You can mask out a portion of a model or image by creating a clipping mask. When you create a clipping mask, you see only the portion of the model or image that appears within a shape. To create a clipping mask, follow these steps:

In LayOut, you can bend lines and shapes - no telekinetic powers required! All you need is LayOut's path editor. Okay, that might be a tiny fib. You need the path editor and a little knowledge about editing vector graphics and Bézier curves. After you know the tricks, however, bending lines and shapes is easy, and this article explains all the basics to help you get started.

Do your shapes seem a little empty inside? To help your ideas stand out on-screen, use LayOut's Fill features to add a pop of color, and use the Pattern features to create hatches, which symbolize materials in architectural drawings, as shown in the following figure.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models In LayOut, you can customize the color, width, style, and end points for lines, arcs, and freehand lines as well as strokes on shapes, text boxes, dimensions, labels, inserted images, and SketchUp model entities. You find all these options in the Stroke settings on the Shape Style panel.

LayOut provides several options to help you navigate your documents. The Zoom tools () and the Pan Tool () can help you focus on a specific part of your document or give you a wider view of your whole document.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models Need a hexagon shape to show off a model of your bee-keeping facilities? Want a pentagon icon to illustrate a five-phase development plan? LayOut’s Polygon tool enables you to draw a polygon with any number of sides.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models Want to make your LayOut document a little more well-rounded? Perhaps a circle or ellipse can help.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported ModelsRectangles are simple shapes, but for those of you who like pizzaz in your rectangles, LayOut has four rectangle tools. Each tool does a little something different with the rectangles lines or corners, as shown in the following figure:

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported ModelsWhether you want to draw the long arc of history or just a precise section of a circle, LayOut has four arc tools that enable you to draw an arc any way you like:

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported ModelsTo draw the most basic lines in your LayOut document, you can use the orderly Line tool to draw straight lines or its freewheeling cousin, the Freehand tool, to draw loopy swerving lines any which way you like. You see an example of both in the following figure.