Introduction to SketchUp LayOut

SketchUp LayOut is a companion application to SketchUp Pro that allows users to create professional 2D documents from their 3D models. It provides a wide range of tools and features specifically designed for producing construction documents, making it an indispensable tool for architects, engineers, and designers.

Setting Up Your Document

When starting a new project in LayOut, it’s essential to set up the document correctly. Define the paper size, orientation, and units that match your project requirements. Consider establishing a consistent title block, including project information, company logo, and any other relevant details.

Importing SketchUp Models

LayOut allows for seamless integration with SketchUp Pro, enabling you to import your SketchUp models directly into your document. Once imported, you can easily update the model in LayOut if changes are made in SketchUp, ensuring that your construction documents stay up to date.

Organizing and Managing Layers

Efficient layer management is crucial for creating well-organized construction documents. LayOut provides a layer panel that allows you to group objects and assign them to specific layers. This feature helps in controlling the visibility of elements and makes it easier to navigate through complex documents.

Creating Views and Scenes

Views and scenes allow you to present different perspectives of your 3D model in LayOut. By creating specific views for plans, sections, elevations, and details, you can ensure consistency and accuracy throughout your construction documents. Use the Scenes panel in LayOut to manage and update your views easily.

Annotating and Labeling

Annotations and labels provide important information and clarify details in your construction documents. LayOut offers a range of annotation tools, such as text boxes, callouts, and dimensions, allowing you to add notes, descriptions, and measurements to your drawings. Take advantage of these tools to enhance the clarity and understanding of your documents.

Adding Dimensions and Text

Accurate dimensions are crucial in construction documents, and LayOut provides robust dimensioning tools to achieve this. Add dimensions to your plans, sections, and elevations, ensuring precise measurements that align with industry standards. Additionally, use text tools to add labels, titles, and other textual information to further clarify your documents.

Incorporating Symbols and Legends

Symbols and legends play a vital role in construction documents, representing specific elements, materials, or annotations. LayOut allows you to import and create custom symbols and legends, providing visual clarity and simplifying the interpretation of your drawings.

Generating Plans, Sections, and Elevations

One of the key features of LayOut is its ability to generate plans, sections, and elevations directly from your SketchUp model. With the help of the “Model Views” feature, you can create and update these drawings automatically, saving you time and effort. Customize the appearance of your plans, sections, and elevations to match your desired style and presentation requirements.

Customizing Styles and Templates

LayOut offers a wide range of styles and templates that can be customized to suit your project needs and design preferences. Experiment with different line weights, colors, and fills to create a unique visual style that aligns with your brand or design language. Save customized styles and templates for future projects to streamline your workflow.

Printing and Exporting

Once your construction documents are ready, LayOut provides options for printing or exporting them in various formats, including PDF, DWG, and image files. Before finalizing, ensure that you review the document for accuracy and completeness, making any necessary adjustments or corrections. Take advantage of LayOut’s print settings to control page layouts, scales, and other printing parameters.

Conclusion

SketchUp LayOut is a powerful tool for creating detailed construction documents. By leveraging its features and tools effectively, architects, engineers, and designers can produce accurate and professional drawings that communicate design intent clearly. Whether you need plans, sections, elevations, or detailed annotations, LayOut simplifies the process and streamlines your workflow.

FAQs

Can I use LayOut without SketchUp Pro?

No, SketchUp LayOut is specifically designed as a companion application to SketchUp Pro. You need a SketchUp Pro license to use LayOut.

Can I export my LayOut documents to other CAD software?

Yes, LayOut supports exporting to various file formats, including DWG, which can be opened in other CAD software.

Can I collaborate with others using LayOut?

Yes, LayOut allows for collaboration by sharing your documents with others. Multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously.

Can I customize the appearance of dimension lines and text in LayOut?

Yes, LayOut provides options to customize the appearance of dimension lines and text, allowing you to match your preferred style or industry standards.

Can I create my own templates in LayOut?

Yes, LayOut allows you to create and save custom templates, which can be reused for future projects, saving you time and effort.

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Example

We are going to add a section cut to a model here, and we are going to build 2 scenes where the cut is active and a scene where the cut isn’t active.

One note, because we did not mention that you can generate section cuts inside groups and components so you only cut through objects in those groups.

So let’s begin by hiding everything except our site. I recommend setting your model up in the outliner so each one of your moving pieces is in its own group. This will make your life way easier moving forward.

Once you have hidden everything in the side, we are going to make a section plane inside the site group. Once we have done that, we are going to make the cut through the site active plane by right-clicking and selecting make active. Turn visible section planes off. Once we have done this, add a scene. Then, go in and turn the section cut back off.

