I have roof panels that I need to trim so that they follow the valley of an adjoining hip. The panels are made into a group (of .jpgs) and are not solid. Can someone help? Thanks very much. Here’s my model:
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Thanks very much. I corrected my post
Sir, this is a Sketchup forum. Why did you post DWG?
Post your model.
Hello
you might want to have a look at this free plugin
Sometimes it is better to use a texture for such details though
Or solid tools.
But OP posted a DWG so I’m not sure a SketchUp solution is what they are after.
Sorry, I made a mistake. I posted 2 .pdfs and I’ll post my Sketchup File
You can use the solid tools - assuming the panels are solids. You will have to make them unique if they are components.
Make a ‘cutting’ block that aligns with where the hip is in plan view. I do this by drawing a rectangle, push pull it taller than the roof, make it a group, align it to the ridge and intersection of the hips, then rotate it 45° (assuming regular pitch to regular pitch) to align under the center of the valley. Then use the solid tools. To get the part that is blocked by the cutting block you can mirror it and use it again…
Thanks for the response Paul. I tried the Curic plugin but it’s not working. The metal panels are not solid and they’re not perfectly flat so the plugin is having a hard time with this. I’m giving up the idea of using panels and I like your idea of using textures instead. But where do I get textures from? I can’t seem to find anything. Where would I look for textures? Thanks
It’s possible, but kind of labor intensive: Make a plane that passes through the hip, copy and paste in place in each of the panels, use intersect with context and delete the excess. You have to repeat this for every panel, but it could be done.
You should learn how to make things solid and properly use the tools to model what you need.
But sometimes, if you don’t need to understand the geometry for construction or fabrication a texture works to show ‘what it could look like’.
Or use curic face array plugin option array, just need 1 panel roof and the surface where you need to place the roof, but is heavy than just apply texture.
I depends greatly on how you intend to use the model and it’s not a solution for everyone. But I admit that in some cases I use a down-and-dirty method of imbedded section cuts, especially if I have to use an array of modeled panels or tiles. This has many disadvantages, but it will cut many individual “tile” components simultaneously, and it’s easily adjustable if needed. Often good for early stage or fast paced iterative design.
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you don’t need your panels to be solid in order to use this plugin. I pointed it out because it’s perfect for those situations.
it works very fast even on very complex groups, much faster than manually intersecting + you don’t have to clean things up afterwards.
The only thing is that it hasn’t been showing the cutting preview for the last couple of sketchup versions (don’t know why - EDIT : ok I know why, I had an old version), at least on my computer. The plugin works anyway. select the group you want to be cut, pick the plugin, select the face you want to cut it with (even if in a group) then double click or hit enter to validate. Works like magic
as for texture, you have various websites, you can start there roofings textures seamless (direct link to the roofing section).
you always have a free (lower) version of every materials, but i think you just need to create an account)
Thanks for your help, Paul. So I tried a different texture (a .jpg) but I still can’t get Curic knife to work. It deletes the selection, not the area outside the selection. Here are some pics of my attempt. What am I doing wrong?
(attachments)
Campagnola_05-26-2025_ROOF.pdf (65.3 KB)
Campagnola_05-26-2025_ROOF3.pdf (248 KB)
If you posted the sketchup model it would be easier for people to help.
Your triangle-shaped roof doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) be moved, put it back where it belongs and run the plugin again, as I said earlier, if you select the roof panel group, then the plugin, it’ll be able to select that triangle even if underneath. It basically cuts making a perpendicular projection of the selected face, so if said face is randomly moved, you’ll get random result
As @bmike says, post your model or it’s going to be remote control style for too long !
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Or possibly Zorro2? I haven’t used it but @Box has. See this post.
I’ve use it intensively last week to cut parts of a car (for a client’s project), and Zorro2 is indeed a possible solution. it doesn’t care whether your elements are solids or not, place your section, use it to trim, rinse, repeat.
see method here
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Thanks bmike. Yeah I’ve been trying to do that. My model is 24.6 MB. Max size for upload is 16 MB. I’ve tried purging and erasing. Any suggestions on how to get the file size down?