Posts made by sonder

The best and most straight forward free ware I have tried has been Kerkythea without exception. I was rendering within a couple hours of playing around - that was without using any tutorials or watching any videos. The output and ease of use with sketchup is amazing. I have just started looking into Thea which looks incredible. I will be ordering that as soon as I get back in my office early next week. My hats off to the developers of both those programs.

Wow Bmike! that is beautiful. I used to be a member of the Timber Framer's Guild back until 2003. I should rejoin! I work with several timber frame companies on many of my houses. You definitely show some amazing talent. Do you work with hand framers or Hundegger contractors?

I will forward this link to one of my framers that utilizes only HSB software. I keep telling him he needs to model his work in sketchup. Who know's, maybe he'll send you a PM!

Thanks for the compliments. @JSL: people get stuck in their ways unfortunately. I see many architects utilizing sketchup for purely design purposes. Then they switch to ACAD and redraw everything. Seems crazy to me to double the work load and introduce inaccuracy in the process. Most of my competion uses Revit and I constantly hear their frustrations as well as the contractors.

Here are a couple more samples - Maybe show your office you are not alone in your thoughts. To me this was a no brainer and I have been using ACAD for more than 20 years.

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@notareal said:

@Sonder, Not sure what info you need? Prices listed are net as euro, VAT does not apply to US customers (further instructions). If some alternative payment method is needed, please use contact form.
You most welcome to join at Thea Forums (preferably use the same email as with the purchase. If not, please use the contact form to get a proper status).

Thanks - my comment was due to the cart and checkout process. I saw no place to give a payment method. I'll go back and look again. I will join the forum as well.

I've been using Kerkythea for years now. This looks amazing. I went online to purchase - it looks like you bill the purchaser? Any infor for us US purchasers would be great. I'm in!

Really sorry to hear this. This happened to me many years ago. Since then I do daily back-ups. I now keep my work current on 2 separate working computers, a portable hard drive and a network drive. The network drives are awesome. I have a buffalo twin single terabyte network drive. It automatically backs up work as well as duplicates it on the second drive should either drive fail. It was probably the best $250 I have ever spent.

Keep your chin up. The one thing you haven't lost is the knowledge to create new work.

Definitely going with single page layout docs makes a huge difference in speed. Obviously you lose the benefit of repeated items on each page, but honestly that is generally limited to title blocks for me. Bear with me an upload quality as these are my first attempts. The details are boring site details for storm water management, but it will be the format of my architectural details except they will be 12 per page. I have my detail library at over 250 details so far - all perspective extrusions. I used to do a combination of ACAD and sketchup imagery, which worked really well. I just got so frustrated with how ACAD has been developed that I finally dropped it completely.

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I am doing this same thing right now with three home projects. I really like it compared to utilizing sketchup only for design. It certainly eliminates the potential for errors between the formats. I have found that limiting layout files to single pages really increase the speed drastically.

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This is a cabin I am working on. Exterior only is complete so far. I still have a long way to go on my P-shop skills. This is my first pic post to the forum. I am humbled by the work on here.

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Now that is impressive!. I use a single 40" LED LCD monitor and thought that was pretty "bling". I need to step it up - maybe three 40" screens and a lounge chair!

Thanks for the welcom.

I would post an image, but I have never done so online like this. How do I keep the quaility like those posted above - are those hosted somewhere? Sorry for the ignorance on this, but when I convert a pdf to an image, the quality is awful.

As for the LO speed, I have found more ram helps, but the key is management of the model. Always set the file so the references do not update or render automatically. Always work in Raster format. Purge all SU models prior to updating (components first, then materials). Utilize groups, components and layers to only show specifically what you want in a particular scene. I have found that this helps the workflow move nicely. The biggest time hog is updating the reference and rendering in Vector. I only do that at the end of the day or at night when home. It is the number one aspect of LO that needs improvement. Updating of the references, especially large ones takes time. My home designs are typically around 30Mb for the home alone and 40mb for the home on the site. Separating the two is a huge help in working with building specific drawings opposed to site specific.

Now all that said, I have only been really exploring Layout since this past summer. I am now finding that until LO deals with the reference update time crunch, I may temporarily switch to one page per file. This would certainly speed things up opposed to how I am working now. I have 6 page documents for floor plans. When you update that reference, Layout takes 6 times longer than if it were 1 page. It appears that each viewport updates and renders separately timewise.

I am starting to think that until bugs like this, the locked pages, and pdf export issues get resolved, it may be the safer bet to create separate layout files for individual sheets. It seems those particular files that I have such as a detail sheet with multiple model references don't have any issues. All my files with multiple pages end up with some sort of issue.

I am having this same problem with only one page on a 6 page layout file. I tried the purge routine to no avail. Any help would be appreciated.

Nice work Stevo.

I'm new to this forum, but was part of the old google forum a couple years back. I've been using sketchup since it was owned by ATLAST - i think since 2003. I have used it in conjunction with ACAD for several years. ACAD finally got me so frustrated (I've been using it since version 2.3!). I don't understand why Autodesk insists on maintaining their cumbersome path. At any rate, I completely dropped ACAD last summer and I have dedicated myself to making Layout work for complete construction documents for all my work. I primarily do custom homes in the Tahoe area. I am 3 projects deep in the process and so far, I have no regrets at all. I have structured all my scrap books and standard layout sheets to the point that I am now far faster than ACAD format and the graphic output is far superior. Every contractor that looks at my documents has been very complimentary. I also provide fairly in depth drawings - usually 30 sheets plus. It is great to see so many going down this path as I would love to see some improvements and development of Layout for my use.

Cheers!