2D geometry has shifting color

Mcgordon:
Much of what you have said goes over my head, but I can say
you are seeing very different things in SketchUp Pro than I am seeing in SketchUp for Web. I have attached a screenshot that shows component 4 as horizontal and cut opening.

I see precision and snapping length both of 1/16".

The “X” at the axes is a great tip, and I take your point about drawing on an open floor component.

Thanks.

Had a very quick look at the working model. For a relatively small model, the file size is large.

In total you have about 106K edges, of which almost two thirds are loose geometry, which as I said earlier is poor modelling practice, and an accident waiting to happen when you try to amend anything.

loose edges contributes
61278 edges to the model
(61278 from each of 1 instances)

Here they are highlighted in magenta (thanks to @slbaumgartner and a trial plugin he’s developing).

Even purging the model (Window/Model Info/ Statistics) only reduces the edge count by about 40%.

That still doesn’t account for the file size, I think.

Have you imported any 3D warehouse model with large textures? Or used any large textures yourself?

The Goldilocks plugin might help you find them. Haven’t time to find and install it myself tonight. Off to bed, too late as usual!

You’re seeing the same as I do in the Web version: horizontal and cut opening. In Pro that’s showing Glue to None and Cut Opening. It’s a bug in one of the programs or something wrong with that file.

I must have got mixed up with another file, you’re quite right that your precision is set to 1/16" and it shows that in Pro and Free. Your length snapping is still on though, which can cause problems with alignment. It hasn’t happened in that file, just some general advice.
Edit: It was your file, but I’d changed the unit to mm and the precision changed to 0.0001 mm

  1. It is troubling to hear there is so much problematic loose geometry in my working model. Is it correct to say that EVERYTHING should be either grouped or made a component? If I draw a door swing arc, it must be grouped or made a component?

  2. In the magenta colored image above, the only important parts are the three areas in the upper right half of the image. The three floor plans at the lower left and all the other small bits are sketches that will not be further developed. Can I repair the important parts going back thru them and grouping everything that is not already a component, or must I re-draw them from scratch? Would it help to divide the three important parts each into a separate model?

  3. Would it help to purge the model as described above? Under " Model Info" in the right panel I see no option to do that. I purge components frequently.

  4. I can’t explain the large file size. I have not used any textures as far as I am aware. All I have downloaded from 3D Warehouse is two human figures of low KB to indicate scale.

  5. I am confused about snapping to length. It seemed to me that setting it to 1/8" would help accuracy, as I could be sure that a fractional dimension was a specific number of eighths of an inch, rather than possibly 5/32" or 17/64". Snapping to length has twice been mentioned as problematic, and was once recommended to be used only early and then turned off. How early should I turn it off? Should I leave it off from the beginning?

Thanks.

It’s good practice. It prevents geometry from different parts of your model from sticking together, and being dragged unexpectedly when you are moving or editing something else.

It depends how easy it is to select the edges and faces you want all to be part of the same component. (I, like DaveR, almost never use Groups, but there are some uses and advantages in using Groups, some but not much of the time).

While you are fixing the model, you might make a component or group of a bunch of loose geometry where you can’t easily select those parts which would correspond to an object in the real world. Then having isolated all of that in a temporary component or group, re-model new parts, using Make Component when you finish making one part, using the grouped geometry in the former drawing for reference. Get in the habit of immediately giving a meaningful name to each component as you make it. Try NOT to just press Enter to accept the default name Component#1, Component#2, …etc. Especially in a large model, you will find it much more helpful to be able to identify things by name in either or both of the Component Browser or Outliner. It’s harder to give a Group an Instance name so quickly. You have to make it first, then separately highlight it and add or edit the name in Entity Info.

It makes your model MUCH easier to edit if each component corresponds to a real part of what you are modelling. So a Door, a Window, an external Wall or an internal Wall in a building could each be a component. Sometimes it may make sense to have (say) all external walls as loose geometry inside one component, especially if all the sections of wall are the same height, and you can pushpull them up from a single complex face. But sometimes, you may want or need different parts to be separate components.

Even a door swing could be made a component, and assigned a tag/layer so you can turn it on in (say) plan view, or off in a perspective view. Or if you always want to show it every time you show a door, it could be just a loose arc and edge inside the door component.

Thanks, I will try to get things cleaned up.

I find it challenging just to keep track of my current batch of about 30 components. I did not know groups could be named. Does that help keep track of them in any way, such as the component list in the right panel?

I am using SketchUp for Web. It is my understanding that Outliner is not included in it. I have watched a video tutorial about Outliner and it looks like it is essential for me if I am to organize a model of growing complexity with groups and components, especially if they are nested. My budget is very limited, but it looks like I must buy a subscription to Sketchup Shop just so I can use Outliner, unless you have a better suggestion.

