Posts made by sonder

I've tried Kerkythea, V-ray and Podium. Of the three, my favorite by far has been Kerkythea. I am really glad to see Thea in the lead, as I am buying that shortly. Kind of makes sense I guess!

I see, but I think the available texture patterns available in sketchup are far superior to ACAD hatch patterns.

This isn't the greatest example, but gets the point across.

@jolran said:

Anyway the main pitfall I've found with textures is that you have to have perfect scaling of them to get good results. And I prefer vector to raster mode in LO.
On the other side, textures will be ligther on the file size, than using hatched edges. A complicated hatchpattern can contain quite a large amount of edges.

Hi Jolran: I thought the same thing initially with vector vs raster. However, after seeing my last set printed in raster - high output, on 20lb stock, it reads beautifully, not to mention the speed increase in LO. I think we get use to seeing how it looks on the screen, not realizing that when exported to high resolution to scale, the end result is much more crisp. I am only relying on LO for basic notation, simple graphics (such as trees in plan view) and dimensions so everything I create in the model is set. Scaling textures is actually very easy in SU. I use quite a bit of board formed concrete in my designs. Once I establish that texture for 2x8, 2x10 or 2x12 boards, it becomes very easy to establish and save for future use.

@valerostudio said:

I just built a machine on HP with a 6 core i7, 12GB of RAM, and a 3GB NVIDIA card for less that $1,600. Shop around before buying the Dell.

What he said. Dell is not on my favorite list. My HP's so far, are running great.

Why stop at 12Gb of Ram? That Nvidia card should work well!

@zx10r_gaz said:

Sonder,

Like you, It's still a big learning curve for me. Knowing what I know from this drawing I will tackle the next SU model/Layout differently. The output was also a bit of an issue for me. These drawings have had to be raster because of the styles & shadows etc, but exporting on HIGH level the PDF file was around 28Mb. The same file in AutoCAD would be around 700-800kb. So I have had to export MEDIUM (11Mb) just so I can submit it to the local authority (20Mb file size limit)
Gaz...

Are you booking or creating individual sheets. I don't think my individual sheets hit the 20mb file size, but I will check. Reno, Nevada, where I do some work, also requires submission of PDF's instead of paper. Very smart and forward thinking. I wish more departments would use this. Heck all the contractors I work with often refer to the pdf drawings over paper.

@unknownuser said:

How are you guys dealing with printing 24x36 in color?

I use color codings with my shop drawings and the boys really like how it works. I have been putting everything on 8.5x11 sheets so we could print them easily. But, it is a whole lot more work making myriad small sheets instead of a few big ones and I would love to migrate to the larger format.

The local printer priced each 24x36 in color at $40 as opposed to $1.50 for standard laser printed greyscale.

Thoughts?

Hi Chuck:

That price they are quoting is insane. Are they using a plotter or an OCE printer or are they printing it black and white and using crayons? My cost from my local printer (and I live in the sticks) is $8 per sheet on 20lb stock. I also have a large format plotter that I use for in house use only. Otherwise everything gets printed at the shop and charged to the client as a direct cost. The only time I plot in full color is for the building department permit sets, the owner's set and one color set for the contractor. Otherwise everything is printed grayscale which still looks great.

I am surprised the Nvidia is giving trouble. In the past I have only had troubles with ATI cards. If it helps I am currently using the Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti with no issues what so ever running Windows 7/64.

I think those drawings are beautiful! - Especially sheets 3 & 4. While getting used to Layout does take time, I think the graphic output possibilities are far superior then ACAD drawings.

Regarding Dimensions - I think I remember someone saying you can create your own template. I need to do this as well.

Regarding Hatch - color is the only option right now. Hatches would be nice, but I do not mind the look of color transparencies to define "hatched areas".

I am also finding that my output in raster set on high, prints extremely fine line work. Fine enough that I am foregoing vector output at this point. Doing so helps eliminate the need for hatch as you can define hatches and materials in the model that appear only in raster mode. Right now, I am leaning to only running vector drawings when I need to export an ACAD file for my poor structural engineers still using Revit and ACAD.

@involute said:

Thanks, Sonder. Do you know if there's a charge for upgrading? I'm not using any styles, and the default Engineering and Design styles don't affect the guides.

I can't remember. I believe the 7-8 upgrade may have been free. If not, I think it the last upgrade cost was only something like $90.

I would double check that the style you have selected in LO is the same as the style selected in SU. Some styles do show axis and guides.

