I have struggled with this for years, but today I have literally given myself RSI and I am sure there is a way to do what I want.
Is there a way to select one line of a model… Double clicking selects everything on the ‘face’ and triple clicking the whole model… What if I just want to select this:
The way I do it now is to use the Shift, CTL and ALT and work around the model selecting what I want… And when you get straight runs you can drag… But there has to be a way to just select this entire line?
Are there any tools, or even tips that might help me?
If I needed to do that the first thing I would do is soften all those vertical edges between the vertical surfaces. Then I would use TIG-Weld to weld the perimeter edges. You can get TIG-Weld from Sketchucation.
Interesting… I have TIG-Weld but rarely use it… But perhaps I should…
I just tried this out… I softened the verticals (using the Erase tool and CTL)… In some ways this is as much as a pain as selecting… Is there any other way to do it??
And then I highlighted the top and used TIG Weld, and the inner 'line is now one entity… But the outer is not.
To be honest, this was just a crude example… But I get the point… But now I am intrigued why I can’t TIG weld this model.
You could have avoided needing to soften the vertical edges if you’d welded the perimetry edges while the shape was 2D. You could also triple click with Select on the 3D geometry to select all of it. Then right click on it and choose Soften/Smooth from the context menu.
Yes. You just need to select again to select the unwelded edges and run Weld again.
I would have suggested Eneroth Auto Weld which would weld all weldable edges in a selection but it’s a paid plugin and I figured you wouldn’t buy it.
Howe do you unweld? I only have an option for TIG Weld, and it doesn’t have any “sub options”… Is Unweld a native Sketchup tool?
To be honest, I am certainly making this more complex than needed… This was just a crude mockup to highlight my question and I don’t think the model is even very good… So I am probably better off leaving this and having a play myself.
Sorry… Mis-read… But there was something about the model which won’t allow one of the edges to Weld, so that didnt help… I have deleted everything and still cant’ get it to weld so I broke it whilst creating the example.
I saw your comment about my basic understanding being at fault and I 100% agree… I don’t know much about Sketchup and as a casual user who just makes a few simple 3D printed objects, i know I have much to learn. I know what I need to know and I am sure there are better ways to achieve the same thing, which is why I am asking…
Honestly, thanks for the offer but its really not worth your time… It was just a random bird shape I had and I used the offset tool so that I could extrude it as a ‘tube’.
Right at the pointy bit of the tail, the offset too made a bit of a mess of it (I assume because the point couldn’t offset without overlapping itself) and I think it broke.
Its really not a model I am interested in… It was just a very quick and crude example.
hello,
you’ve already received very good tips here.
Here’s another one I often use. But it implies making a copy which may sound unpracticle, it may give you ideas too anyways
In line with @Box’s answer about understanding the ins and outs of [Ctrl select] and [Shift select] you can reach the outer loop of edges (to weld them) as follows:
