@zx10r_gaz said:

Tim first... I have attached a copy of a set of plans I have recently drawn for a domestic extension in PDF format.

OK, that's an interesting set of plans to look through.

On page 1 I can't see anything that you couldn't do in SU/LO. The site map would most likely be imported from some GIS I guess rather than modelled. The scale bar at bottom left would be dragged from the LO scrapbook, as would the compass rose. No problems with the sidebar texts, obviously. Annotating the elevations and sections is easy in LO. The only part I haven't done myself is the use of colouring for the outlines of the various parts of the house but I expect that creative use of SU styles might provide that.

On page 2 I see a few things that I don't know how to replicate easily. The assorted hatching/brick/soil/insulation 'textures' are something I haven't worked out yet but I think probably use of a suitable SU style along with textures applied to the section cut surfaces ought to work. The details in D3 look like they would be standard snippets either imported as pdf/png/etc or even drawn in LO and made into scrapbook items. D2 could be done in a similar manner if it is a common detail but I did a similar detail direct from SU in my plans. Page 3 looks about the same.

There are certainly things that LO won't do that would be useful, but I really think we can do a lot more than most people believe. But as I've said before, if you have a tool that works for you and you are making money with this stuff - stick with it. Learning a new system costs money.

So far (touch wood textured component) it seems that Snow Leopard has stopped the problem on my iMac. Let's hope it is a permanent fix...

@linea said:

at the moment our authority will only accept A1 drawings (preferably black and white) or a dwg / plot file because their processing and archiving system only accommodates these. They could not accept an animation. In the UK these are fairly common constraints. So the benefits of SU and Layout alone are a little compromised.

Everyone is clear that LO has no problems with printing A1 or 36"x24" type drawings, right? I've seen so many threads and posts asking about that sort if thing that I thought it might be worth reminding people. My local printshop will run off 36x24 sheets from a USB stick for C$2.50 each and it takes very little time (I'm quite amazed at how fast modern large format printers can be) to get a full set for my current house project printed up.

I'll try to attach the pdf as an example -
Ashling Rd.pdf
OK, looks like it should be there.

It would be nice if we could have self-maintaining cross-references for detail drawings.

I think we'd need
page number sort of entities that increment for each page (pretty useful for plain old page numbering too)
a way to copy a reference to the page number and then paste it into a detail call-out block
drawing number entities that increment for each drawing on a page (sounds like a subclass of the thing for page numbering to me)
a way to copy/paste references to the drawing number (hmm, seems familiar)

Thus armed, I could drop a LO drawing call-out block from the scrapbook onto my main drawing and it would probably have the cross-ref details blank. I find the relevant detail drawing (whether on the same page or not) and drop a suitable drawing title block in place. Then by some neat method I link the two; maybe a simple 'copy ref' context menu option on the call-out block and a paste to match for the title block. Maybe some nice drag action from either item and drop on the other would work? Obviously things should just work if you move the detail drawing to another page or delete one etc.

Next week would do...

@mkopstad said:

We use SU+Layout a lot at my small office. (For architecture.) We made the mistake of installing Snow Leopard on all of our machines, which means Layout is now useless.

Never do this. If you have several machines and you depend on them for work, install any new upgrade or patch or fix or 'improvement' or new app on one and only one machine and then test it. Then, if you're confident it is ok, deploy to the rest of the machines. If you only have a single machine.... don't do that. By comparison to potential lost income a secondary spare machine is nothing.

@gaieus said:

@tim said:

...Though I must admit that a few months back I wold have been very pleased to find the pdf imported into SU as lines and not an image....

I thought the Mac version of SU can do it - but only because the Mac system supports pdf a lot better way than Windows.

Of course it also depends on the pdf format (if it is in vector format and not raster).

Are you sure you cannot do it (I see you are on Mac) or was it just a raster based pdf?

Unfortunately SU only offers to import pdfs as image, texture or matched photo. Seems kinda dumb to not import as vectors but maybe it is difficult and not seen as worth the effort.

Are you exiting SU normally - ie not crashing or force-quitting? It all seems to work ok for me.

@solo said:

That Crisis tax will need to be funded somehow, guess who ends up paying for that?

you.

You're forgetting the 'we' have already paid that one - the bankers stole it from us. Now we have an option to take it back and return it to the public purse. At that point we can either
a) spend it as govt. spending aimed to support some activity or other, extend social security to reduce the chances of people starving and so on, whatever.
b) reduce some selection of taxes and hope it triggers some increase in economic activity that has real value. History doesn't make that look a terribly good option though.
c) get distracted by the War on Terra and suddenly find that the already super-rich have re-stolen it and somehow everyone else has to bail out some poor bank/mega-corp./whatever

@rafaagard said:

Hi,
is it possible to export a layout file to DXF or DWG? And if it is possible where could I find some tutorials?
thanks

As mentioned above, Layout writes pdfs. However, you can convert pdfs to dwg etc. All you need to do is google 'pdf dwg conversion' to see a long list of possibilities. I'd rather the SU guys spent effort on major benefits to the system than small jobs that can be done by external programs. Though I must admit that a few months back I wold have been very pleased to find the pdf imported into SU as lines and not an image....

