LayOut Archives | SketchUp for Design

SketchUp 2026.2 Introduces New Analysis Possibilities

May 21, 2026May 20, 2026 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

With the release of SketchUp 2026.2, we are getting our hands on some new analysis tools that expand how we evaluate building models and streamline our project workflows. While the initial 2026 release focused heavily on live collaboration and harmonizing the user interface - and 2026.1 introduced SketchUp AI features - this mid-cycle update delivers several new features alongside highly requested efficiency tweaks (and bug fixes) for both SketchUp and LayOut. For those of us in architectural design and education, these updates offer an excellent toolset to dive deeper into environmental design without ever leaving our familiar conceptual modeling space. The new Analysis Hub and its initial set of tools Introducing the Analysis Hub & Advanced Shadows The headline feature of this release is the introduction of the Analysis Hub. With this toolset, Trimble is giving us a dedicated, central space to study building performance directly inside SketchUp. The first official tool to be featured in this hub is Advanced Shadows. Instead of just toggling...

SketchUp 2026 Has Been Released!

October 11, 2025October 11, 2025 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

SketchUp's new collaboration features (Image source: Trimble) With the 2026 release of SketchUp we are now getting hands-on ability to use more of the features that were teased at the 2024 SketchUp Basecamp Keynotes. While the 2025 version of SketchUp introduced PBR materials, the 2026 version now implements all of the cool collaboration features - like live viewing and commenting (illustrated in the image above). These collaboration features will be very useful for the sweet spot of architectural design where SketchUp shines: Conceptual modeling. With the new features, all members of a project can now engage in a live modeling exercise - complete with a shared visual experience and extensive commenting abilities. This should make it much easier to dial in the perfect design solution. The other major feature - in my view - is a MUCH BETTER LayOut interface. Both SketchUp and Layout (at least on Windows) now have the same user interface with similar visual elements and functionality. That makes not...

Printing To-Scale in SketchUp (My 2024 Update)

April 11, 2024April 10, 2024 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

In this tutorial video I describe various ways how you can print scaled, parallel-projection views from SketchUp for Web as well as SketchUp Pro/Desktop (where I will be using the LayOut software). I cover all the relevant aspects and then show how you can use the PDF file format as an intermediate print file format. This video is an update to my older one on this topic. Since that video was posted, SketchUp for Web has been introduced and printing in SketchUp Pro/Desktop has changed. Hence the need for an update. As I describe in Chapter 6 of my book, printing to scale is very useful for a variety of fabrication tasks, including paper-folding or sheet metal fabrication. You can even combine this very well with my Unwrap and Flatten Faces extension. Tutorial Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPzmSw_tlg...

SketchUp 2024 is Out!

April 5, 2024April 10, 2024 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

A New Graphics Engine, Ambient Occlusion, Improved Trimble Connect Integration, Modeling and File Format Improvements, and Better Error Handling What's New in SketchUp? Introducing a cleaner UI, and Teddy! As of yesterday, the latest version of SketchUp (2024) is available. And as it turns out, this one has several nice & visible new features and others that are more "under the hood". On the first impression side (see image above) there is a cleaner UI: Look at the panels in the default tray and their headings and you can see how the flat graphics now look much cleaner and modern (and more consistent with the web and iPad versions). Now if we could only also have dark mode... There is also a new scale figure, Teddy! Hi There! New Graphics Engine & Ambient Occlusion SketchUp's new graphics engine The new graphics engine is one of these features that - I am guessing - takes a lot of work to implement and then when everything goes right, things...

Just Released: Third Edition of “Architectural Design with SketchUp”

July 5, 2023July 5, 2023 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

I am very excited to be announcing the release of the third edition of my book “Architectural Design with SketchUp”! You can as of now find this new edition on Amazon, Wiley and everywhere else where books are sold. It is available as full-color paperback and e-book editions. Since the publication of the second edition in 2015, many changes have happened to SketchUp and in the larger realm of architectural software: Trimble introduced a web version of SketchUp as well as an iPad version that has proven very popular. Real-time rendering options have increased in availability, and point cloud modeling is now often used on renovation projects. Beyond that, many new extensions have been published, others have gone away or have been replaced with built-in functionality, and their underlying Ruby engine has received new and updated capabilities. All of these changes made an update to the second edition necessary, which led to me thoroughly editing and rewriting the entire text. I updated screenshots...