Hmm. It may be related to being in levels that aren’t the top level.
It seems like trowel really hates being at the bottom level, and kinda hates being at any other level than the top. I like drilling into my models a couple of levels when working so I hope it’s not that.
That’s strange – tried to replicate it with one of my current models.
Even though I have it installed, I don’t use Section View.
Right clicking on object when using Curic DIO trowel tool will bring all sort of useful options including object isolation, boolean tools and more…
That is true. But once you get used to Trowel tool you won’t need to drill into your model much anymore. You just use Trowel isolate mode… I use it so often tha I wish this mode could be mapped to keyboard shortcut.
Yeah. Might just start using curic birdcage and working exclusively from top.
edit: I’ll update this post soon. Been slammed and have learned a lot about DIO in the meanwhile.
Section view is baller. I use it constantly. I didn’t understand the point of it until I started using it. It is model navigation, straight up. Section view + birdcage lets you work at any project scale and complexity probably.
New thoughts 2/12/2025
Thank you @renton555 for doing this
Tutorializing stuff is the only way for me to really learn.
You’re welcome though
Youtube video narrative (wip):
(gonna refer to TutorialsUp as he because it’s one fewer letter than she)
0:40 - uses “draw in object” mode to draw a line from the top level into a group, then double clicks into that group to use native push/pull to push the surface to 0.
1:00 - toggles on “continue with Trowel” mode, then he does the same as the last time stamp but is able to push the surface from the top level. He also shows that you can push the surface past the back which is much faster and easier than native/push pull to subtract a region of a solid.
1:10 - this one is weird because his “draw in object” toolbar button is still pushed in. I think he’s trying to demonstrate drawing outside of the object but I couldn’t replicate it exactly. When I try what he’s trying, it does this:
The only way I can see to draw in the model (top context) with DIO mode on is to
a) CTRL + Left Click outside of an object after beginning the line but prior to ending it (tricky!)
b) hover just off the midpoint until the snapdims disappear (tricky! but might be unintended)
I have confirmed that method a) works 100% of the time and should be, I think, the SOP for one-off non-DIO mode modeling using DIO drawing tools. Very cool. The second method I couldn’t get to reliably work on other types of snap points.
1:25 - demonstration of using CTRL + Left Click to get object. This is useful to isolate the group/component that you want to model on in complex models.
1:50 - difference between 2D mode and 3D mode (using TAB)
2:30 - 2 point rectangle tool in 3D mode to make holes in object. Then trowel tool to undo the hole.
2:40 - snapdims VCB input for first and second point of rectangle tool
3:05 - 3 point rectangle tool and polyline tool for hole creation
3:25 - circle and arc tool. Note that arc doesn’t have 3D mode, you must trowel.
3:45 - chalkline tool using trowel on an edge to copy an edge on a face. Then continue with trowel.
4:10 - chalkline using double line mode (CTRL to toggle). Right click for pie menu option to set distance between double line.
In general during this part he demonstrates how the trowel tool acts as a union to the overall object when pulled and a subtract operation when pushed. This will come up some later.
4:50 - sneaky click drag operation using Chalkline. He starts the chalkline and then inferences a vertex, clicks and drags to set the angle.
It looks like the chalkline angle feature can be used on any point, snappable or no, as long as it is within the boundary of the face. In testing this I also discovered that if you click and drag from the beginning of the chalkline, it finishes the operation at the end of the drag. Meh, saves a click.
5:30 - general demo of Chalkline and Trowel. At 5:45 he shows using TAB to change the double line reference point between left line, right line, and centered between lines.
6:05 - Multiply VCB input for chalkline with asterisk. Note that Divide input works as well with /
6:35 - more demo showing that “pushing” trowel is a subtract operation for the whole object.
6:55 - demo of the Enable Offset toggle function. Click face to start trowel, then click on edge of the boundary being troweled to engage the Curic Offset tool. It continues to trowel from there.
7:10 - had to watch this many times to figure out what he did. He uses 3 point rectangle to draw the rectangle above the opening. Since it’s in 3D mode, it automatically starts a trowel on the new shape. He then switches with a shortcut to his native scale tool. He toggles CTRL to change to center reference for the scale operation, then he scales its width. Then he demonstrates the Create Thickness toggle for the first time. This toggle turns on a mode where the subtract operation is performed with trowel push, and a new object is created in it’s place at the same context level.