At the moment, if you click back and forth between the scenes, you will notice that it will animate the transition between the scenes. After doing this, we are going to unhide the first piece that we want to animate.

Do the same thing –

• Add a section plane inside this group.
• Make sure the one that hides your geometry is active, and add a new scene.
• Turn it off and add a new scene.

This is generally what we are going to do for the whole animation. This scheme is to just make sure we are consistent with the way that we do this. The outliner will be a huge help for us. Also, double-check as we go to make sure that the animation is doing what we want.

Lastly, we can alter the velocity of the transitions and the pauses between transitions in the animation settings. We can speed up or slow down the delay between scenes by changing the transition times.

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We are going to build on some of the concepts so you may want to start with that one. One of the keys to creating models that you are going to import into Layout is planning ahead and grouping your model accordingly. The idea here is that you set your clarity up so when you make changes in your model, your images in Layout alter automatically, so you don’t have to go in and re-create all of your different views.

Everyone seems to develop their own system for doing this – Matt Donley features a system that he uses within the book “SketchUp to Layout”, and Michael Brightman also has a system that he details in “The SketchUp Workflow for Architects.” The link to both is given below.

Sketchup to Layout- https://mastersketchup.com/sketchup-to-layout/

The Sketchup Workflow for Architects (Affiliate Link) – https://mastersketchup.com/sketchup-to-layout/

Normally speaking though, they all share the same basic concepts – you organize your model with groups and components, then you control clarity using layers. You create your geometry in groups, then put those groups onto various layers so that you can modify them as necessary.

Overall speaking, you break your layers up into 3 types –

• Objects
• Conceptual Items (Like Door Swings) and
• Levels (useful for multiple-level buildings).

Example

Here we are going to use door swings as an example. At the moment, SketchUp does not really have a great way to create door swing indicators in your models, so often you are going to end up drawing those in manually, but you are also going to want to be able to hide those – you don’t want door swings showing up if you use your model for a 3D rendering, for example.

In this case, what we do, is, first of all, we’ve all our different doors during a group. That way we can turn them all on or off. Within that group, each individual door will be its own group that contains two objects – the door geometry and the door swings. We will put the group with the door swings on their own layer for each door. That way, if we would like to, we will toggle the swings on and off as we desire.

You can do this same thing primarily for any kind of geometry you did like. We specifically suggest creating layers for any detailing you create that might make it difficult to pull dimension lines, etc. For example, if you modelled a wood base or a wood trim piece, you’d probably want to put that on an “Arch – Wood Trim” layer so you can turn it off whenever you’d like.

The other thing we want to talk about in this article is how we can really quickly organize your scenes. The way we create our plan images in Layout is by creating scenes that show the clarity you will like to see. Although, for bigger projects, this can get really cumbersome and you have to be really quick if you don’t organize your scenes properly.

Scenes Manager

So what we’re going to do is use the Scenes manager to organize all our different scenes. The first thing I’d recommend is selecting the “Details” or the “List” visibility. You will notice all your scenes is in a row. Now, this next piece is going to be you finding whatever works for you, what you would do when my scenes are giving all my scenes a prefix and putting them in order. So, for example, it’s a Level 1 floor plan, so we can name it FP_L1. If we had a level 2, we would name that view FP_L2.

We can also create a scene specifically for modeling and make sure it’s first in this list. That way it’s easy to toggle back to the scene that you’re working from.

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Construction models are piece-based because they’re organized in order that every part of the model is often easily identified, modified, and reused in another model as a definite three-dimensional object.

These objects are then counted, measured, and categorized in order that their data are often wont to graphically manage estimates, schedules, and other related projects. Construction modeling automatically surveys quantities and identifies phases, tasks, and errors and omissions.

Build confidently

Google SketchUp has been adopted by many AEC professionals to style, visualize and plan building projects. We apply SketchUp software in our project for creating an accurate 3D construction model which plays as an information and communications tool for manufacturing, construction, and property development.

3D construction models begin with a group of 2D contract documents. These are the development documents that represent the scope of the contract requirements provided by the planning team. The model is made to verify a bid, during contract negotiations, or within the field just before the particular work. the thought is to use the 3D modeler as a tool to systematically check the 2D documents, test details, and dimensions, and understand the assumptions made by the planning team – before the documents are utilized in the sector.

