to streamline my workflow here and always come back to "since I need scenes, why do I need layers?" and the answer always turns out to be "you need layers because scenes are missing a feature".

I think I find working with layers tedious because everything that I draw in Sketchup eventually makes it way to Layout. If I could choose in Layout to only display certain layers then I would just work with layers, but because Layout requires scenes I do all my organization of objects by scenes instead of by scenes AND layers because it saves a step.

I'll give you an example:

I do mostly custom kitchen design. My latest has an island consisting of 4 cabinet cases suspended off of 2 center supports and 2 "L" shaped end legs. All four cabinets and supports need to be shown and documented individually to send to the cabinetmaker, plus an overview, so no matter how you look at it I need to create 9 scenes for Layout to dimension and display properly. What I am hoping to avoid is having to also create 8 layers (1 for each part).

I mean... sure I can do it... but it's less than ideal when I'm already making scenes for that purpose.

I suppose this is a pretty exclusive problem to avid Layout users.

I've been considering AddHiddenLayer and the VisMap plugin as an option, but if I could simply "freeze" my scenes then all would be well. Also, part of me hopes some magnanimous coder will leap to the rescue!

I really appreciate all the replies, I've been through a lot of forums and this is one of the few that feels like a community. Thanks!

Anybody interested in trying their hand at coding a plugin that would "freeze" scenes to avoid inadvertent changes?

This is the initial topic that I wrote to see if it existed in the first place. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25372

Problem is: Sometimes I have 25+ scenes in a model for exporting to Layout for detailed construction drawings, updating the 25+ scenes is a real pain whenever I create new geometry because the scenes were created by hiding groups and components. Anytime anything new is created all the scenes must be updated to hide the new stuff.

If their was some kind of plugin that would freeze the scenes, or keep track of what geometry was in the scene since it was last updated and with one click bring it back to that state...

Of course I have no idea about the architecture of Sketchup and what is possible or not, just dreaming here.

Any takers?

So far Jim's brilliant tip about updating multiple scenes at once is the winner for me. I'm worried about it getting too confusing with hidden layers. Maybe I'm not as open to workflow changes as I thought .

I'm really surprised that I haven't found a plugin made to "freeze scenes".

Nobody else has come across one?

Thank you all so much for your help!

Sorry, I don't follow you? Am I missing something that relates styles to the visible geometry in scenes?

Hi, currently I use Sketchup and Layout to do all design, visualization and shop drawings for my company. To show different angles, internal structures etc I use scenes in Sketchup to access in Layout just like everyone else. The problem I have is that I make scenes by hiding geometry and when I add any structures to the model I have to update all the scenes to remove the new stuff and keep them constant (sometimes 25+ scenes). Is their any way to change this behavior?

I use layers generally to separate floors/ walls etc for quick navigating with a client so I would like to stay with hiding geometry for scenes (it's so fast!) but I am open to possible workflow changes if it's not possible to change the current behavior.

Thanks a lot for any suggestions!

I've tried all three (limited use with podium admittedly) and my opinion is that IDX is a fantastic renderer if you need quick relatively high quality renders. It has many light options, and makes it very easy to create custom light fixtures and customize materials directly within Sketchup. What I found is that straight out of the box I could make clean crisp interior renderings with 15 minute render times. See below.

That said, if you're looking at getting better at rendering over time, doing animations, or don't have tight deadlines, then Twilight renderer is your choice for integrated rendering. With a little more tweaking and a little more time I'm confident you could produce some top quality images AND animations. Last I checked it was half the price of IDX and Podium too. Twilight has A LOT of options and an easy interface.

My company went with IDX for the speed and quality and I'm quite satisfied.

That would be a true legend among rubies! One step closer to full Sketchup BIM.

I've just started using Cutlist 4.07 an amazing free extension for doing material takeoffs from Sketchup. It will produce an Excel sheet with dimensions of each component or just enumerate the quantity of components (it will also layout cuts on sheet materials!). It works well with nested components and will only count the innermost components in nests. So for example, I built custom cabinets where each part is it's own component nested within the whole "cabinet", Cutlist will pick out all the parts and either list them as sheet materials (with dimensions and layout) or parts (without dimensions) or just as components (with dimensions and no layout) on a well organized spreadsheet.
The beauty of Cutlist is that the user can define keywords in the component name to allow it to sort properly.
This probably isn't the perfect solution for everyone, I guess what i'm really saying here is why bother with using standardized naming when a plugin can be built to adapt to any end-user naming schemes?

Find Cutlist here: http://steveracz.com/joomla/content/view/45/1/