In summary,
TutorialsUp played a dirty trick demonstrating 3 brand new concepts in a 15 second span of time. Here’s a cleaner demo of Create Thickness.
7:55 - first he draws a rectangle on the wall group and uses trowel to pull it out, and shows that it’s part of the object. Then goes into a demonstration of the same operation but with “Create New Object” toggled on. It creates a new object separate from the wall object, using the face in that object.
I already went into a good amount of depth on the difference between normal, “Create New Object” and “Create Thickness” modes. There is a big difference in between them for a push operation. Normal + push is a pure subtraction. Create New Object + push makes a new object using the boundary, and leaves the boundary. Create Thickness + push subtracts like Normal, while adding a new object like Create New Object.
For a pull operation the difference between the three modes is much more subtle. Normal + pull is a pure union to the object. Create New Object + pull creates a separate object where the normal union operation would have been, leaving the boundary. Create Thickness + pull does the exact same thing, but deletes the old boundary:
Play around with the 3 modes for push and pull operations and look at their effects on objects in the foreground or background (in the same group/component) to understand the logic. It’s pretty predictable.
8:50 - Chalkline Angle tool, then push to subtract from entire solid.
9:10 - just showing that you need to work with solids for DIO.
10:30 - Slice Face context menu option during Trowel. It seems to just transcribe all edges of faces intersecting the trowel face. Pretty simple I think.
11:00 - Coplanar Intersection this one is super interesting. It only works on objects that border each other, i.e. are coplanar. In his example if the pillars were 1mm buried in the floor plate, the operation wouldn’t work. The other interesting thing is that it works on objects that are different contexts altogether. He could have the pillars be in a group together, with each pillar a group, and the floor plate being at the next level (or multiple levels even) and it would work.
The only other tricky thing I found about Coplanar Intersection is that you have to right click on the face BEFORE the first click of the trowel. I.e. you have the trowel tool selected but you haven’t clicked on anything yet. You start by right clicking, selecting Coplanar Intersection, then it starts the trowel tool after it identifies the intersecting faces.
12:40 - Reverse Solid Tool If you understand push/pull mechanics then this is easy. It just changes the push operation to a union and the pull operation to a subtract.
13:05 - clever use of DIO Rectangle and 3D mode + pull to rapidly perform a subtract operation to the outside corner of the wall. Then doing the same thing as a push using Reverse Solid tool on the other corner.
13:30 - SHIFT during trowel pick allows selecting boundaries (purple) or holes (cyan). This, combined with pull allows adding geometry over an opening. Note that TutorialsUp toggles off Draw in Object in order to make a new box. The tricky thing about working with boundaries and holes is that the default nature of the push/pull is flipped for holes; on a hole, a push is a union and a pull is a subtraction. He could have also toggled on Make New Object or Create New Thickness to do a similar operation.
I discovered during testing that there’s a very minor difference between Create New Object and Draw In Object toggled off to make new geometry using trowel tool:
14:00 - more demonstration of the use of DIO and Chalkline with Draw In Object turned off. All this new geometry is being created on the top level and is separate.
15:15 - Moving the referenced trowel face using the SHIFT key. I don’t ever do this but I think if I got used to the idea I would use it a lot. Also reinforces the idea that the trowel really is just a fancy face picker that performs various solid operations based on that face. SHIFT allows that face to be copied/moved/transcribed to other objects or to become new objects. Combined with CTRL click to pick new object, fun things like this can be done:
15:30 - these appear to be essentially shortcuts to using native solid tools. I don’t use these much but they seem to be superior to solid tools since they can be performed without working in the same context of the objects, nor requiring the objects to be in the same context as each other. I’ll mess with this more and report back.
17:00 - Fixit 101 is in the trowel context menu for convenience. I haven’t tried this. I can check and see if it’s still supported in 2025 but I generally prefer to just keep things solid from the start.
18:10 - Bounding Box rabbit hole begins here. Bounding box allows you to have a complex group or component and perform subtract operations with it’s bounding box. It requires a pre-select (one or more objects) and it has some built in logic to guess which solid you’re trying to subtract from. You can override that logic by CTRL + Left Click to pick the object. Then double click empty space or press enter to perform the subtract. He starts by doing it with the one door component.
