Hello all. This is my first post here, so I hope I’m in the right spot.
I want to start out by saying that I’ve “solved” this issue, in that I’ve identified what I believe to be the cause of the issue. (Scroll down for solution) I know how to avoid it in the future.
This post is meant to inform A) people who may have the same issue as me, and B) people who may have the ability to fix this issue. I’m not sure if “fix” is the right word, since I understand the bug is caused by my poor use of the program. However, as a developer myself, I think it’s fair to say that my misinformed use of the program should cause a warning (or something) rather than a crash + bugsplat. So, imo this should be fixed.
What’s the issue?
I try to intersect faces between a sink and a countertop, but this causes a bugsplat.
I’ve tried intersecting many things with many other things, and so far the issue seems to appear if and only if I use a (any) 3DWarehouse model.
The counter, countertop, object (sink, cube) are all distinct objects.
My process
- Select object (eg sink, cube)
- Move object so it occupies same space as counter/countertop
- Explode counter
- Select counter + object, make new component
- Go into component edit on counter
- Explode countertop
- Select object → intersect with model
- Explode the countertop
- Intersect with model
Result
- Popup dialog reports there are no intersections (which there clearly are)
- Program does nothing. Sits until I click somewhere.
- Crash, bugsplat.
What have I tried?
Delete sink, import new sink, intersect
Same issue.
Create new counter (just a cube) import new sink, intersect
Same issue
Move sink to a different counter on a different layer, intersect
Same issue
Create a cube, intersect with countertop
Works as expected
Download a small random 3DWarehouse object, intersect
Same issue
Create 2 new cubes, make them components, intersect.
Works as expected
Purge, intersect
Same issue
“Fix problems”, intersect
Same issue
Copy/Paste the entire house to a new file, intersect
Same issue
Move over another object already in the model, intersect
Same issue
Delete other object in the model, intersect sink/countertop
Same issue
Disable TwilightV2
Same issue
Hide Twiligt’s light layer
Same issue
Reverted to an old version of the house. This version is organized quite poorly. Only some things are grouped into groups, components. Everything is on layer 0. Twilight Render has not ever been used. I went back, added twilight render, added a single light source to see if Twilight was the problem. I performed the process again, success (no crash). So, I can solve this problem going back to an old version of the house. This is an annoying solution, as I’ve made significant progress since that save.
Extra details
My environment
Windows 10
SketchUp 2017
Plugins
- curve maker (unused)
- twilight V2 (used)
Who am I?/What am I doing?
I’ve been using SketchUp as a hobby for a few months now. I’ve been modelling houses and learning proper use of SketchUp at the same time. I’ve been using components and groups, but not as often as I should. With this most recent house, I “finished” the design, then went back and started grouping things into groups, components, and newly, layers.
The motivation for moving into a more structured workflow was because I wanted to try rendering. I installed the hobby version of twilight2 and took some photos. I was attempting to move the bathroom to a more finished state so I could make some renders when I encountered this bug.
What was the problem that I discovered?
TL;DR You MUST put all loose geometry on Layer0.
I took this as a suggestion, but apparently this is SketchUp Law.
As I suspected, it was my misunderstanding of layers. What I had done was put each room of my house into a component 0> moved that component to a new layer. When I wanted to edit the room, I would move to that layer, hiding every other layer. I explode the component (causing loose geometry to appear on not-Layer0) and do my work. When this work means “intersect with …” it causes a crash.
After reverting to an old copy of my file, I did a simple make component → move to new layer → explode → repeat bug-causing-process. This process recreated the bugsplat. So, I am fairly certain the bugsplat is caused by intersecting with loose geometry on not-layer0.
I knew this wasn’t the optimal workflow, but it seemed OK for now, I hoped I’d learn a better workflow with experience. I suppose now I do have a better workflow, but getting through this bug was some painful experience.
Remaining questions
Why do these steps not cause a bug when I intersect two of my own objects? Rephrase: Why is the bug limited to #3d-warehouse items?
What is the proper way to group rooms together? Should each room be a group/component, and layers be reserved for separating elements by type? (eg all rooms are type::room, therefore they share a layer. A car and a wall are different types, so the car can/should be on a different layer) Or use both layer and group, but edit using component edit rather than explode → edit?
edit: typo
