Trying to create a shop drawing in LayOut? Follow along as we show you how to prep your woodworking drawings for SketchUp's 2D documentation tool, LayOut.
As a dedicated wood worker, I absolutely loved this video. It gave me tips on a process I’ve done many times. What I would love to see you do (if you haven’t already) is a video or series on how to create cut lists - i.e. optimally fit objects for cutout on a piece of material like a sheet of plywood or fixed size piece of lumber.
Extremely helpful. Up until now on my projects I just wouldn’t use Layout at all, I would just zoom extents and dimension right in Sketchup, print that, then throw the dimensions away. I think after seeing this I may actually start using Layout!
Best sketchup video yet. I watch almost every one, not the 4hrs sorry guys, and this I gleaned a ton of great information from. The follow up of where this goes once in layout would be appreciated!! I’d love to watch you move the file over, add the dimensions and make that 1:1 you spoke of for the templating! Such a great idea. Thanks guys!
I didn`t intend to use this woodworking book, *TopFineWoodworking. Com* but instead curious about it. I had been truly amazed after trying it. It never dissatisfied me in my desire to have more information about the art of wood working. I discovered several topics such as wood types as well as designing your workshop..
As an amateur with woodworker, I typically feel overpowered with the entire arrangement. Be that as it may, this arrangements drove me through with much clarity and effortlessness [Link Here== *TopFineWoodworking. Com* . I now work like a genius. That is great!?
Aaron, as one of the woodworker-requestors for this video, thank you!! You've added some ideas that I will incorporate into the SU->LO procedure I'm developing for myself, which is based on the method Dave Richards shared in one of the SketchUp Community forums. (BTW, good call picking a model from 3D Warehouse that Dave Richards created!) For detailed drawings, how you laid component copies out so all scenes are created from the standard Top View eliminates the need to control visibility of background components with a complicated layering scheme. I like it! For assembly, sub-assembly, exploded, and section views, I've been putting my entire model in a group named 000 Top Assembly*, and putting that group on a similarly named layer. I then make copies, as needed, of that top level group and rename the group instance, for example, 001 Exploded View, and put that copy on its own similarly named layer. This process keeps the tree structure in Outliner labeled and organized, and makes it easy to create the additional SU scenes that I will need once I get into LO. * It was very liberating when I learned that I could uniquely name individual group instances in the Entity Info and Organizer windows!! I really like the general point you made about how the level of effort preparing the model in SU is inversely related to the level of effort required once you send the model to LO. Truth!
You are so welcome, Rob! Sorry it too so long for this video to go live! I will defer to Dave's expertise on this topic, if you want to dive deeper, check out his work!
Thanks for the time you've spent on this video. Actually, the woodworker had made it complicated for his piece to get fabricated. slightly changing the location of dowels led to make each piece as a unique one. I guess that was a big advantage of SketchUp to notice this issue before heading to fabrication.
The "dowels" are actually square ebony plugs. Their staggered locations are an intentional design element taken from the Greene brothers who designed the original piece for the Thorsen House on which this table was based. You can see this same design element in many of the houses and pieces of furniture designed by Charles and Henry Greene. The pieces are actually not unique. The front left and back right legs would be identical as would the front right and back left.
This is a good basic demonstration, Aaron. Adding in the correct use of layers would make it easier to create the scenes needed without stringing the parts out along the red axis. The key thing you pointed out is to make scenes for the views you'll need in your plan. And of course in your next video, you'll stress that you shouldn't modify those scenes in LayOut. ;)
Never touch scenes!!! You are, of course, correct, Dave. I admit you have a much better workflow for this than I do. Some times in these videos, I have to slim down an example to make it fit into less than 10 minutes!
Is there more videos on this topic? I am now using a pro version of Sketchup with some paid plugins to design furniture and cabinets and would love to be able to make shop drawings.
Ah, wouldn't it be cool if you could just select and click EXPLODED VIEW and everything comes apart with connection lines. Whoa. Everything separated by x inches, etc.
Layout has been miserably slow on a Mac for the longest time...to the point it's almost unusable. I don't have a newer Mac laptop with an M1 or M2 yet, but am planning to upgrade this year. Did it speed up at all with those newer chips? I have a high-end Alienware laptop, but refuse to use it as my primary machine.
Hold the "control" button and the "command" button simultaneously while holding the mouse button and move your mouse. You can pan when you hold control, command, shift and the mouse button and move the mouse around.
Is ti possible to make every piece a component and them duplicate the components for the drawgin layout instead of copy them as simple duplicates? So that if I found a mistake I don't have to fix all the copies one by one?
I make all the parts of the model as components, not groups so when I need to change the model, I only have to touch each part in one location. So in the model Aaron used in the video, even the shelf and table top would be components. You can't access the components in LayOut, though. LayOut is really only showing you pictures of your model. These "pictures" are called viewports and they should be showing you the scenes you created in the SketchUp model. Instead of being static images like you'd have with JPGs, though, they have a dynamic link from the SketchUp model. If you need to revise the model, you go back to the SketchUp file, make the needed changes and save them. Then in LayOut, you update the reference and the viewports will show the changes.
Aaron called the individual pieces groups at the beginning of the video, but when he selected them in turn, they did show up in the Entity Info window as components. So you are right, and he did what you said!
Glyph Clavin Dave is the king! Unfortunately, Dave’s session was not recorded. Only those lucky enough to attend are graced with Dave’s saged teaching!
*TopFineWoodworking. Com* is a fantastic website about wood working. I took various classes as well as finished a one year diploma in carpentry at a local tech college; this is much better than any book I worked out of during those lessons. It explains everything regarding woodworking as well as complements it with helpful photos.?
Entity Info is very important and you missed this all together. Each leg has its own unique jointry in relation to the each other leg such as front and back left and right and how when selected which is which. No entity info, confused mess and prone to making scrap and rework. No time to do it right the first time? So when will you find the time to do it over.
The Rectangle too will snap to both a Golden Section or Square... If I ever need to create geometry like that, I use the rectangle snaps to do so... hopefully that helps for now... adding the idea to the video list!
I think it's a hassle. I was thinking the Layout were able to multi view and isolate by group, so it can only view the group and hide reat of model and by copy paste, it can be multi view. 😅😤
It's too bad this channel doesn't highlight some great sketchup designers like Dave R. Dave R Aaron I know you know who that is, surprised you didn't bring him on for this kind of episode.. too bad
Aaron, this drawing is not practical for woodworker. Can you study a woodworking drawing then try to make another video to illustrate Sketchup can be applied practically in woodworking. We buy Sketchup not for 3D viewing only
