I’m looking for a faster way to add a single entity to a new group. In other words, nesting an existing group in a new one, just for the purposes of model heirarchy. My current method is to draw some random line in order to have something to group the target entity with – then I group the 2 entities, and delete the line. Not terribly slow, but I’m wondering if anyone has any nifty tricks to do this more quickly. Sketchup doesn’t allow grouping of single entities, but I wonder if an extension could enable this.
I do this a lot in the earlier stages of setting up a model. For example: modeling some wall framing, which will eventually be part of a wall assembly group which contains other child groups (framing, cladding, etc). I like to go ahead and establish the model’s final heirarchy so that I don’t have to re-organize later.
Now that I think about it, this could be a good little project for learning the API. Have a hotkey to ‘Nest group’ or whatnot, and maybe pop up a naming dialog as with the ‘Make named group’ extensions.
edit: LOL… ThomThom’s extension ‘Make Named Group’ actually allows this. Problem solved!
I also like how this extension would encourage me to keep everything named as I go along. Note that the extension does automatically assign a unique suffix to the name if the name already exists, just like the native ‘Make component’ command – e.g. wall assy#7.
edit#1: And also Dave taught me a more direct solution – that you can simply create empty groups, via either right click or menu. You can’t group a single selected entity, but you can make an empty group.
When I need to add components to a nested object I create the new component, cut it to the clipboard, open the parent component and use Paste in place to add the child component. All native and a couple of simple keyboard shortcuts. Since I only use components, they all get suitable names from the beginning.
I appreciate the suggestions, but I think I need to clarify: I’m trying to make a single existing group part of a new empty group. When selecting a single group, you can’t use the ‘make group’ command, not via hotkey nor via menu – as if the program were saying “sorry bozo, that’s already a group.” And ‘make component’ doesn’t nest it either – it converts the group to a component. But the ‘Make Named Group’ extension isn’t restricted in this way, and so that will serve my purposes.
However @DaveR has me revisiting the idea of using components for everything. I haven’t thought about that in a while. The only reason I can’t think to not do that, is to make Outliner ‘readable’, so that you can quickly see which entities might be cloned, vs. which ones are unique. But then again, if I want to nest a component within a new empty component, I would need some new workaround . And I might end up making a mess of nested components being cloned in weird ways.
In case anyone is still confused (and assuming I’m not the confused one), here is an explicit example of what I might do with Make Named Group, following my typical predetermined heirarchy for an architectural project.
I have a wall, and it is a group, which contains other groups
I want to nest that wall group in a new, empty group (e.g. I might want two tags which affect those child groups. Or various other reasons to create a group which will contain more entities later).
Can’t do this with native tools. Must workaround either by temporarily adding a second entity along with it, or with ‘Make Named Group’ extension.
Here you go. In this case I made a nested group instead of a component and put two components inside it but it could just as easily be one object. Keyboard shortcuts for Cut and Paste in Place.
Be careful. This sort of thing gets some users’ knickers in a twist. I’ve only been using SketchUp daily for about 21 years but I have yet to see any advantage of a group over a component for my modeling. But I’m only telling you what I find works for my workflow. You do what works for you.
In your GIF, how did you create the nested group? I do use paste in place frequently, to move things around different groups.
Do you ever find yourself mistakenly cloning some nested component because you only made the parent component unique? Or anything like that? I imagine it requires some extra awareness in that regard.
I just right clicked in empty space and chose Create Group. Then I used Paste in Place to paste the components into it.
No. Not yet.
Maybe more awareness but I really think it’s a case of consistency in my modeling. There’s never a question as to what an object is when it’s selected.
In yet other words… if groups are tupperware containers. I’m trying to take a container, which has a bunch of stuff in it, and simply put it into another container.
Oh wow, ok I WAS confused. I never realized you could create an empty group like that. I had only tried it by selecting single entities and then seeing that ‘make group’ is grayed out. Mind blown, and slightly embarassed. Thanks
Just a note on that. Be smart about the way you do that. It often doesn’t make any sense to create multiple levels of nesting and it can just make your work more difficult when you need to make updates. Remember you have to open all of those tupperware containers to get at the tuna salad inside.
Yeah, my work mostly consists of double-clicking and smacking the ESC key I remapped escape to the tilde position for this reason. I’ve been honing my arch workflows for a while and it’s still evolving – seeking that balance between complexity and flexibility.
i’m kind of mid-overhaul right now, actually. here’s the incomplete work in progress for a small house design (some tags are missing, i’m in concept phase)
‘shell’ refers to simple solids representing walls/floor/roof. sometimes i don’t add wall innards, sometimes I convert ‘shells’ to cladding, and sometimes i replace them with more detailed layers.
I encounter a lot of dilemmas such as whether to have separate tags for main level wall framing, 2nd level wall framing… or just “master tags” corresponding to a main level group and a 2nd level group. This is a deep rabbit hole.
It can be a deep rabbit hole. You have to decide how you need to show your models but you could have a tag folder for all Main Level stuff and in it tags for the stuff. You can also add subfolders if needed.
Try to make it so you have good control over the visibility of stuff when you get to LayOut. Might be that you can then work on reducing the number of scenes you need for a given project.
Yeah, I kinda have some ‘global’ tags such as doors/windows, or 2D / 3D tags for door swings, fixture graphics, etc, and some things which I know I’ll want finer control of, like I might need to show upper level floor framing in black, but lower level walls in gray.
For LayOut work, I like to control whatever I can in SketchUp (in terms of visibility, styles, etc), but I def want to try a project where I go full-on LayOut, as an experiment. I do like how LO provides more options for line styles.
Then every now and then I learn something like the ability to create empty groups and realize I’m making things too complicated
There’s a ton of control now in LayOut which has allowed me to reduce the number of scenes I need for a project by more than half. I do not assign dash styles to tags in SketchUp and my SketchUp models only have my working style. No need to bloat the file with a bunch of styles. Much simpler all the way around.
In my opinion, there is a significant drawback. When you export a model to IFC, anything that is a component, even if nested within another, is classified as an IfcBuildingElementProxy. This becomes an issue when sharing a model for collaboration.
If the component contains groups inside it, those groups are exported as geometry but do not receive IFC classification.
Let’s take the example of a door: for me, the door would be the component, and the rest—such as the leaf, frame, and handle—would be groups.
I see the advantage to that. I do end up with a ton of styles in SU, often just slight variations. Is there a way that you save custom style tweaks in LayOut, to reduce repetitious labor between similar pages or projects? Do you just duplicate viewports in that case?
. And I might end up making a mess of nested components being cloned in weird ways.
