Copying and separating Components

SketchUp
1

I have some stairs that are made up like this

  • Stairs Component
    …Tread & Riser Group, repeated for as many steps as required
    …Tread Component
    … Riser Component

I have two sets of stairs. I now find they have to be different widths therefore the Tread and the Riser Components can’t be used in both Stairs Components.

Is there a way that I can easily ‘change’ all the Tread & Riser Components on Stairs Component 2 (which is unique) to be Tread2 & Riser2 Components so i can adjust the width? I really don’t want to have to make 36 elements unique or reconstruct the stairs.

I hope this makes sense.

Thank you… liz

2

Paste in place the second set into a new document, rename and then paste in place again back into the master document would be a quick way.

There is probably also a method in component manager.

3

select all of the copied and make unique in on action

1 Like
4

Or just scale the widths of the whole set of Treads and Risers components using the scale tool along just their Width axis.

5

Thank you for the suggestions

Liam: that is nice and simple and probably the best and quickest idea.

PC: Although that would work at this moment in time it means I lose the benefit of components.

John: I don’t understand how that works, surely if I scale the widths the components will change is both sets of stairs which isn’t what I want?

Thank you… liz

6

Well, I feel like a real dumbo… I have:

  1. copied my stairs component to a new file
  2. renamed the component elements
  3. Saved the file
  4. Edited using push-pull to shorten the width by 9cms…

Push-Pull will not work, it doesn’t even work on the landing element which was unique and I had pushed in the original file before copying,

Nothing is locked or hidden. This must be something blindingly obvious but I am not seeing it. What could I be doing wrong?

Thank you… liz

(i’d attach the file but couldn’t see how)

7

to attach a file use the seventh icon, or drag and drop

Capture
What John wrote is correct. you can scale the outside of a component instance and it will stretch or shrink without affecting any other instance, however any material painted on or inside of the component instance
will stretch or shrink too

stretch component#1.skp (48.1 KB)

to fix a scaled unit if required so that the material looked correct, you would use the right click menu, make unique, then right click menu scale definition.

8

Drag and drop into the message window or use the Attach Icon, 7th from the left at the top of the message window.

1 Like
9

I let you take this as I am still on version 2017

10

SketchUp allows you to apply unique scale transformations to different instances of the same component definition. For example say the component is a 1x1x1 cube. Place three copies of the component in the model file. Select one copy (but do not open it for editing). Activate the Scale tool, and change the size and/or shape of the cube in some way. The other two instances will not be affected. Select another of the instances, and apply a scale transformation to it - again, only that one instance should be affected by the scale operation.

You can probably apply this principle to your stairway. Select one of the stairways, and use the Scale too on the whole thing to reduce its width. The other stairway instance should not be affected.

[Edited to note that I just saw @pcmoor 's comment from a few hours ago that also clarifies this feature.]

11

Sometimes there’s some small defect you’re not seeing that prevents SU from doing an operation. When push pull doesn’t work, I often us a selection and the move tool instead. In fact, I usually go for the move tool first anyway when either tool might do the job.

When using the scale tool, of course, think about and be careful what you choose to scale. If you scale the whole stair assembly, including the stringers, the stringers become a small percentage thicker, which could be a quick and dirty solution, but not ideal from a best practices point of view.

12

Hi TD,

Thank you for explaining that it is something I hadn’t discovered so very useful to know

Push-pull worked after closing and re-opening!

Thanks to everyone for being so helpful

Liz

13

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