I am designing two homes in a high end development. I created my site plans (I have 5 per project - discipline specific) at a scale of 1:20. Low and behold the review committee wants me to recreate these at 1/8" = 1'-0" - you know the architectural scale that no earthwork contractors use....I digress.

Is there a simple way to scale all the paper space notes and graphics with the sketchup model? I have tried a couple things, but nothing works easily. My solution works, but I need to move and adjust the paper space elements to the new model scale. Also due to the size of the properties I will be spreading each site plan over 2 sheets instead of 1.
Keep in mind, I also do not want any of the paper space attributes to change in font size or line scale.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Here is a sample of one of the site plans:

@involute said:

I'm using Layout 2 and SketchUp 7. When I import my SU model into Layout and select a view in which guides are turned off in SU, the guides appear in Layout. How can I suppress them? Thanks.

I would upgrade first to Layout 3. Much more stable. In your specific case, you may have a differents style selected in layout from that saved in the model. I would check that first. If that doesn't work, I highly recommend doing the upgrade.

Hi

First you need to make sure you have setup your layout page for your needs, such as scales. You are looking at engineering scales, so make sure you select those in your document setup, as well as page size, etc. After you import the model, on the right side of the layout page is the "Default Tray". In the tray click on the tray labeled Sketchup Model. While the model box is highlighted select the scale you want, then click "preserve scale on resize". Then you select "render". This will get rid of the yellow triangle and set your scale accordingly.
The yellow triangle means that your model has not been updated since either a scale change or a model update. Don't bother printing directly out of Layout as it is time consuming. First export a pdf and print from that.

More memory is good. I have 16Gb and it is noticeable. I also have the same processer you are looking at. As for Dell, the only thing I can say is they are not what they used to be. I have had 6 dell machines fail just out of warranty in the last two years - both laptops and desktops. All failures were motherboard related. My Dells that date further back worked very well.

Are you talking about details only? If so, are they 3d details or 2d? Either way, I would find a concrete texture that you like or make one in photoshop. This way the texture or hatch is in the sketchup 3d model, not in LO. I do this for all my detailing and I think it works well. This of course means that you produce your details in raster format which I prefer anyway.

Printing from layout is slow. I always generate my pdf, then print.

@unknownuser said:

Not sure if anyone else has this problem but in LO when I have a layer appearing on multiple pages and I hide that layer on some specific pages, when I save and close the file and open up again the layers appear on all pages. so I have to go back through the file and hide the layer from the selcted pages again. Am I doing something wrong? Is it a bug? or does LO simply not do this? Any ideas anyone?

Stan

Layout should not work that way. On my pages, it saves the layers at the last point saved. It sounds like a bug in your particular file.

@mariocha said:

Wow Sonder ! really good work.
I see you are enjoying your work.
I especially like the way you emphasized the foremost part of the house on elevations by downplaying the others parts. Is it made with a transparent overlay on the paper space ?

Hi Mario - this affect is Fog in SU so it is part of the reference drawing.

Thanks Pbacot.

I used ACAD for many years and multiple .lsp routines in place as well as massive standards that were developed over the years. My biggest issue with ACAD is the indirect output. What I love about layout is WYSIWYG. The inaccuracies that result from switching between software is that more often than not, architects are reconstructing the SU work in ACAD to meet their standards. That gap creates issues, especially if the modeler from SU is not the drafter in ACAD. With LO that issue doesn't exist.

Yes there are several items in LO I would love to see improved - like dimensions and such. Regarding the leader text, I don't use it which is why you see it graphically as I have it. I create all my notes as text and then draw a leader to it. It makes for much easier manipulation of the text graphic. The text works just like Mtext in AutoCad this way, ao you can adjust it to fit as needed. To me this is far better in manipulating and moving notes. The only thing you lose is the leader link. This is resolved by grouping the note and the leader.

I made the jump as I used to combine ACAD with SU. I really love it so far. Yes there is a lot of room for improvement; but I am hopeful this will happen in the near future with Google behind this software. While certain aspects are slow, the intuitive nature of both programs is exactly what has been lacking from AutoDesk.

@gaieus said:

@unknownuser said:

My hats off to the developers of both those programs.

And probably not incidentally, that's basically the same person.

Excellent! I guess my transition should be that much easier.

The lines in the group or component need to either be erased if they are planer, or hidden/softened if they are not. The lines on the overhead view are showing because the top of your model has no thickness. It is a single plane unextruded so you see the walls below. Here you can either hide the lines, or give the top some thickness so you don't see them below. As for black and white, you can set a scene in sketchup for that particular view, change the style to be black and white. Then in layout select that view.

I hope that helps.