what’s new in SketchUp 2020? – Finally, Sketchup Pro 2020 has been released on January 28th. So let’s discover Sketchup 2020 new features, review, trailer, and tutorial.
The latest release of the desktop version of SketchUp, SketchUp Pro, has a number of new features added to both SketchUp and Layout, so in this article, I’m going to share what new features we got, and what other improvements have been made. This release only affects SketchUp Pro and Layout. It does not affect SketchUp Free or SketchUp Shop.
Table of Contents
What’s new in SketchUp 2020?
Layers are now called Tags in SketchUp 2020
Layers in SketchUp don’t really behave the same way as they do in other programs, and they never have. They don’t protect entities, they only toggle visibility. So, to make that more clear, Layers have been renamed to tags.
To be clear: Nothing has changed about the functionality of layers, they have literally just been renamed to something new. Tags behave the exact same way layers have behaved in previous versions.
Now, instead of Layer0, the default tag has been renamed to untagged.
Note: Layers have also been renamed to tags in SketchUp for web. (SketchUp Free and SketchUp Shop)
The only thing I don’t like about the name “tag”, is that usually in other software that uses the term “tag”, you are able to assign more than one tag to an object. But in this case, as you probably already know, you can only assign one layer tag per object.
(Side note: Is it just me, or does the Classifier tool icon kinda look like…tags? )
Tags in LayOut in SketchUp 2020
You can now control the visibility of your SketchUp model layers tags from right inside of Layout! Just select a viewport, then view the SketchUp Model panel in the Default Tray.
This is a step in the right direction, reducing your reliance upon creating scenes in SketchUp ahead of time for Layout. The entire SketchUp Model panel has been reconfigured in Layout as well.
(Side Note: I suspect the renaming of SketchUp layers to tags coinciding with being able to control tags inside Layout was partly an attempt to avoid confusion when trying to differentiate between LayOut layers and SketchUp layers. Just my thoughts…)
Now, you can override specific property sets in the SketchUp Model panel, while letting other property sets remain controlled by the scene assigned to the viewport. If you’d like to revert your changes back to the scene’s configuration, you can click the reset button on the property, or for the entire viewport.
These are some great improvements that will let you create Layout documents more quickly than before. But I’m not entirely sure I’ll be abandoning scenes altogether… One reason is a major improvement made to how scenes treat hidden geometry and hidden objects.
Hidden Geometry vs Hidden Objects in SketchUp 2020
Now, you have the ability to toggle hidden objects independently of hidden geometry in the style settings. For example, you can hide edges and faces in your model, and turn off Hidden Geometry, so they aren’t shown. But if you want, you can turn on Hidden Objects in order to see hidden groups and components in the model.
Objects are now officially defined as groups, components, and section planes. In other words, “The things that appear in the Outlines.”
Hidden Objects in Scenes in SketchUp 2020
Previously, scenes could only remember the hidden state of top-level entities. This was really confusing because, in the Scenes panel, it clearly shows Hidden Geometry can be saved in a scene, but never clarified that it can’t save the visibility state of entities nested inside a group/component.
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Now that SketchUp distinguishes between hidden geometry and hidden objects, when you save a scene with Hidden Geometry & Objects checked, it will save the visibility state of every single object in your model, even if it’s nested! (Just like before, hidden geometry only gets saved with top-level geometry.)
UPDATE 5/4/2020: In the 2020.1 update, the Scenes panel has now separated Top Level Hidden Geometry from Hidden Objects
I’m glad that nested hidden geometry state isn’t saved in each scene, because imagine if you wanted to hide some edges between a floor and wall, so they appear seamless. If SketchUp remembered the hidden state of geometry in your model, that would mean any time you want to permanently hide some edges, you’d have to hide them then update the scene.
Then activate your next scene, hide them again, update the scene. Repeat this redundant task over and over. What a pain that would be! In this new update, SketchUp only remembers the hidden state of nested objects, not nested geometry.
This will reduce the need to create redundant layers tags for objects just to be able to control their visibility. Now, you can just hide the objects directly.
