Change line style with square pipe?

Hi SU community!
I am working on a house project, involving welding some square 20x20mm aluminum square pipes (bars).
Is there a way to set up the line style to that particular style 20x20mm, so I can have the right dimensions between bars?\

Or the only way is to create the model for the bars, and replicate that throughout the whole project?

Please take into account that i’ve been using this app for only two days :smile: , nevertheless with nice results so far.
Thanks so much in advance

Yes, you need to model the bars explicitly. If there are multiples the same length, this would be a good use for Components. SketchUp styles just affect the visible 2D display of a line, they do not impart 3D dimensions. Also, I don’t believe you can set up a style based on distance units in the model rather than pixel dimensions on the display.

As a follow up to the above, look at using arrays of components. As a simple example, if you wanted to make a jail cell, you would make one bar as a component then array it at specific spacing. So you repeat the geometry very quickly saving both time and file size.
So learn about components and how to array them.

Further down the track are plugins that make it even faster but you need to understand the underlying structure first.

Here you go…

Components


Copies and Arrays

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