The SketchUp Workflow for Architecture: Modeling Buildings, Visualizing Design, and Creating Construction Documents with SketchUp Pro and LayOut

Chapter 9

Introduction to LayOut

SketchUp Pro is a software suite that includes the unrestricted version of SketchUp, as well as the invaluable presentation application LayOut—and StyleBuilder, which is not covered in this book. Although SketchUp Pro is undeniably excellent by itself, SketchUp Pro becomes truly radical when it is paired with LayOut (Figure 9-1).

Figure 9-1: The free version of SketchUp is for hobbyists; SketchUp Pro is for professionals.

What Is LayOut?

In short, LayOut is a multifaceted Presentation tool. It is a page-creation program that has 3D presentation capabilities coupled with 2D Drafting tools (Figure 9-2). In LayOut, you arrange 3D perspective views and scaled 2D orthographic views on a sheet of paper to graphically explain a design. When you’re done, you can use LayOut’s sleek drawing toolset to add informative annotations on top of those views and provide an additional layer of information for your audience (Figure 9-3). With LayOut’s tools, you can quickly and easily add dimensions, text, leader text, callouts, and custom line types.

Figure 9-2: The levels of information in a LayOut presentation include title block, 3D viewport, and annotation.

Figure 9-3: When all of the graphics and annotations are flattened, you have an architectural drawing. ...