We also use SketchUp to trace projects in 4D. We create 3D drawings in SketchUp and import them into the Synchro timeline resulting in a 4D simulation of a construction project because it progresses through time. Sequence modeling highlights conflicts anticipate coordination problems and test design assumptions. Stakeholders can indeed understand a construction schedule more quickly and completely while providing visual insight into possible delays and miscalculations. Our clients can find the simplest value for a project as sketch up provide a collaborative approach to construction, where owners, designers, and constructors are all ready to animate concerns in 3D, illustrate project production over time, test alternative approaches to an assembly, and evaluate schedules and costs as a logical sequence of activities.

SketchUp is often an efficient tool to visually communicate the means and methods of an assembly as a series of distinct events or activities. It maintains distinct clusters of objects as a controlled collection of nested construction assemblies. It also can very quickly model and communicate “time” as an erection sequence, simulated field assembly, or a preconstruction process.

Levels

Every complex construction model is often built using sketch up’s simple three-dimensional construction modeler. All estimates and schedules in construction are organized during a work breakdown structure (WBS). and provides an overall framework for the pieces of the development model, including three standard levels of subassemblies, sequences, and therefore the supporting labor and equipment wont to actually build almost any complex construction project.

We’ve also used SketchUp to publish assembly manuals, forensic models, and fabrication models for management consultants, contractors, and makers

A few ways to use SketchUp in Construction: –

• Submit proposals and sketches for preliminary review to city agencies.
• Explore job site changes and communicate them to owners, architects and sub-contractors.
• Create 3D detailing to generate isometric details.
• Wood working projects, home fixer uppers, decks, balconies & stairs.
• Develop product literature.
• Sell! Sell your designs and proposals to owners, city planners, and sub contractors.

The post Explore 3d Construction Modeling with Google SketchUp appeared first on SketchUpFamily.

The plugin comes with built in features allowing us to select free hand, or by square and circle or by points in a click by click style fashion. It is well suited with Sketchup 7, Sketchup 8, Sketchup 2013, Sketchup 2014, Sketchup 2015, Sketchup 2016, Sketchup 2017, Sketchup 2018, Sketchup 2019.

It is a strong vertex editor for Sketchup that can take the lead over every vertex. Soft selections are inevitable for organic modeling and the manipulator gizmo facilitates you to keep control at the time of modeling.

Installation

Option 1

Download the RBZ package to your computer.

Open the Extension Manager Window » Extension Manager, click the Install Extension button and browse to the RBZ package. Sketchup will install and enable Vertex Tools.

Option 2

Extension Warehouse

Vertex Tools can be installed from the Extension Warehouse dialog within Sketchup.

1. Open Window » Extension Warehouse
2. Search for Vertex Tools
3. Select Vertex Tools from the search results
4. Click the Install button on the extension page

NOTE, if we create our mesh using the Sandbox tools, we need to explode the mesh and keep it selected in order for it to work with the Vertex tools plugin. Once we have our mesh selected we can use the tool in the Tools menu. It will be frustrating to keep having to go to the tool menu but we have discovered that we can create a toolbar shortcut by right clicking (on pc) and selecting the Preferences button and then checking the Toolbar and Context Menu boxes. Once we get a grip on how to use the tool it works great.

Updating

Vertex Tools can be updated via SketchUp’s Extension Manager or by simply installing the new version on top of the old one.

Using the Extension Manager is the easiest way to keep Vertex Tools up to date. Sketchup will notify us when an update is available.

Go to Window » Extension Manager then navigate to the Manage tab. From there, you can Update the extension.

Note: When updating Sketchup extensions you will have to restart Sketchup to see the effects of the update.

Selection type

The vertex selection tool has a variety of selection of selection types to allow for precise selection depending on the situation.

• Rectangular select
• Circular selection
• Polygon selection
• Freehand selection

Soft selection

Soft Selection is set by typing in a distance in the VCB while a selection tool is active. Vertices within this distance from the selected vertices are also affected by tools that modify the geometry. The further away from the selection, the less they are affected. This is illustrated by colour-coding the vertices from Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue – where Red is 100% and Blue is 0%.

It is a very useful plugin for general use but lacks the specificity to use the tool to its full potential. At the time of this , this plugin is $20 for a single license and is available at www.thomthom.net.

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With SketchUp’s Solid tools, you can create new shapes by combining or cutting one shape with another, making it easy to model an outer shell or joinery. When you have a solid object or objects, you can use SketchUp’s Solid Tools in powerful ways to create shapes that’d otherwise be very complicated and time-consuming to make. For example:

• Add two solids together to create a new one.
• Use one solid to cut away part of another one.

