How to set up SketchUp scenes for LayOut

Start with groups, components and tags

LayOut shows and hides parts of your model by tag. So before you make scenes, check that the model splits up cleanly.

• Put objects in groups or components, and put the tag on the group, not on the raw faces and edges inside it. Tagged loose geometry hides in unexpected ways. See organizing with tags.
• Use a few tags for the parts you'll want to show or hide on a sheet, such as structure, furniture, site and annotation.
• Avoid hiding things with Hide. A LayOut viewport can switch tags on and off, but not hidden objects.

Set up one scene per drawing

Each LayOut viewport points at a SketchUp scene. Plan the drawing set first: usually a plan per level, two or more elevations, a section and an overall 3D view. For each one:

1. Set up the view in SketchUp: camera, style, tag visibility and any section plane.
2. For plans, elevations and sections, choose Camera › Parallel Projection and look straight along an axis (the Standard Views help here). LayOut can only set a drawing scale like 1:50 on a parallel projection view.
3. Open the Scenes panel and click Add Scene.
4. Click Show Details and name the scene for what it shows, such as “Ground floor plan”.
5. Check the saved properties. Camera Location, Visible Tags, Active Section Planes and Style and Fog matter most. A plan scene without its section plane shows the whole building; a scene without its camera moves every time you orbit.

Turn off the display of section planes before you save a section scene, so the plane itself doesn't print on the sheet.

Keep scenes current as the model changes

A scene doesn't save itself. When you change a view and want the scene to keep it, select the scene and click Update Scene in the Scenes panel.

Watch for new tags. A tag you add after making your scenes is visible in every scene until you update each one. That's a common reason for furniture or reference geometry to turn up on a plan.

Why LayOut scenes stop updating

There are two usual causes.

The reference is out of date. If you edit the model without opening it from LayOut, LayOut keeps showing the old version. Choose File › Document Setup on macOS or Window › Document Setup on Windows, select References, pick the highlighted model and click Update. To skip this next time, right-click the viewport in LayOut and choose Open with SketchUp, then save there.

The viewport overrides the scene. If you orbit, zoom or change tags or style inside a LayOut viewport, LayOut stops following the scene for those settings, and later changes to the scene in SketchUp don't show. In the SketchUp Model panel, an overridden section has a darker background and a Reset button. Click Reset to follow the scene again. Make view changes in SketchUp and update the scene, not in the viewport.