DWG files are proprietary binary files, and therefore much more difficult to parse and extract data.
DXF files are readable ASCII and these are thus relatively easy to parse [ but please don't underestimate the complexity of doing even this ]...

BUT, someone providing a DWG can just as easily provide an exact duplicate DXF version.
Depending on their software, it's either a 'save_as' or 'export' option...
If you 'colleagues' are not as helpful as one might expect of them ! then there are also several converters to help you...
But some are for $$$...
https://client.autocad360.com/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/49100/how-do-i-convert-dwg-to-dxf-with-free-software
http://anydwg.com/dwg-dxf/
http://www.autodwg.com/dwg_dxf_converter/
Do some investigations...

This newer tool [ http://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=importDXFtextLabel - with floating 2d text labels ] and its formally recognized 'progenitor' [ my tool - with 3d-text - http://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=importDXFtext ] both need DXF files to import the text.

Since these are both 'free' plugins, then you are extremely unlikely to get an unpaid "order of magnitude" improvement in their functionality - especially because you'd just like it to be so, it doesn't make it easy/possible/likely...
If it were so easy to do, then perhaps the authors would have already given you this capability...
Or perhaps offered a paid option for the more involved solution...

I agree TommyK... basically its a good system. Could be better but has a lot of power built in. I am using Sketchup for space programming (bubble diagrams) and have found I can add custom properties to a component, then get Layout to report them. So, like when you have <ComponentDescription> you can change it to:

%(#FF0000)[<DynamicComponent(role)>
<DynamicComponent(staff)>]

Where role and staff are custom attributes I created for my "bubble" component. Pretty cool! I just figured this out yesterday so there are probably way cooler things we can do.

BTW, attached is the bubble component if you are interested. You can change the area you want to change the size of the circle.

BUBBLE.skp

@kiwi15 said:

Hi TommyK,

This new way is indeed a much better way to tweak component properties. Apparently you are not the only one who have found the native Component Browser cumbersome: https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/component-properties

Thanks for a cool and promising plugin:)

Thanks, kiwi. Yes ThomThom's plugin is indeed worth mentioning in this thread.

I must admit I have other distractions at the moment, so development on this is slow. Glue properties are high on my list for this plugin.

nice idea

+1

Hurrah! Big Tick!

Thanks for the quick reply! I think I've done everything right, but I only get a new definition (loaded) when I use the write-to-dev-null trick (but it's painfully slow!). When I use the add_cpoint() or add_group() trick my SKP file is ignored and I get the same GUID back. Here's my full script, if you don't mind taking a look:

require "sketchup.rb" module RefreshComponent def self.force_reload_component_definition!(model, definition) definition_path = definition.path definition_name = definition.name definition.name = definition.name + rand.to_s ## definition.entities.add_cpoint(ORIGIN) ## <== this causes GUIDs to match (fail) definition.save_as("/dev/null") ## <== this causes new definition load (success) reloaded_definition = model.definitions.load(definition_path) puts "Old GUID; " + definition.guid puts "New GUID; " + reloaded_definition.guid reloaded_definition end def self.reconnect_component_instances!(model, old_definition, new_definition) model.start_operation("Remap instances") old_definition.instances.each { |instance| instance.definition = new_definition } model.commit_operation end def self.delete_component_definition!(model, definition) model.start_operation("Delete Definition") definition.entities.erase_entities(definition.entities.to_a) model.commit_operation end def self.refresh_component(model, definition) model.start_operation("Reload current component definition", true) reloaded_definition = force_reload_component_definition!(model, definition) reconnect_component_instances!(model, definition, reloaded_definition) delete_component_definition!(model, definition) model.commit_operation end def self.start model = Sketchup.active_model model.start_operation("Reload component definitions from file", true) model .selection .select { |entity| entity.is_a?(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance) } .map { |instance| instance.definition } .uniq .each { |definition| refresh_component(model, definition) } model.commit_operation end end unless file_loaded?("refresh_component.rb") UI.add_context_menu_handler do |context_menu| context_menu.add_item("Reload Current Component Definition") { RefreshComponent.start } end file_loaded("refresh_component.rb") end

@jql said:

@tommyk said:

Team Edit updated to v0.1.4. It now works on PC!

(funny no one told me until now - thanks to Near 2010 for the report)

I feel a bit ashamed here, but I haven't tried Team Edit yet. I'm just in the middle of a project and can't change the procedure now. I guess a simple example would be interesting... As soon as I have some time I will try it as fully as I can.

Don't worry! Try it out at your pleasure. It shouldn't be used in a production environment yet anyway. Simply put, the more feedback I get, the more reliable it will get.

I know this is an old post, but Sketchup 2015 didn't have this feature, so I am going to bump!

@ely862me said:

If Layout can be ran in two instances, like Sketchup, then you just need to put one instance to produce renders and work out your files in the other instance. Make sure you set your processors affinity in Task Manager if it is the case.

I am not sure if I understand you, or if you haven't quite understood me! If you can indeed run LayOut in two instances with a PC, that sounds very useful (I am Mac only at the moment).

In the picture below, it illustrates what I am wanting to achieve:
Render while you work

The idea being that you can work away on other parts of the drawings while the individual views update. It's a technical challenge for the Sketchup team, which I am sure can be solved, and the rewards are higher levels of productivity for us LayOut users whose models (and ambitions) are getting bigger.

@rfox said:

I was having an installation problem since the day i purchased, I use "regular" Windows 7 Ultimate. email the issue to them, got couple of feedbacks but it didn't seem help. I try to contact them several times....no respond.such a bad developer. at least they give me some good technical explanation regarding the issue.