With the Sketchup Intersect Faces tool, you can achieve many of the same things that the Solid Tools do. Intersect Faces takes longer because it requires an awful lot of clean-ups; however, it’s still useful for two very important reasons: It’s available in both the free and Pro versions of Sketchup, and it works on any face in your model — not just on solids.

Two things we need to know before you start using the Solid Tools:

• Open the dedicated toolbar. Choose View – Toolbars – Solid Tools to open the toolbar that contains all six tools. You can also find them on the Tools menu. Keep in mind that five of them – all but the Outer Shell tool – are available only if you have Sketchup Pro 8 or later.
• To use the Solid Tools, preselect – or don’t. Pick the tool you want to use either before or after you’ve told Sketchup which solid objects you want to affect. Like most “order of operations” issues (are you listening, Follow Me tool?), this can be confusing for some folks.

Tips: You might find the easiest way to use the Solid Tools is to preselect the solids you want to use and then choose the tool to carry out the operation. The glaring exceptions to this rule are the Subtract and Trim tools; both of these depend heavily on the order in which you pick your solids. Take a peek at the table for more specifics.

Union

Function – It Combines two or more solids into a single solid. Deletes overlapping geometry. Preserves internal pockets.

How to use it?
Select the solids you want to use and then activate the tool.

Outer Shell

Function – It Combines two or more solids into a single solid. Deletes overlapping geometry, including internal pockets.

How to use it?
Same as Union tool.

Intersect

Function – It makes a single solid in which two or more solids overlap. Deletes everything else.

How to use it?
Same as Union tool.

Subtract

Function – It uses one solid to cut away part of another solid. Deletes the first solid when it’s done.

How to use it?
Activate the tool, click “cutting” solid, and then click solid to be cut.

Trim

Function – It uses one solid to cut away part of another solid. Keeps what’s left of both solids.

How to use it?
Same as Subtract tool.

Split

Function – It cuts two solids where they overlap and creates a new solid from the overlap. Doesn’t delete anything.

How to use it?
Same as Union tool.

Note that the Split tool actually does three operations every time we use it: It yields two subtractions and an intersection. That is to say, using Split is like using both Subtract and Intersect on our solids.

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The plugin is used to include standard and adjustable parametric components like flange beams, lumbers, piping and more to our Trimble Sketchup model. From within Sketchup – open the Engineering Toolbox extension, manoeuvre to component and choose insert and the component will be added to your model.

We can find more information on the plugin’s website, but basically what you need to know is that this plugin will allow us to insert Pipes, elbows, lumber elements, flanges, metal beams and columns including standard IPE (not IPN unfortunately, which would be the most time consuming to model actually), HEB, etc., stairs, channels, hollow sections, and more. It is useful are standard Beam sections, no more referring to the standard dimensions manual to model these elements.

The Plugin works as a web dialog. Once installed, simply go to Plugins –> Engineering Toolbox. From there a web dialog will open (we need to have an internet connection) and we will access the plugin’s website where we will be able to choose the elements we want to add to our model.

Open your Sketchup installation, select the Extension Warehouse Button, search for “Engineering Toolbox” – and install!

Alt. 2 Download the Plugin File

Download engineeringtoolbox_tools_v1.0.1.rbz and install the extension from “Sketchup > Preferences > Extension > Install Extension”, or download EngineeringToolBox.rb to your Sketchup plugins directory. (“Right Click” the link above and select something like “Save As”)

Exit and reload Sketchup:

Select the “Plugins” menu and the “Engineering Toolbox” submenu and a page will open The .rbz download is an extension and can be activated/deactivated in the “Sketchup > Preferences > Extension” window.

Note! that we can use the EngineeringToolBox.rb, in Sketchup 8 too. Save it to the plugins folder.

For Windows user

Be aware that some browsers in windows saves the plugin file EngineeringToolBox.rb with a .txt extension. The extension must be changed to .rb.

If we have problems with the saving permissions to the folder – try to download the file to your download folder – open two file manager windows – and drag the file from the download folder to the plugin folder. Change permissions if required.

Sketchup works with Linux under Wine. Since the engineering toolbox plug-in uses the Sketchup Web dialog feature implemented only for IE on Windows and Safari on Mac – IE on Wine is probably required. This is not tested and feedback is wanted.

How to use the Engineering Toolbox:

After loading Sketchup and the Engineering Toolbox from the menu – navigate to the wanted component in the navigation menu above – and select “insert” to add the wanted component to our Sketchup model.

Note – The Sketchup Engineering Toolbox is an online resource updated continuously. We need internet connection to operate.

