Sketchup Layout Construction Documents

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Janie Leverone

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Aug 3, 2024, 2:52:21 PM8/3/24

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When we profiled architect Nick Sonders' amazing use of LayOut to create full sets of construction documents for his houses, we knew we were on to something big. The deluge of "TELL ME IMMEDIATELY HOW HE DID THAT" sentiment that ensued prompted us to follow up in two ways:

Half tutorial, half motivational speech and half religious experience (for SketchUp people, at least), the "Sonder Series" is 150% better than anything else we've created for aspiring LayOut users. If you believe in your heart that your SketchUp models deserve to live on, that CAD drafting separate 2D orthographic views is a terrible way to spend your evenings, and that there has to be a better way, this is your path forward. Pop some corn and kick back for some serious edification.

@architexture you can totally use sketchup now a days for construction documentation. With the incredible amount of awesome 3rd party extensions as part of the extension warehouse in sketchup, sketchup is incredibly powerful. Sketchup is perfectly precise, if you know how to actually use the program, just like any other program. The 3d warehouse is unmatched with an amazing amount of options, details, etc and a lot more people now a days are starting to realize the true power of sketchup. I've noticed there are a lot of people on this forum who like to talk trash or maybe their just young punks. If you don't have any constructive and assertive feedback to give, best keep your mouth shut internet trolls. Sketchup is a wicked program now a days.

I have only made CD's on AutoCAD and Revit never sketch-up I have doodled in sketch-up, made a few designs but never construction documents. I have seen videos on the subject here are some in-depth scenes of using sketch-up for such matters.

Sketchup models are so slow for anything that isn't very simple. And the workflow is basically start over when anything substantial changes. Usually they're not created with much precision - and doing so for anything non-orthogonal is pretty hard.

I guess if you're doing kitchen renovations or a tool shed it would be fine. In my experience it's use is limited to study models and quick modeling to provide perspective views. It wouldn't be so good for anything which requires a team to document, nor anything that is likely to change as the design is developed. The modeler needs to be careful too - wouldn't trust it to most of my coworkers.

Most offices use a fraction of sketchup's capability. I am using revit, but if my choices were typical 2d acad or sketchup, I'd use sketchup / layout for many projects. No, you won't document a 50M project in skp. But the program is plenty "precise" enough to do a lot more than tool sheds.

Saint, I use (grudgingly) all of sketchup, plus a wheelbarrow full of 3rd party plugins & Ruby scripts and I cannot imagine why someone would want to produce CDs out of it. I'm trying to strong-arm my office away from it completely. The Revit, 3DsMax, Showcase wedge is firmly inserted and the crack is getting wider every day.

To your question -- why someone would want to produce CDs out of it ? -- well, it really depends. Producing CD's from SKP has a lot of compelling appeal. For many offices, they build an SKP model, and then essentially start over with CAD docs, so the basic idea of just continuing forward uninterrupted does hold some logic. Also, the program is about 500 bucks -- a tiny fraction of the Autodesk Suite. And, there is a simplcity factor -- something that makes even more sense after you've clicked through 72 Revit dialog boxes to adjust seven controls over a particular wood grain.

Sketchup Layout has improved, and viewports update, decent doc tools, etc etc. , it's really pretty cool -- not sure what midlander is talking about when saying "nor anything that is likely to change as the design is developed'. Changes aren't a big problem.

Our office tried a kind of pilot for SketchUp + Layout on a small custom hung-ceiling element (we were the architects of record for the whole thing, this was just a small part). It seemed to be alright for something that small in scale, but I believe the general consensus was that it took too long and would not be viable on anything much bigger than that. The guy who executed that portion was our top SU guy in the office; other than him I think maybe 2 other people in the office could have even come close to executing it. It included extensive Ruby plugins. Personally I would not even consider SU for construction docs. Since that time (maybe 2 years ago) I've moved myself steadily away from SU and toward Rhino; the precision is significantly better and the software handles larger models much better. No breakdowns either. I'll be curious once I graduate to start seeing if I can setup page layouts relatively easy with it.