Thanks.

It may be helpful to name Groups. But they do not appear in the Component browser.

If some of your components are nested, in all of the desktop versions (but not in Free or Shop, as far as I can see) you can toggle between seeing all the subcomponents and just the top level ones in Component browser, by checking or unchecking Expand. The option appears when you click the right arrow top right in the Components browser.

I thought at first that Outliner was included in the web version, since I can see it there, but I forgot I have the Pro version of SU which allows use of Shop, not just Free.

If your use of Sketchup is personal, and not commercial, you might like to try the older desktop version SU Make 2017. It was the last desktop version which is free for non-commercial use. It DOES include Outliner, and though it doesn’t have quite all the functionality of the latest SU version it works fine.

You can get Make from here.

The interface looks different from the Web Free version but the functionality is extremely similar. Most of the Tutorials illustrate the use of the desktop versions.

Make has the principal advantage over either web version of being able to use plugins, which can perform some operations that are very much more difficult using the native tools alone. It has almost if not quite all of the features of SU Free - I can’t think of any it doesn’t have at all, but there have been some improvements in later versions of SU both desktop and web which may not be in Make.

But if you are using SU for commercial purposes, then you need to be using either Pro or Shop.

Many people choose to manage without Outliner, but it certainly does make life easier in a larger model.

I downloaded SketchUp Make 2017. I don’t see Outliner in the right panel. Also when I tried opening my existing model, it says I must download a newer version.

Thanks.

In SketchUp Free, when you download the model file, choose “2017” and you should be able to open it in Make 2017.
Click the Folder Icon, then Download, then choose 2017.

To see the Outliner, Click the Window Menu → Default Tray → Outliner
Tick the box to make it visible.

That works great, thanks. Outliner works and I see several aspects of Make that I prefer to SketchUp for Web. The graphics are not as good, but it appears that after saving a model in Make, I can still open it in Web if I want to see the better graphics. If I switch to Make and after a while don’t like it, are you aware of any issues with returning the model to Web?

Thanks.

I don’t think there are any - all Sketchup versions can open models from earlier versions, and Web and Desktop use identical file formats. If you edit a 2017 Make model in the Web app, and just save it, it will save in v2020. But you can still download it, and tell the download what version you want it to be.

Eneroth has a plugin on Extension Warehouse (Windows only, though that isn’t a problem for you) which will open later versions in an earlier one - Open Newer Versions.

I have been working in 2D on part of my model to get it organized with groups and components in Outliner. The attached model shows this part with, I believe, everything grouped and componented correctly in Outliner under " C/S MAIN E-W". Have I done this correctly? (All the other parts of my model are hidden).

Then I had a problem. The left (west) and right (east) walls are separately organized. I want to add a roof connecting the two, and I want the geometry to be interconnected so I can paint some of the diamond shapes created at the intersections of walls and roof, and remove the parts of the walls above the roof. I can see no other way to do this than to explode all the organized groups and components in the walls, do all the roof work, then re-organize everything. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

… it isn’t

2017 7.9 TAGS CLEANED UP, OUTLINER DUN ON C_S.skp (2.4 MB)

I am now a believer in organizing groups and components, and it seems to me that Outliner is essential for that. I appreciate the tip that Make 2017 is free and has Outliner. I worked with Make 2017 for a while and like the Outliner, but the general interface is different from the Web version to which I am accustomed. This is difficult for me and costs me a lot of time. So I decided to pay for Shop for Web just to get Outliner and keep the Web interface.

But I am appalled to see that apparently Shop Outliner lacks the functionality of right cliking on an item in Outliner to pop up a context menu of options. The most important of these unavailable options is Rename, but also Hide, Erase, Flip and more are unavailable. I know these can be accessed by other means, but removing them from Shop Outliner makes it’s Outliner much less useful than in Make 2017.

Am I missing something, is there a way to obtain this functionality in Shop? Or should I get a refund on Shop and bang my head against the wall until I get used to Make’s interface?

Thanks.

clearly you will benefit from spending some time learning some time learning Sketchup and working with it in a controlled environment. These tutorials are by the Sketchup people, you will find them at The learning Center

I have spent dozens of hours watching SketchUp video tutorials and reading SketchUp help topics; including Sketchup Fundamentals at the Learning Center. I may not remember it all, but I am 100% sure right click functionality in Shop Outliner was never mentioned.

I appreciate and am grateful for the expert help offered here, and I do not post a question here until I have spent at least an hour (and often much more) trying to answer it my self.

Thanks.

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