29. We want to select only the rectangle and not the chair, so click the rectangle on or near an edge, away from the chair itself. Drag the right vertical edge until the rectangle includes the text.
30. The last task is to center all of the objects (model, rectangle, and text) on the page. Objects in LayOut can be selected like in SketchUp: either use Ctrl/Cmd+A, or press Shift and click objects one by one, or drag a right-to-left selection window like this:
NOTE: Just like in SketchUp, a left-to-right selection window selects all objects completely within the selection rectangle. A right-to-left window selects everything inside and partially inside the selection window.
31. Right-click on any selected object and choose Center / Horizontally on Page.
32. Click in blank space. Now the first page of the LayOut presentation is perfect (for now).
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
16
5. Change the lower-left viewport to a Left view.
6. To change the top-left viewport, double-click and orbit the chair to face toward the right, as it appeared before.
7. In addition to text, the other type of annotation you can add is a label. Click the Label icon, or choose Tools / Label.
8. Set the font, size, etc. in the Text Style tray or the Font window, and click a point on the isometric chair where you want the label to start.
9. Double-click where you want the text to start.
10. LayOut provides a few options for the label text. Because this object is a component in SketchUp, you can choose to use the component’s definition (its name) as the label. The component definition in this case is “LayOut Chair” - the name of the model you imported from the 3D Warehouse into the blank SketchUp model, at the start of this chapter.
TIP: You can check (or edit) a component’s definition in SketchUp by right-clicking on it and choosing Entity Info. If an object being labelled has no name or other properties defined, there will be no default text option. Label text options will be covered in “Smart Labels” on page 148.
Chapter 2: SketchUp Setup, LayOut Viewports
33
. . . so click where shown, to get the 62 degree angle.
30. The angular dimension has its own default style, so to match its style to the ones already there, activate the Style tool, click one of the linear dimensions . . .
31. . . . then click the angular dimension.
32. If you want to adjust this dimension’s extension lines, use the same Select tool / double-click method to edit its control points. (Angular dimensions also have several control points, each of which performs a different function. Try dragging around various control points to see what they do. You can always use Ctrl/Cmd+Z to undo.)
NOTE: Later in this book you’ll see two other ways to set tool styles. These will be shown in “Using Templates to Set Default Tool Styles” on page 73 and “Scrapbooks and Styles” on page 198.
Here’s what we have so far for the yard’s overall dimensions:
33. Linear LayOut dimensions (not angular ones) remain attached to points in the model. So if you move the model view around, the text of each linear dimension stays in place, while the dimensions lines move around to accommodate. Give it a try and see! This works on isometric views as well.
Chapter 2: SketchUp Setup, LayOut Viewports
45
5. For each of the three copied viewports, switch to a different standard view (Left, Right, Back).
6. To edit one of the copied text strings, activate Select and double-click it. Its orientation switches temporarily bank to horizontal (it’s easier to edit this way).
7. Change “North” to “East.”
8. Click away from the text, and the orientation returns to vertical.
9. Fix the other two text strings the same way.
Third (and Last) Inside PageThe last inside page of our LayOut presentation will show an interior plan of the first floor of the house. Sectioning a model can’t be done directly in LayOut, so we need to add a sectioned view to the SketchUp model.
Section View and Scene1. Return to the SketchUp model and display the
“House Only” scene.
Chapter 3: Templates: Title Blocks, Pages, Layers
61
15. Make a copy of the text box straight down, so that there are two empty grid squares between the text boxes.
16. Select should still be the active tool. Double-click the copied text to edit it, and it switches back to horizontal for editing.
17. Replace the address text with two lines describing what Acme does.
18. Click outside the text to complete it, and it goes back to vertical.
19. Select the lower text box again, and click Align Right.
Chapter 3: Templates: Title Blocks, Pages, Layers
69
15. Open the Pages tray and create “Cover Page.” Move this page above Page 1.
The cover page is now the open page, and it contains everything from the three layers that are shared across all pages. (To verify this, you can turn off and on these layers.) But we want these objects to be on the “Cover Page” layer instead.
16. Select all objects on the cover page. These objects should be found on the two shared layers.
17. Press Ctrl / Cmd + C to copy all of these objects.18. Turn off the visibility of the two shared layers. This
should make the “Cover Page” layer active.
19. Press Ctrl / Cmd + V to paste the copied elements back in, and now they are on the “Cover Page” layer.
20. Adjust the objects on this page to look more like a cover page. In my example, I rotated the logo to be horizontal, and moved it to the bottom of the page. The large rectangle at the top was widened to meet the page borders, the “Project” box was widened, and the other rectangles at the bottom were erased.