@unknownuser said:

But I'd like to know why do most things now start with a small 'i'?

Same reason there were car models called 'CD' and 'laser' back when CD players were new. Turbo. LX. Royale. Whatever - something catches the public eye/ear and for a while becomes a signifier of cool and desirable. Remember when there were lots of Xs and Zs in car model names? Not quite sure why there have never been Ford Mustang 'Schlong' variants, or NIssan NIpples.

@tdmc said:

NOW Su works ok,
BUT when I "send to Layout" Layout opens for a template to be selected then crashes (closes) once it's selected

In Layout, if I try to "edit 3d model" or "open with SU" again it crashes/closes. Other functions seem ok

So, any ideas - is it something to do with Snow Leopard? (only change I've made on my Mac)

Seems to work OK for me. iMac 24" 2009 model

Yup. Perspective or parallel projection makes no difference on my machine.

It's another case where I'd love to have access to the code involved so I could try to find the bug and suggest a fix to the relevant developer.

Yeah, you're right; with h/w accel. turned off it draws correctly. That suggests to me that someone got a bit over aggressive in 'optimising' some code and assumed that all instances of a component would be clipped identically since, after all, all instances are simply instances of the one component, right?

There are two important rules relating to optimising code

1. don't
   2)( for experts only) don't yet.

Well if I make each garage roof truss unique then each one display correctly trimmed. I'm not sure I can see a logical way that that effect can be blamed on a video driver but since I'm not expert in openGL details I'll have to hold my tongue.

I'm sure somebody somewhere will soon fix it. Hopefully before my bug-ninjas get to the guilty party and force-feed him/her/them mega-Jolt ultra-caff cola until the spleen quivers itself into hyperspace.

David -
Differing lines thicknesses can be sort of done in (I think) three ways.
a) line weight in the LO 'Sketchup model>styles' palette, but that appears to scale the thickness of all the lines derived from the model
b) obviously SU styles can do their thing with line weight, wobbliness, scratchiness etc. BUT to use them in LO requires using raster or hybrid rendering which can make your LO files and pdf output huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Since I'm making working drawings to be printed at 24x36" for builders, I didn't bother with artistically scribbled lines.
c) the profile, depth cue and section cut line thicknesses can be set in the styles anyway

LO can do more with lines created with its tools but obviously they are not involved directly in the model. I've used them for a few added details in the drawings - I think all of the ones I added happen to be dashed lines in this case.

Oh - one more small variation I just thought of - it you use the 'add section cut face' plugin, the edges of the added faces can be given a thickness.

Red -
You can insert a variety of files into an LO doc (not exactly sure of the list, I've used jpegs, text and pdf so far) and LO will spot updates in the same way as it does for skp files. It's not quote automagic but pretty useful. So use excel or Numbers to make your table and print to pdf (unless LO can handle csvs or excel files?) and insert away.
I'm sure someone that is familiar with ruby and the SU api (not me; I spent 25 years programming Smalltalk and damned if I'm going to descend to mere ordinary languages now) could find components marked in some fashion, derive details and produce a table to be inserted. The cutlist plugin used by many woodworkers (including me) does something related. It's just a question of finding a victim - I mean 'interested programmer' - and beating them with a stick - er, 'motivating them' - correctly. Money often works, or so I'm told.

Here's another version of electrical symbols for LO without the pointless 1/2" sized version and with a legend table.
Electrical Plan Symbols.layout

OK, loading the .mov file seems to work now - thanks!
This shows the cut plane moving back and forth. Note how the roof trusses (split into two slightly different designs) are cut in the same place rather than each one cut individually as needed. Note also that the intersection rhomboids on the cut plane appear to be correct.

iShowU-Capture2.mov

@caronte01 said:

Hi Tim

Do you by any chance have an ati video card.

I do indeed - my iMac has an ATI 4850. I suppose it could be an opengl bug of some sort...

I think you can do this easily already. Find the 'add hidden layer' plugin; that adds a layer that is hidden in all scenes. All you have to do is turn it on in the scenes where you want to see it. I use it a lot. You might want to hack the plugin a little to make it add a layer hidden in all scenes but the active one.

Scenes already maintain lists of which layers to show, of course

Here's a short movie of what I see; basically the garage roof uses two different component trusses and all instances of each component get cut the same instead of each one being cut appropriately.

Oh. Right. mov files are not allowed by the uploader. Sigh. Here's a still instead.