On the other hand, this kind of gives you another reason to continue using scenes to configure your Layout viewports. You can’t control hidden geometry from in Layout, so you’re forced to do it in SketchUp and save it as a scene.
The Outliner in SketchUp 2020
The Outliner panel has also been updated with a new column to toggle visibility of objects, so you don’t have to Right-click > Hide an object. You don’t even need to open the target group/component in order to hide it. These makes hiding/ unhiding objects a bit faster, which is great.
You’ll notice all objects in your model are now shown in the Outliner, even if their tag is hidden. (Previously, if you hid a layer, those objects would disappear from the Outliner).
Personally, I don’t like this. I prefer the old behavior. But I would’ve been happy if they had added the ability to filter the Outliner to only show objects with visible tags. Unfortunately, the filter still only works with object names. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could filter the Outliner by other attributes too?
Objects appear differently in the Outliner depending on how they are hidden.
- Objects that are hidden directly will have their name appear in italics and in light gray, but the object icon and the eye icon will remain black.
- Objects with hidden tags will appear in a light gray color.
Relinking Viewports in SketchUp 2020
In Layout, you can now relink a single viewport to a different SketchUp model, without affecting any of the other viewports in your document. Previously, if you relinked one viewport, all viewports referencing the same model would be relinked too.
So if you wanted to relink a viewport, you’d have to delete it and start from scratch getting the scale and scene set.
Now, just Right-click a viewport > Relink Model Reference or click on the Relink button in the SketchUp Model panel.
If you do want to relink all viewports referencing a single model, you just need to go to File > Document Setup > References.
Disable Edit Mode in SketchUp 2020
In Layout, you can disable the ability to enter edit mode in viewports. Go to Edit > Preferences > General > Enable SketchUp model editing.
If you use scenes to configure your viewports, you never have a reason to jump into edit mode, but it can happen by accident and mess up your entire viewport. Now, you can disable it so it never happens.
Object Manipulation in SketchUp 2020
In SketchUp, we have even more inference points to help us move things. Now, grips appear at the corners of the bounding box when using the Move (M) or rotate (Q) tool. You can snap to these grips even if they are obstructed from view.
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The object will temporarily switch to XRay mode automatically, enabling you to see and snap to the grip. This makes it a lot easier to move or rotate objects.
Wait, there’s more! If you tap the down arrow, you’ll cycle through several other inference point collections: (UPDATE: SketchUp 2020.1 switched this to the ALT key.)
- Corners: Inferences at the corners of the bounding box
- Midpoints: Inferences at the midpoints of each bounding box edge.
- Centers: Inferences at the centers of each bounding box face.
- Object center: A single inference at the center of the bounding box.
Unfortunately, if you have a complex object with a lot of end points and edges, it can be hard to prioritize the snapping to the bounding box.
Also, objects will automatically become transparent as you move them if their point is obstructed from view. This makes it incredibly easy to move an object into the corner of the room and reduces the amount of orbiting you need to do.
Other noteworthy improvements in SketchUp 2020
- Extension Warehouse – If you haven’t already noticed, the Extension Warehouse has been completely rebuilt. It was really slow previously, but it seems to be quite an improvement so far.
- Show Hidden Tags – If you right-click an object in the Outliner that has a hidden tag, you’ll now see an option to Show Hidden Tags, which will turn on the visibility of the Tag that is assigned to the object.
- Rename via Double-click – In the Outliner, you now have the ability to rename a group or component by double-clicking on the name. This feature is actually really buggy and inconsistent. Sometimes double-clicking will open the object, other times it will activate rename.
- New Unit Types – Yards, Gallons, and Liters have been added as unit types.
How to get Sketchup 2020 Pro Full Version?
You can download Sketchup Pro 2020 for Mac and Windows from the official Website. You can also try Sketchup 2020 free for 30 days with trial version or Or you can use SketchUp 2020 Pro full version with the link below
Download Sketchup 2020 Pro or Download sketchup 2020 crack version
This is the most important feature in Sketchup Pro 2020. So if you want to discover all others improvements and bug fix check the Official Release Notes
So the information we can convey, hopefully useful about what’s new in SketchUp 2020 above.