21. To finalize this template before saving it, make “Default” the active layer. Also lock the “Cover Page” and “Title Block” layers so that their contents cannot be erased or edited.
Chapter 3: Templates: Title Blocks, Pages, Layers
87
7. Choose File / Send to LayOut. Look in “My Templates” and find the template you saved.
8. Check all pages, which should all display the correct scenes, styles, and scales.
In this example, even the dimensions should seem more or less OK.
9. To check to see whether the dimensions are attached to their views, move one of the views around, to verify that the dimension lines follow.
10. Changes to dimensions are pretty easy. In the Top view, the vertical dimension can be changed to extend to the front of the wine fridge. Activate Select and double-click this dimension to edit its control points. The point that will control the dimension’s reference is indicated below.
Chapter 4: Rendering SketchUp Views
103
8. Move the image back by the same distance (negative this time), and now you have a view with modified edges as well as the original background and textures.
Page 3: Vector, Modify FacesThis view uses a neat trick: starting with no SketchUp edges, and re-creating the edges in LayOut.1. Open Page 3. For this view, switch the style to “No
Edges.”
2. Set the rendering to Vector.
There are no background or edge changes to note here, but the green roof faces lose their texture image, and become solid green. (Hybrid rendering would have preserved this texture, but all faces would be part of an image that could not be edited within LayOut.) Because no edges are included with this view, hybrid rendering would be no different than raster.
3. With vector rendering, both faces and edges can be edited. Explode and ungroup until each face is a separate object. (I had to ungroup twice.)
4. Select all of the faces, which are now LayOut shapes with solid fill and no stroke. Turn on Stroke and set the edge color and thickness.
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
118
13. We want to erase the first line, (the jagged one), but that line is “under” the new line. So activate Select, right-click on the new spline or on the shape inside it, and use Arrange / Send Backward to move it down “behind” the jagged lines.
14. Now you can erase the jagged line. 15. To edit this smooth curve, display its control points.
You can see one at each point you clicked.
16. Move, add, or drag control points to improve the curve.
17. Copy the kitchen view and the new clipping shape to the lower right corner of the page.
18. Clip this view, and increase its size. If you remember the scale you used when resizing the oven view, you can use that same scale here. Then set the shape’s border.
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
122
2. The other style is “Monochrome.” Make sure this style is active, then send to LayOut.
3. In LayOut, create a “Shaded” and “Monochrome” layer. “Shaded” should be on top. Move the current view to “Monochrome.”
4. Copy the view, and blank and lock the “Monochrome” layer.
5. WIth the “Shaded” layer active, paste in the view. Then create a clipping shape with no fill, using whatever drawing tool you like.
6. Clip the view, display the “Shaded with Textures” style, and give the clipped view a border.
7. Turn the “Monochrome” layer back on.
Clipping PlanesUntil now, the exercises in this chapter have focused on how to use clipping shapes in LayOut to control what portion of a SketchUp model appears in LayOut. This section shows how to use clipping planes to set views and create scenes in SketchUp, in order to control what portions of the model will appear in LayOut. We’ve already done a bit of this in Chapter 2, where we set up layers to control object visibility. This section will go much more in-depth, demonstrating different techniques for hiding and showing specific objects. These techniques involve:
• Fog
• Section planes
• Rectangles for hiding
• Position Camera tool
Chapter 5: Clipping Masks and Clipping Planes
127
Smokestacks SceneThe smokestacks will be viewed from the left, from the perspective of a camera located on Building B facing toward Building C. There’s a lot to hide in this view - everything behind, in front, and to the right of the smokestacks.1. Go back to the “Parallel Projection” scene. The
section plane from the previous scene appears - either ignore it or hide it, just don’t erase it.
2. First, we’ll hide what’s in front of the smokestacks. Place a section plane along the left wall of Building C.
As before, this shows what we don’t want to see.
3. So Reverse the section cut.
4. Now we want to create the camera view by positioning the camera along the right edge of Building B’s roof, facing toward the smokestacks. This is easiest to do in Top view.
Chapter 6: Labels, Dimensions, Smart Labels
141
13. Press Ctrl / Option and drag the new control point, to make the line into a smooth curve.
14. Click away from the leader line, to complete the leader line changes and go back to general label editing (as opposed to control point editing).
15. When you create a label, the text and its leader are connected. To verify this, move the text around - the leader should follow.
