I’m new to Sketchup Free (and I don’t have Sketchup Pro). Components don’t seem to work for me. I drafted a 3D cube, triple clicked it to select all faces, right clicked to Make Component, Move/Copied to make another cube. But when I modify one of the cubes the other cube doesn’t change as I understand components are supposed to do. Am I doing something wrong? I’ve been through the intro videos and watched several YouTube videos and have searched this forum but can’t figure this out. I’d appreciate some help.
did you make it a group by mistake?
Perhaps you made it a group by mistake. Did it open a Component dialog that gives you options or did it just give it a bounding box? What does it say when you select it with Entity info open?
No I was careful about that. The entity info says Component (1 in model)
No I was careful about that. The entity info says Component (1 in model). It did give me a Component dialog box and bounding box
Edit: Just noticed the ‘One in model’ it needs to say two in model or more.
What are you doing to modify it, scaling the component for example won’t change the copy, but open for edit and scaling the geometry inside will.
Can you give us a bit of detail to go on, a screen shot or even the model. You can download it to your computer and attach it here.
Here’s a quick demo incase you can spot something you are missing.
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THANK YOU! I watched your demo a few times and have managed to make a few components that work. I’m not sure what I was doing wrong - one thing though, it did show (1 in model) and the bounding box included both cubes. I’ve included my file. Can you tell what I did wrong? If my error is not obvious don’t worry I seem to have it right now. Thanks again.
Experiment.skp (340.1 KB)
You’re making a common newbie mistake. Either you are copying the geometry before creating a component that envelopes both copies, or you are opening the component after creating it and copying the geometry within.
Draw the part and create a component. Then select the component (single left click with Select tool) but do not open it for editing. Use Move/Copy to make a copy. This is what Box shows.
That helps a bit but I’m not quite sure what “opening the component after creating it and copying the geometry within.” means.
When you create a component, you are making a container that holds the edges and faces you selected. That container protects those edges and faces from being modified by other geometry. If you do want to make changes to the geometry in the component, you need to open the container first. It’s kind of like having a sandwich wrapped in Saran Wrap. If you want to add mustard to the sandwich, you need to open the Saran Wrap first.
If you open the component for editing (double click on it with the Select tool or right click and choose Edit Component, you have opened the Saran Wrap and have access to the geometry. If you are copying the component to have multiples in your model, you don’t want to have the container open. When you see just the blue bounding box, you’ve selected the component but its container is still closed.
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Thank you, Thank you. That helps a lot.
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