19:10 - He moves the door, and then performs the operation again. It moves the negative space to the new location of the component.
19:20 - He shows doing it with multiple components preselected. Then moves those and shows the same operation of moving the voids to the new location. Then he demonstrates removing a cutout by moving the component out of the cut component and performing the operation one last time.
20:30 - He shows cutting the door out of a wall thicker than the door. This requires adjusting the offset of the bounding box using the right click context menu. You can also adjust the handles of the bounding box to do this in a different way.
21:20 - He shows making a new component. It seems to be important that the axes of the component are aligned with it, but I haven’t tested this.
21:30 - He performs bounding box with a rotated component. It works as expected. Then he scales a component and updates it’s cutout. Again works as expected.
I’ll finish Bounding Box and wrap this up tomorrow. I still want to look at some of the buried functions of DIO that TutorialsUp didn’t touch on. Until that time, keep rocking.
You can give it a shortcut. Just searching for Toggle Isolate in the shortcut seach box section.
17:10 - I forgot this timestamp. He very briefly demonstrates isolate object and deselect object. I’m doing to put a pin in these two and cover them separately later on.
21:30 - He performs bounding box with a rotated component. It works as expected. Then he scales a component and updates it’s cutout. Again works as expected.
21:50 - Bounding box + To Opening. He first demonstrates the limitation of using bounding box on non-rectilinear objects.
22:30 - He then goes through the steps of using native sketchup tools to make the loose geometry of the circular window into a group, and then make a cutting component using its footprint to make a solid.
23:10 - Selects the component, right clicks, and selects To Opening on the CuricDIO context menu. Then hides that component, selects the window group + the hidden cutting component and makes them into a component. Then sets the axis at the midpoint of the inside face of the window frame, aligning the red/blue axes to the front face of the window (but inside the cutting component).
24:00 - He places the new component onto the wall as with the previous windows and uses Bounding Box as normal to make the circular cutout.
24:30 - Repeats the same process on an arched door component.
24:30 - Repeats the same process with the arched door component on a curved wall. This time the cutting component must be sized deeper to make the full cutout. This is done with a standard push pull from inside the cutting component.
26:10 - This is a brief demonstration of DIO Erase tool. It erases faces and edges at the lowest component level from any level. The SHIFT modifier changes it to hide edges and faces instead.
27:10 - DIO Select tool. He hovers over faces and edges with the tool and LEFT CLICKs to open a context menu that allows selecting which outliner level. In the video he’s using “group/component” mode. There’s also a face/edge mode that he doesn’t demonstrate.
I’m going to wrap this up in the next post with more info and study about Select, Bounding Box, Isolate, Deselect, and other less-apparent features of DIO 2.
Added these notes to the OP. I think I’m getting pretty close to being done learning about DIO. Someone explain Pick Zone! Also are there any easter eggs I’m missing (such as CTRL + DOUBLE CLICK to get multiple objects for multi subtract).
Another note on “Get Object.” This feature, as I see it is 1) a way to override the built-in selector of DIO, and 2) a way to transcribe geometry from one group to another. It’s important to understand that CTRL + LEFT CLICK can be perform during DIO operations to begin drawing in one object and instead draw in a different object.
It should be said that the Trowel tool is very deep and is far more complex than the rest of DIO tools combined. It is insanely powerful and multifaceted in the hands of an advanced user.
More notes on 2D mode vs 3D mode. First, 2D mode is the only way that 2D shapes can be drawn. If you have 3D mode toggled, DIO does not allow the trowel to make a thickness of 0 to create a 2D shape. I’m not sure why that is. You can somewhat workaround this by activating offset during a trowel and VCP input offset to zero but, basically, you need to switch to 2D mode to draw 2D shapes. Second, all of the DIO drawing tools except Line and Arc have a 3D mode. Polyline tool is really more of a Polygon tool as it always has to draw a closed shape and, thus, has 3D mode.
This confused me a little bit at first but basically this is a feature meant to allow you to select back and side faces. It does a nifty thing in that it takes the edge that you’re mousing over, determines which adjoining face is most visible to the camera, and then filters the less-visible face for selection. These little subtle UI flourishes are IMO what makes Curic such a G.