The problem was a know SketchUp problem regarding a dll conflict between Sketchup ruby standard library and zlib1.dll on your windows system. It toke us some time to figure this out because problems with SketchUp and/or the operating system aren't always easy to find and to solve because they have nothing to do with our code. In this case the problem was also not reproducible on our own windows system.

When we found the problem and the solution I've send you a mail about the solution like it was logged in the Sketchup beta forum. The solution had nothing to do with our code. Apparently you were not able to solve the problem yourself.

After your complain on sketchUcation we contacted you again to do a join.me session and solved your problem even it wasn't a Skalp problem at all. But we like to keep our customers happy. I hope you can now enjoy Skalp like it's meant to be.

The Skalp Team.

I saw this comment by thomthom about another plugin but it seems pertinent to this conversation -
"I haven't used the tool, but common convention for tools is to create the entities they create within model.active_entities instead of model.entities. It also allows for the best flexibility. Since it is the convention with the native tools and pretty much all custom tools it is confusing if the geometry is created in a different context."
Seems to me that SolidTools clearly violates any conventions that are normally in force.
KrisM

Is scale an option here? scale of the model in layout?

@tommyk said:

@db11 said:

To follow-up on the curation/community tagging/moderation issues and suggestions:

create a group of certified super-users as 3DW editors that can verify and stamp models as 'validated':

clean geometry -- no gaps, stray edges etc drawn to SU "best practices" norms optimized complexity/model size -- through components/mirroring/curve segments etc purged of excess/unused components/textures/layers etc

It's quite a job to moderate the models - not sure what these super users would get out of it. That said, I do think moderation is needed - there must be a way for everyone in the community to share the job - Wikipedia manage to make it work without formal moderators.

The fantastically strange and wonderful thing about the internet is that people will work for free if you give them titles and little stars to put by their name. That being said, as soon as they get those titles a lot of them tend to stop working so hard or at all... Listed, Visible Rankings of how many models uploads/downloads and how many moderated would really be interesting to see.

@tommyk said:

Those are nice tools. Thank you for the tip. I also didn't think about the benefits of being able to draw tangents.

All of that said, the plugins don't have the quick and clean feel of the theoretical circle guide that I had in mind. I use Sketchup because I find it a highly productive (quick) tool for modelling. I'll have a look into the Ruby API and see if what I want can be provided as a plugin...

Welcome to polygonal drawing, forget about geometry with the circle.
Workaround, workaround.

@dave r said:

Have you tried linking to the original SKP file which is probably not in the private/var folder?

If you go to the private/var folder can you open the SKP file? Or copy it to documents or someplace and open it? Move the SKP file and try relinking to it in that location.

I did try this, and it didn't seem to work.

I ended up asking SketchUp support, who responded with the following:

@unknownuser said:

A. I recommend against saving the SketchUp file to a Dropbox folder. I've had a couple of complaints from customers whose files behave strangely when saving to a cloud-synced folder. See if he has the same problem while saving the SketchUp file to the Desktop then try to relink again.

B. Many, many SketchUp and LayOut problems are the result of disk permissions issues. To repair disk permissions, try these steps:

Restart your computer. Open a Finder window. Click Applications. Click Utilities. Double-click Disk Utility. Select your hard drive. Select the First Aid tab. Click Repair Disk Permissions. Please repeat step eight until you no longer see new errors during the repair. After the permissions are repaired, exit Disk Utility.

C. Reset LayOut's preferences file:

Open a Finder window. Click "Go" in the top menu bar and select "Go to Folder..." Copy and paste the following path into the text box in Finder:

~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2013/LayOut

Click once on the file called "preferences.xml" then press the Return key on your keyboard. This will allow you to change the file name. Change the name from "preferences.xml" to "preferences-old.xml" Open LayOut and try relinking again.

Following both points A and B worked for me. It's a shame that Dropbox and Layout are not working well together. To be precise, if you have the LayOut file in Dropbox, you get the problem I have. If you have the LayOut file on your desktop, for example, it works, even if you are referencing a Sketchup file within Dropbox.

In conclusion, do not store your LO files in Dropbox - it may mess things up. I would be interested to see if this is a problem on PCs.

I am waiting for the day that LayOut files reference Sketchup files using relative paths!

Hello,

I'm having trouble getting this plugin to work on SketchUp 2023. It always returns zero. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this issue?

I have rewritten the plugin to add up the attribute values as it recursively looks through the components and groups. This works without a problem.

For future reference, all those people out there dealing with dynamic attributes should probably know that something weird happens when you create an array of nested groups/components and start working on them within the DCFunctionsV1 class. That may be an incorrect diagnosis, but it explains enough for my situation.

For those interested, see the plugin attached that works. At the moment, when you change the value of an attribute of a nested group/component that is summed, it doesn't automatically update the formula value. Fixing this is my next challenge. Oh what fun I will have with observer classes (of which I know very little about)!

AttributeSum v0.1

George, As I don't use LO at all, I had not thought in depth about file transfers to it. I can however, understand your frustration with trying to use LO as the primary means to assemble and create graphic documents. I speculate that Dxf2Su doesn't support anything that SU itself doesn't require as surface modeler, like line weights and fonts. Wounder is it's manageable for SU and LO support different Dxf compatibilities.

I'm just a voyeur into this conversation but I have to say its absolutely great to see the collaboration between users, third party developers and Google developers happening. I've always known why SU was so successful but it's nice to be reminded of it now and again. I hope you can collaborate and come up with a solution but more importantly please keep this dialog and exchange of ideas flowing as this is the heart of what makes SU successful.