Cutting nested components

I’m a little confused as to how I should go about cutting this wall frame.

The wall frame is a group. Within that group, the top and bottom plates are groups and the studs are components. The box is a component not included in the wall frame group.

I’m wondering how to intersect the two so I can create the opening in the wall.

I’ve been able to do it by making the three studs unique and drilling down into the edit nest of each component and group and intersecting with model, but this seems tedious and I’m wondering if there’s a better way (I’ve got a whole garage to do --structured the same way.)

Perhaps I’m using the grouped wall and/or components in the wrong way?

How should I be doing this?

Paul

Experiment with cutting1.skp (184.1 KB)

Aside from the fact that the three cut studs are the same and should be instances of just one new component, it doesn’t sound to me like you are doing anything wrong.

Thank you. Yes, understood about making those three studs unique.

I’d hoped there was a way of just selecting the wall group, selecting the box component and then intersecting with model, so that when I went in to edit the wall parts, the intersections would already be a part of those components. They’re not. They are greyed out.

I’d say it’s pretty much a matter of choice, but I’d probably hold off grouping the frames until they were completed, and I’d probably pre-cut the studs. The full-length stud is one component, and the studs above the door header are another, so take ten instances of one and three of the other (or make linear arrays of them) as you assemble the frames.

You can also consider having only one stud component and scaling each instance to its appropriate length from outside its editing context (or scale one to a given length and make copies).

-Gully

Edit: Incidentally, when you perform an Intersect operation, the lines of intersection appear in whatever context from which you executed the command. You’d have to be inside the stud component’s context when invoking the Intersect command for the cut lines to “already be a part of those components.”

Thank you so much! You answered my question about intersecting --has to be in context, and your suggestion about scaling the cripple studs is a great idea. That could save a lot of time. But I won’t spend any more time trying to make the intersect tool do what I think it should do :smile:.

When I assembled the frames for my garage model, I hadn’t decided where windows and doors would go --I had a staircase that had to be made before I could see how to make the windows and doors look symetrical on the outside.

Thanks again for the replies.

From a construction perspective, you shouldn’t do that! You need a full height king stud and shorter jack stud on each side of the door or window, with a header to spread the load of those short top studs (cripples) to the jacks. Your other studs maintain the 16 or 24 inch spacing, and put the boxes where you want.

(If you’re just doing the drawing for layout pattern, it doesn’t matter, of course. Just don’t build it that way!)

stud layout

Good point! Gully and I responded purely from a SketchUp perspective, but it also makes sense to be drawing something it is code-legal to build!

Oh yes, of course. I’ve been a building renovation contractor for far too many years and specialized in house framing for a couple of years early in my time.

I was just looking for a faster way to edit my walls to receive my window framing component. But I thank you.

What if they were full height (- sole & top plate) components (that included king and jack studs and headers and cripples, etc.), and were themselves set to “cuts opening” ?

Actually that’s a very good idea. I delete the studs that are within the area of my “window frame component,” then enter into the top and bottom plates’ edit mode and Intersect>Intersect with Model.

I’m not very familiar with how “cuts opening” is supposed to work. I think I know what you’re getting at. I wouldn’t need Intersect with model, correct? I will experiment and report back…

There might be an issue if you use some reporter plugin to do lumber lists from the model.

When a window component “cut out” some studs from the framewall component, are they just invisible, or would it’s attributes reflect that, say 2 less studs would be needed in the Bill of Mat’ls ?

The best way to model is the way to build it. Would you put full studs in place and the whack them apart? Also I challenge the concept of making a Group out of the walls. Use components. They are more flexible. Also you will find that you can corrupt a group that would not be corruptible as a component. Also groups do not work as well in some Ruby plugins. (Like Cutlist)

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Yes, thank you. I was using intersect in a situation where it was not really needed. It’s been much faster just to build the window framing with cripples etc. and just install it, erasing the full studs where needed.

Using Cutlist interests me. I’d like to familiarize myself with it --I’m going to be building this garage. You say the walls, if components, are more flexible than as groups. Do you say this just to facilitate Cutlist, or are there other reasons? I suppose getting window and door placement balanced from the exterior perspective would be easier if using component walls instead of group walls…

Thanks for your comment.
Paul

Though it has little to do with your specific model or question, I second @bwelty5’s advice to use components instead of groups for just about everything, even when you don’t anticipate multiple instances. In current SketchUp versions, groups share almost all of their internals with components so there is no benefit in terms of memory usage or performance. Instead, there are sneaky bugs that result from SketchUp wrapping “each instance unique” behavior around what is internally a component instance.

Cutlist understands nesting. It will give you a list of the innermost parts, not their containers.

I agree with modeling like you would build it. However, you mentioned that you where unsure where the windows and doors would be located until you knew where the stairs would be located.

I have to wonder, why model all the framing at first if at all. If you require a detailed framing plan then it would make sense, otherwise, why not just model with basic wall thicknesses. At the very lest, I would be doing a basic model to get the layout to a point where I like it and then go back and handle the detail work.

All those framing members are just extra geometry in the model. If you are an experienced

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But yes in general! Components are more powerful and friendly. I do use groups only temporarily


:point_right: How To: Mute obnoxious forum users

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Put the components on their own layer? Then you can shut them off and know which one your editing. I am having trouble with nested stuff that I can not see and it’s preventing me from making a solid. I’m guessing that’s because some of the elements from components moved to their own layer are intersecting the would be solid? It would be nice to see which components are on one layer but even when I use select all with hidden geometry on there is no record of any other entities? Definitely confusing. I am on layer0 after all. Anybody know why there would be 23 nested instances preventing me from creating a single solid?
Thanks for any consideration.
Heinz Stapff.

start the group and then turn it into a component when you are done. Then move the component to it’s own layer. I always try to name the group exactly what the final component and layers name will be. It simplifies the file type organization necessary to run the office, so group name 1stfloorRingBeam would become 1stfloorRingBeam component on 1stfloorRingBeam layer and hopefully there are no other entities colliding with it so I try never to use intersect anything with anything else. Unfortunately that always causes hidden nesting elements between layers? I write all of them in block letters, probably because I can’t see them otherwise. Again, does anybody know how see and remove nested entities that prevent solids being created on layer0 with all other component on their own layer which are shut off.


Actually, I have three components on the layer FOOTINGWALLS. It is the one causing the problem.SOLIDINSPECTOR2 tells me it is a solid but ENTITY-INFO shows no volume field.

Note there are no other elements showing in the Outliner???
OLIDINSPECTOR1 is on board but not responding. It’s a shame because it would have pointed out that these faces where the problem.

Turns out that the entities where not rendered flat because the xref .DWG footing plan was lower then the origin point when I traced it. I have moved it to the underside of the other FOOTINGWALL Layer components. Hopefully their new rendering will be coplanar. Did I see a coplanar adjustment tool in the tools menu?