16. There are several points around the text where the leader can be attached. By default, the anchor point is at the center of the right or left side of the text (the right side in this case, since the arrow points to the right). To change the anchor point, move the cursor to the end of the leader line where it meets the text. The cursor symbol should include a small blue dot.
17. Drag this point to the top right green anchor point.
18. Now if you move the text, the leader goes with it, connected to the top right corner of the text box.
19. This move makes for a strange looking curvy leader, so double-click to edit the leader’s control points.
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
158
5. When you click away from the window once, you can see that the “itemcode” attribute is listed, and the corresponding text is listed below that.
6. When you click away a second time, the label is complete.
7. Now start a new label on the cabinet whose properties we looked at in SketchUp. Because the previous label used the “itemcode” attribute, LayOut assumes you want to use that attribute this time as well.
8. But instead, choose the “Model” attribute (for this component, it’s the closest text we have to a model number).
Here’s the completed cabinet label:
9. Since none of the refrigerator text options was ideal, we can go back to SketchUp and fix one of the attributes. In SketchUp, open the Component Attributes window for the refrigerator and find the attribute for the text currently being used in its LayOut label: “ItemCode.”
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
174
6. For the patterns to align with one another, use the Style tool to sample the pattern in one room . . .
. . . and apply it to the other.
7. Now we’ll make a rectangle for the plot of land the house will sit on. Create a rectangle surrounding the floor plan, which has the same pattern and fill as the room you just sampled. Use Arrange / Send to Back to place this new rectangle “under” the house.
8. Find a grass pattern from the “Site Patterns” category and apply it to this new rectangle. Because these patterns are based on graphics, and not simple black or white linework, changing the fill color or translucency has no effect on the pattern.
Chapter 7: Patterns and Hatching
183
8. There are a couple of ways to make changes to a material. For this material, click the House icon in the Materials window, to open the list of in-model materials. Then find the swatch for the wavy line pattern, and double-click on it.
9. This opens the material editing window. Change the image size to make it 3 or 4 times larger. You can also change the base color - light blue is used here.
The material updates as you’re editing it.
10. When you’re finished editing, go back to the Select tab of the Materials window (PC) or click the Close button at the bottom of the Edit Material window (Mac).
11. Close the group.12. Create a scene for this plan view, which is what
you’d use in LayOut.
Chapter 8: Scrapbooks and Shapes
197
13. Unlock this layer.
14. Change the text at the top to describe the new arrows, changing the text bounding box if needed.
15. Lock the layer again.
16. Use File / Insert to bring in the first arrow. Remove its background and set the style to Hidden Line.
17. Make three more copies of this view.
18. Change the scene of each copied view.
19. Save and close the “Arrows” file once again, and you can find the new page in the Scrapbooks tray.
What if you wanted to create the arrows in LayOut? 1. In a blank LayOut file, use LayOut’s various Arc
tools to create one of the arrows. 2. Use the Join tool to create a single arrow shape from
the chain of arcs, and set a Stroke and Fill (or no fill).
SketchUp 2015 Hands-On: LayOut 2015
204
15. This works the same way: change the text, then edit the line’s control points to touch both the model and the text.
16. Remember, you can add or delete control points. To change this to a two-segment leader, drag one of the middle control points onto another one.
NOTE: As we’ve seen, you can also use the Ctrl / Option key while editing control points, to make curved leader lines.
17. Now insert the bounded text . . .
. . . and place it here.
18. Edit the text and start typing, without line breaks. Because the text is bounded, the line breaks are inserted automatically.
Chapter 8: Scrapbooks and Shapes
211
6. To make the shape easier to use in LayOut, erase its face, leaving just the edges. (To do this, right-click on the face and choose Erase.)
7. Save the SketchUp model.8. In LayOut, edit the clouds scrapbook you created
before. Use File / Insert to bring in the SketchUp cloud model you just saved. Move it into blank space on the scrapbook page. Because it has no face, it is not filled.
9. So that scrapbook users will be able to differentiate this cloud from the other ones we created directly in LayOut, add some text indicating that this cloud is 3D. (Meaning its position and orientation can be changed, since it comes from SketchUp.)
10. Save and close the cloud scrapbook file.11. In a new LayOut file, insert one of the models used
earlier, such as the Hopkins campus. Bring in the 3D cloud from the scrapbook.
12. This cloud is a SketchUp model, so orbit the cloud to an isometric view. The bits of the cloud “closer” to you will appear larger, which can make for an interesting looking clipping shape.
13. Adjust the orientation of the SketchUp model of the campus as well, if needed.