Saint, I consider my use of SU full because I've pimped a version of 7-pro with enough 3rd party goodies to the point where I can model meshes and splines with ease for example... not that I would given the choice but sometimes that's not up to me. I've not liked the layout option of the newer versions but I can see the appeal since it's lack of financial investment will make many oversee it's draw-backs.

I used it once for that. More just the elevations. Basically, it was a semi-elliptical false faade (think freestanding billboard in front of a square building), evenly spaced control joints and patterns, with a sloped base and topcap. Straight elevatations didn't work. I hate autocad's 3d and don't use Revit. So I modeled it and the tube steel truss in sketchup and dimensioned it in a series of views.

Often, I'll do massing studies using sketchup. So they will some times end up in the final set on something like the cover to show various angles to help elevations and the rest of the set make more sense.

Most students come out knowing enough CAD, Revit and/or Rhino to convince an employer they can draft at an entry-level. Everyone claims they are 10 out of 10 in X software, non-of-them are, maybe level 2 or 3 on average when leaving school, but at least they have a foundation to build on.

SketchUp takes 20 minutes to produce poorly organized models with ineffective grouping,scenes, and layer management. If people would treat SketchUp with the same precision as the do Revit or AutoCAD, then it would be just as accurate. But if you move walls freely and off axis then it is problematic. But that's not the result of a bad software.

If you're going to give some quantifiable thing, use years experience with the program. It's also a little suspect if you don't have professional experience, because you do different things. I have used AutoCAD for quite a few years in school, but I didn't do much with sheets or coordination, so I'm really good at some things, and awful at others.

I also think this always comes back to being able to use a program vs. being able to create the content. I don't even mean good design. You can be a pro at how to use 3ds max, know the program inside and out, but that doesn't mean you can make attractive renderings. I know a bunch of people that this applies to.

Long time reader and crawler of the forums here, this came up and decided to drop in. I have completely switched over to SU for construction documents. We are mainly a Residential firm and have designed all of our projects in SU for about 4 years now. Our CD's consist of about 40-50 pages in documents and usually gets down fairly quickly compared to Acad or Rev. Since then over 50 projects have been completed successfully. It can be done, just need to know how to make it all work seamlessly.

toosaturated, that's incorrect. Typically when we do details it consists of 10-13 pages, the rest is sections, interior detailing, and so on. I am not sure whether or not to take your comment serious but our contractors, subcontractors, building departments are loving them. Easy to read and understand.

10-13 pages of detailing? Holy shit, what scale are you drawing these details? And what size sheets are you using? It's prob my fault, but I assume we're talking about arch d. Usually 3-4 pages of details are enough. Most of the details I worked on are typical details with a few that are unique. We try to eliminate any redundancy. Like if we have a section that's already showing an interior elev of a room, we do not show it as another interior elevation.

i would not use SU either based on what ive seen in the office. But I hadnt heard about Ruby plugins. who knows, maybe it works. We model in Rhino cuz Im comfortable with it and the accuracy isnt a problem. drafting is still in ACAD. I dont see that ever changing, unless we switch to REVIT or other BIM soft.

@toosaturated, I understand that desire, but the trades the contractor use take their estimates from the sets they get. If a chunk is missing from interior elevations because you have it covered somewhere else seems a good way to create unnecessary problems. Redundancy is essential to construction. I am in Japan though. Perhaps it is not necessary elsewhere to work that way?

toosaturated, I never scale details so they usually come up Not To Scale. I'm using Arch D. We usually work on homes that are anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 square feet of total space. The last one we turned in was 14,000 square feet. That took 48 pages in a set of Cd's. I'll have to agree with Galloway, while i try and reduce redundancy, i never truly try and eliminate it.

I've done that Saint... Think of a detail that looks more like the assembly details in the Ching books showing how things layer over each other for something like a cap flash. Dimensions aren't important when the detail is about proper watershed and assembly. Or if you aren't familiar with Ching, take a Lego instruction kit as the example.