For some components parameters like length, colour, offset and more can be modified before insertion. Customized components can be inserted by changing parameters in the dialog boxes at the end of the component lists – and clicking “custom!”

Selected objects in the model can be manipulated – rotated, moved, colours changed and more – from the Tools section. Assistant objects like lines, horizontal and vertical planes can be added.

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SketchUp is a great tool for creating a floor plan, especially if we are just looking to calculate the area of the floor. But before we open up SketchUp we are going to measure the room. Take as many measurements as possible. It’s better to have more information than not enough.

Using SketchUp to Create a Floor Plan

Step 1 – Measuring the Room

Here we have to just grab a piece of paper, a tape measure, and maybe a helper to hold the other end of the tape. On the piece of paper, draw a rough outline of the room. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just we have to try to draw each of the corners of the walls as we see them. We will probably notice that the proportions are just not right, but that’s OK, SketchUp will take care of it.

Step 2 – Recreate the Floor Plan in SketchUp

open Sketchup and make a big rectangle group to create a “floor”. This makes it easier to orbit when we have something solid to reference from. It also makes it easier for the inference system to know what we are trying to draw. In this case, a rectangle about 50′ x 40′ will be plenty big enough for what we need. We would like to create it a little bigger than the model. So after creating a big rectangle group to give a surface to reference, we start drawing an outline of the walls. This will strictly be a 2D flat drawing. To start your floor plan, we would do this:

1. Start the line tool action by clicking once.
2. Drag the mouse toward the general direction you want to go.
3. Type in the length of the wall like this 18′ 5″ and press ENTER.

Once we have created our first line, SketchUp will be ready to draw another line from the endpoint of our first one. So creating additional lines would be like this:

1. (After pressing ENTER from the previous line) Move the mouse and snap to a new axis
2. Type in the length of the wall 9′ 11″ and press ENTER
3. REPEAT

When we get back to your starting point, things might not line up just perfectly. We will probably find that we are off by a few inches or so depending on how precise our measurements were, and how squarely our house was built.

Once our floor plan is complete, delete the “floor group” we created at the beginning of this article. We will end up with just our floor plan outline.

Step 3 – Calculate Area

We will just go to Window –> and select “Entity Info”. Then, with the select tool, highlight/select the face and we will see the area of the face pop up in the Entity Info window.

With the help of these tools, I managed to make my floor plan accurately.

Top tip – cloning

An interesting shortcut is the clone tool. To make copies of anything we just need to hold down ctrl and then drag.

We can even clone a whole floor plan. All we have to do is select the entire floor and press ctrl and a tiny plus sign will come up indicating that whatever is selected is going to be copied.

With the Ctrl key being pressed down click and drag the floor we want to clone and then simply drop that floor on top of the ground floor.

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Brief Describe

SketchUp LayOut helps in designing of 3D models by drawing them it converts the 3D models in set of drawings, which may be a necessity of project designing. LayOut is that the features which allows people to feature model views to pages.

LayOut allows the users to settle on drawing scales, adjust line weights and add dimensions, graphics and callouts. The drawings which are generated by LayOut can easily be exported in several file formats. These formats include PDFs, CAD and JPEG images.

Professional looking plans, views and elevations are often generated with the utilization of LayOut. 3D models are often controlled on LayOut. it’s a strong but an easy tool. The tool also can be wont to add entourage and symbols in drawings. This also helps the users to feature dimensions, render vectors and snap the points in model viewports. DWG and DXF export formats also are included during this application. it’s faster also as easier application to draw the models. Pattern fill has been added to LayOut in updates a la mode panel.

The patterns which are present in LayOut are .png images which may be utilized in any known color. Most of the patterns in LayOut are single colored lines with transparent backgrounds. Hence any kind of background color are often used. Shape Style panel is one among the large advancement in SketchUp LayOut. Curved ladder lines are added during this software better annotation during drawing making. Arrowheads also are improved.

LayOut is provided with copy array, speedier vector rendering and better zoom which permit to seem closely through the pictures . Pages also can be numbered in LayOut. Screen redraw is even faster then previous versions, which is completed in response to the customer feedbacks.

Features

The SketchUp LayOut feature released in 2015, has made it even smarter. Now enormous amount of knowledge are often unlocked on LayOut. This help the users to read classification data and dynamic component attributes.

LayOut has made the lifetime of architects, designers, builders, contractors, carpenters and woodworkers easier. LayOut helps the user to achieve complete control over their projects and to watch clearly the difference between 3D models of projects and their drawings. this may help in generation of a flawless project. Construction documents are now easy to know with LayOut.

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