Hi. I’ve only figured out how to use sketchup pro 2016 within the last few days. Its been a massive leaning curve having never used software like this. I feel like I’ve done really well up until now. I’m currently making a university common room and cafeteria which my company is tendering for to do a renovation project. My problem is on one external wall I can’t seem to cut the holes through to make the windows. Normally I create the rectangle and push/pull until I see on face. I’ve done this over 40 times now on this project with no issues. Now on 2 specific walls I create the rectangle and push pull but no matter what I do on face does not appear. I’ve checked my process is correct by doing the same on other walls with no problems at all so I cannot understand where i’m going wrong!. I’ve actually removed and rebuilt the walls to rule out any problem witth the walls but I get the same problem. I’ve really enjoyed my Sketchup experience up until this problem! any help would be greatly appreciated
There are a number of possibilities as to what is going on. Instead of making us guess and go through all of them, how about uploading the SKP file so we can take a look at it and give you an exact answer?
I didn’t realise I could do that! i’ll figure out how to upload.
The model makes it easy to tell you exactly what was going on.
The wall is grouped but your rectangles are outside the group. Notice how they are grayed out when the wall group is open for editing. You need to draw the rectangles inside the group. At this point you could open the group for editing and trace the existing rectangles with the Rectangle tool. Then push the openings. Afterward, click outside the group somewhere to close it or right click and choose Close Group. Then delete your original rectangles.
By the way, when your guidelines have served their purpose and are no longer needed, use Edit>Delete Guides to get rid of them. It’ll reduce the clutter.
ok i’ll give that a go. thank you very much!
what do you mean by open the group for editing? highlight the wall to make it go blue?
Double click on it with the Select tool or Context (right) click on it and choose Edit Group.
thanks for your help. clicking on explode solved the problem. it un-grouped the geometry I think. thanks again
Explode destroys the group. That’s one way to get to the geometry inside however it will result in the geometry merging with other, touching, ungrouped geometry merging with it. Often this isn’t a desirable thing. Editing the group avoids that problem.
to be honest I couldn’t figure out how to edit and still punch the hole through.
All you had to do was open the group for editing as I described yesterday and then draw the rectangles on the face of the wall and push them through. Also, as I described yesterday, you could trace the rectangles you’d already drawn on the wall, pushed the openings and then, after exiting the edit mode for the group, erased the rectangles you had drawn on the outside of the group.
I tried that exactly and also had my admin follow the same instructions but we still couldn’t figure it out. think I’ve just about got it sorted but i’m still oblivious as to how I got round it. I originally planned on doing a night class in CAD as I need to be able to do this for work.
Using and editing groups is a very basic operation in SketchUp so you’ll need to get to grips with it. Spend some time going through the fundamentals,here.
i’m constantly watching YouTube videos so hopefully ill get to grips with it. thanks
If you make a wall and group it, when you draw a rectangle (window opening) on it and try to push pull it, it will not affect the grouped wall as it is “protected” inside that group from other drawing/geometry (it has the solid blue bounding box).
If you double click the group or context click “edit group” you are now inside the grouped geometry (bounded by dotted grey lines - not solid blue) (wall in this case) and able to edit it, push pull through it etc. In the last part of the gif you can see a rectangle that was placed on top of the grouped wall and which is outside of the group ( situation you have) so if you enter the group to edit it, you can still use that rectangle to trace a new rectangular opening (you will draw/inference to the rectangle that is outside the group), and with that new rectangle on the face in the group you can push pull it through the wall. Once back outside the group you can delete the original rectangle.
