Found a hidden feature or want to share a time-saving shortcut? Let us all know...
#75231 by Ted B
Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:36 pm
I was just watching a "what's new" YouTube on Sketchup-2018, and they said that Layout can now directly import .DWG files. Anyone with SU Pro-2018 who can confirm this? ...It's the first I'd hear it. I have imported .DWGs to SU before, but needed to first convert to .PDF and the to .JPEGs first to place my Datacad details into Layout's paper-space. It's barely worth all the bother, and the scaling's iffy.

How did I miss this ...?? Maybe now I'll have to cough-up for a double upgrade for Christmas.

Sketch-Up Pro 2015 and Datacad v.18 user....
#75232 by David Porter
Wed Nov 21, 2018 1:00 pm
I gave it a shot. In the SU 2018 Layout program, in the File menu, there is an "Insert" function. That does allow the direct insertion of DWG files as "model space" insertions. I tried inserting a couple of Kohler DWG fixture files I had available and they pop right onto the blank page.
#75233 by Robert Scott
Wed Nov 21, 2018 10:13 pm
Good to know.

Personally, I hope to never see or use SU Layout again and have no idea how anyone with a decent CAD background wouldn't be driven mad.
It's slow, cumbersome and lacks the basics to produce decent drawings of a building more than a large residential project.
Yes, I've watched the videos on YouTube...I also spent the worst two weeks of my past year pushing Layout to the limit.

I'd rather use mylar and ink...but whatever floats your boat :)

Bob
#75234 by jimgoodman
Thu Nov 22, 2018 12:04 am
Robert Scott wrote:Good to know.

Personally, I hope to never see or use SU Layout again and have no idea how anyone with a decent CAD background wouldn't be driven mad.
It's slow, cumbersome and lacks the basics to produce decent drawings of a building more than a large residential project.
Yes, I've watched the videos on YouTube...I also spent the worst two weeks of my past year pushing Layout to the limit.

I'd rather use mylar and ink...but whatever floats your boat :)

Bob


I'm afraid this was my fault - we were collaborating on a complex and very complete model of a 8 level building and we were trying to generate and annotate elevations in Layout. I was convinced that we should be able to use Sketchup and Layout like a true BIM model. Bob gave it his best shot, but sadly the tools were not up to the challenge. BTW, the model started life in DataCAD.
#75235 by Robert Scott
Thu Nov 22, 2018 12:43 am
And to clarify my "worst two weeks" comments I've had a whole lot of really great weeks working for Mr. Goodman :)
A couple of old dogs learning new tricks...

Bob
#75237 by Ted B
Fri Nov 23, 2018 5:24 am
Ink and Mylar, now there's a technology I haven't touched in decades...
Overlay drafting, vacuum frame flatbed Diazo printing, and the fumes.

I don't think you can even get Mylar draphting ink anymore, nor those horribly-expensive Jewel-Tips for Rapidograh tech pens. I haven't seen E1, E2, E3 pencils or filmograph refill in a catalog in a while, or those yellow machine-eraser strips either. Even the white graphite Magic Vinyl ones are hard to find. Come to think of I, I recently wondered where my power eraser machine has gotten too. Mine's one of those heirloom-quality all-metal German ones, not the white plastic crappy Alvins. It's around somewhere, it used to hang under my drafting board ...but after the last office move I've shockingly lost track of it. Hmm....

What were those brown mylar or paper composite drawings called? Mein Gott! How could I have actally forgotten their name?. Those funny erasers or razor blade-scrapings to make a revisions, or correction fluid. My first job in a real Architect's office we used pin-bar multi-sheet overlays and vacuum frames; l never could letter well with a Radiograph in ink. We'd "cheat" and do the annotations in E2 pencil.

And manual dimensioning...
As senior draftsman in the production shop downstairs, I'd sometimes spend days in the conference room manually checking dimension strings with a calulator, a red pencil and a legal pad. The massive amount of time-spent doing and checking dimensions was how we justified our first CAD station to TPTB; Associated Dimensions.

I still use a Calculated Industries "Construction Master" calculator to this day; feet inches and fractions. I was just thinking this-week I need a new one, I've worn the lettering right-off some of the keys. It's my "other brain"...
#75240 by Robert Scott
Sat Nov 24, 2018 1:03 am
Now you're giving me a case of PTSD :)

Are you thinking of the Sepia colored mylar? We would run the diazo print on the back side and make ink corrections on the front. Using an erasing machine we would "grind' the print off the back or use a knife and scrape it off.

Nothing like the smell of ammonia to wake you up in the morning.

Robert
#75241 by jimgoodman
Sat Nov 24, 2018 8:10 am
I still use my Dad's genuine horsehair board brush to sweep the pounce from my monitor.
The brush dates from the early 1950's. It's a family hairloom :oops:
#75242 by Ted B
Sun Nov 25, 2018 12:01 am
I guess they were just called "Sepias".

I don't know if they even make it anymore. Ammonia Diazo and Ozlid machines are obsolete, replaced by the Xerographic copiers and scanners. They came in two flavors; "Mylar" for making revisions, and "Paper" for record copies and overlay drafting. We used to use the paper sepias to make presentations and drawings pasting-up separate sketches drawn on white bumwad or Vellum. The Cream and Canary trace left too-strong a shadow.

My Mother's great-Uncle had a wet-process blueprint shop that made the white-line blueprints up into the 1960s. I still have some imprinted pencils from the shop that he gave my Grandfather who was an Architect from the 1920s thru the 70s and he'd hand them out as a promo for his cousin. Before that he was a civil engineer and surveyor. Actually both of my grandfathers were engineer-surveyors at one-point or another.

Now try to find a commercial repro-shop. Nowadays I'm stuck with either Staples or Kinko's, which are miles-away, expensive, and very incompetent. One major reason I shifted to 11x17" originals; that way I only have to deal with miles-away and incompetent.

Actually, for most jobs from my office there are just a few copies needed, and I run them off myself on my Epson inkjet printer...

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