Sneaky hidden feature: double click using Erase tool erases or hides the entire object.
It seems like it’s not possible to select more than one object at a time which is a pretty serious limitation of this tool. However, in face edge mode there’s a sneaky double-click functionality that selects all contiguous geometry on the level of the face/edge that you’re selecting.
Other notes:
Sneaky hidden feature: CTRL + DOUBLE CLICK performs Get Object on all solid objects on the same level. I had some inconsistency in this sometimes, but I find it helps to temporarily group all objects you want to select in order to simplify the calculations it has to do. Even doing the GIF I had to double click and triple click several times to get it to work.
This allows for multiple cut of many distinct objects like so:
New objects created in DIO mode seem to always exist on the same context level as the object being drawn on, and be created with the same material and tag as the object. Note that it doesn’t seem to care about materials or tags applied to the faces of the object. It seems to do unpredictable things to them as well.
As of 2/14/2025, still haven’t covered the following:
Pick Zone - I can’t find anything explaining or demoing this except for a 20 second Curic video. Help would be appreciated.
Copy Layer - ?
Copy Material - ?
Copy Definition - ?
Isolate Object and Deselect Object - I think I understand these. I use Curic Focus and Birdcage for isolation so maybe someone can give some use cases for this.
I’d also like to spend more time with bounding box.
I experienced bugs with the picker when attempting to use DIO from contexts other than the Root/Model. I also had some crashes happen when using the Trowel at the bottom level of raw geometry. Basically, for best results using DIO work from the root level whenever possible. And save often otherwise.
Pick Zone is a way to generate a complex boundary from existing context across all levels of your model. The way it works is that it takes a plane as an input, slices that plane through the entire extents of the model (this can be a very large area depending on use case), then subtracts all intersecting solids from that plane. This results in the creation of one or more boundaries that can be push/pulled with Trowel. The user then selects the desired boundary and it goes to the trowel and works as standard.
In testing, I could get no different results from preselecting an object, right clicking on an object, nor right clicking on empty space.
The status bar then prompts the user to “Pick edge or face or point + drag to select plane, Shift = toggle lock direction of the plane.” If you mouseover faces and edges it will provide a preview in blue of the plane being chosen. Here you have some options. You can
a) click and drag. This allows you to rotate the plane to custom angles. It does not allow a VCB input here, and it does not like most angles, showing an invalid selection with a red plane instead of blue. I think you could get precise angles on this step by creating construction lines or guides that you can then snap to in the model but to be honest this is such a niche use case that I don’t think I’ll be researching that. I found no use for this option.
b) shift to lock the plane to the current direction. This changes it to magenta. I believe this is the primary use case for Pick Zone. You hover over the plane that is at the correct angle, shift to lock that plane, and then click at the point along that plane that gets the slice that you’re looking for.
Which ever path you take, the result is that you have a zone that can be clicked to do a Trowel operation. If the resulting zone contains multiple closed loops, you can click in any of them to only Trowel that loop. It will always create at least one. From there it’s the same functionality as the Trowel.
Pick Zone can do funny things. Sometimes the resulting push pull is merged with existing geometry and causes unintended effects. Usually, it is created as a new group. It’s probably best to only use pick zone with “Create New Object” turned on to have more predictable results.
I also experienced bugs with it not being able to close loops in complex models.
Examples of Pick Zone
Vertical plane with no closed loop (entire extents of model closes the loop)
Horizontal plane with no closed loop (entire extents of model closes the loop)
Horizontal plane with closed loop
Yes, it is. It only appears if you installed Curic DIO.
For me, that shortcut doesn’t have the same functionality as DIO trowel isolate though. It only works with native selection.
edit: It’s extremely useful! It’s just not the same function.
Copy Layer, Copy Material, and Copy Definition appear to be a sidebar of standalone DIO utilities that you can use on the right click context menu. This context menu doesn’t show up during DIO tools or any other tools. They are their own tools.
Layer and Material are simple. Select one object (has to be one) by conventional means, right click and select CuricDIO → Copy Layer / Copy Material. This can be an edge, face, group, or component, and it does what you would expect, stores the tag or material information on the “clipboard”. Then you can select any number of objects by conventional means, right click, and select CuricDIO → Paste.
In the next gifs, the cylinder and 5 boxes are
The outliner structure:
Copy Layer
(color by tag is toggled on at the end)
Copy Material
(similar deal)
Notably, it doesn’t let you copy both the tag and the material. It can only store one type of information at a time.
Copy Definition is a little more powerful.
There are other extensions that do this but the convenience of it being part of DIO, and the ability to pick the source component from the top level using DIO Select, makes it somewhat better, I think, than Component Replacer or similar extensions.
Playing around with ChatGPT to compose mind maps. It did a pretty good job!
Curic DIO 2 Tools (SketchUp Extension)
├── DIO Mode Toggles & General Settings
│ ├── Draw in Object Toggle
│ │ └── Controls whether drawing happens within an object’s context or at the top level
│ ├── Create New Object Toggle
│ │ └── (Trowel-specific) Creates new objects separate from the original
│ ├── Create Thickness Toggle
│ │ └── (Trowel-specific) Adds new geometry while “cutting” the original object
│ └── Enable Offset Toggle
│ └── Allows clicking a boundary during Trowel operations to engage the Offset tool
│
├── Drawing Tools (Outside of Context)
│ ├── Line Tool
│ │ ├── Uses SnapDims for precise starting points
│ │ └── CTRL + Left Click (“Get Object”) to override default target object
│ ├── Rectangle Tool
│ │ ├── 2-point rectangle drawing
│ │ ├── 2D vs. 3D modes (3D mode can auto-trigger Trowel)
│ │ └── Keyboard input for offsets via SnapDims
│ ├── Rotated Rectangle Tool
│ │ └── 3-point rectangle for angled shapes
│ ├── Polyline Tool
│ │ ├── Draws continuous, closed boundaries
│ │ └── Acts like the rectangle tool when closed
│ ├── Circle Tool
│ │ └── Supports drawing circles; 3D mode triggers Trowel for thickness
│ └── Arc Tool
│ └── Draws 2-point arcs
│
├── Trowel Tool (Push/Pull & Solid Operations)
│ ├── Starting Options
│ │ ├── LEFT CLICK on face → Initiates push/pull
│ │ ├── LEFT CLICK on edge → Begins Chalkline operation
│ │ └── CTRL + Left Click (“Get Object”) → Overrides default face picker
│ ├── In-Operation Controls
│ │ ├── SHIFT + Left Click on face → Selects Border or Hole
│ │ ├── SHIFT + Left Click on edge → Filters back faces (Filter Face/Loop)
│ │ ├── Input distance or click to finish push/pull
│ │ ├── Press SHIFT to reposition boundaries
│ │ └── Press TAB to reverse push/pull (switching union/subtract)
│ ├── Integration with Native Tools
│ │ └── Temporarily invoke Move, Rotate, Scale during Trowel operations
│ ├── Right-Click Menu Toggles
│ │ ├── Create New Object (persistent or one-off depending on settings)
│ │ └── Create Thickness (subtractive operation that adds new geometry)
│ └── Special Trowel Functions
│ ├── Chalkline (including angle/double line modes)
│ ├── Slice Face & Coplanar Intersection (generate new boundaries)
│ └── Pick Zone (derive complex boundaries from model context)
│
├── Bounding Box Tool
│ ├── Performs subtract operations with non-solid groups/components
│ ├── Supports custom offsets and handles for cutting components (e.g., arched doors)
│ └── Updates cutouts when components are moved or scaled
│
├── Erase & Select Tools
│ ├── Erase Tool
│ │ ├── Erases faces and edges at the lowest component level
│ │ ├── SHIFT modifier toggles between erasing and hiding geometry
│ │ └── Hidden features: Double-click (erases/hides entire object) and CTRL + Double-click (applies Get Object across solids)
│ └── Select Tool
│ └── Opens a context menu for choosing selection modes (group/component vs. face/edge)
│
└── Best Practices & User Considerations
├── Work at least one level above raw geometry to prevent crashes
├── Save frequently due to the complexity and heavy computations
├── Use isolation (Isolate Object) to reduce context clutter in complex models
├── Recognize the trade-offs versus native SketchUp tools (e.g., native line inferencing)
└── Be mindful of limitations when working with non-solid or deeply nested groups