Deleting from intersection area

Hello Dave, to be honest I think the groups were created when I first started playing with the program as I haven’t deliberately grouped anything since corresponding with you.

The metal is fine included in the cutlist, it’s primarily the ‘groups’ which are annoying me. Is there an easy way to identify them and remove the groups but keep the components?

Also, now I have figured out the ‘hole’ problem, is there an easy way for the hole to go through several components? I have attached a screenshot demonstrating that I have two pieces of wood which will be joined together with a nut and bolt. The hole will need to go through both pieces of wood, how do I go through the second component without having to draw new guidelines?

You can identify them in Outliner. Select them and hit Delete.

Since you are using SketchUp Pro, make sure each component is solid. Draw a cylinder where the holes need to be and make it a component. You could then use the Trim from the Solid Tools to cut the holes but it will result in the components being converted to groups. Instead I would use Eneroth’s Trim from her Solid Tools set from the Extension Warehouse as it would leave the components as component and edit all like components at the same time.

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Hello Dave, thanks for your reply. If you have the plugin installed, could you please demonstrate the steps involved in a gif?

Which steps? What are you unclear on? Is this regarding the cutlist or cutting the holes for the bolts?

Hello Dave, specifically concerning the steps involved in using the plugin for the holes.


Here you go. I made copies of the “board” components and separated them so you can see the holes getting cut. Since the verticals are instances of the same component, only one of them needs to be dealt with.

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If I could chime in on this one :grinning:

Is there a difference between Eneroth’s Solid tools and the native ones?

Mike

There are several. The key being that a component modified by the native Solid Tools becomes a group called Difference. And if you have multiple instances of the component, only the one the tool acted on gets modified. In Eneroth’s version, components remain components with their original name and like any other edits you’d do to a component, the same thing happens to the other instances as shown in my GIF.

The selection order is different with the Eneroth tools, too. With the native Trim tool for example it’s “Use this to trim that.” whereas with her’s it’s, “Trim this with that.”

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Well, that will be downloaded tomorrow!

Was a pain in the proverbial trimming all those components in that mesh I did for that ‘passe’ Coffee Shop, only to find it had killed the components.

Mike

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No doubt.

This has been a thing I’ve wished were changed since the Solid Tools were introduced in SU8. Unfortunately they haven’t done it yet.

I used Eneroth’s Trim tool to cut every peg hole, mortise, dado, and groove in this Shaker workbench model and it took only a few minutes because all the parts are components. I only needed to draw the pegs, tenons and extend parts to fit into grooves or dadoes. Basically add the male part of the joinery and let her Trim tool do the rest. Actually, I let it do half the work of cutting the dovetails in all the drawers as well as the grooves for the drawer bottoms, too.


It’s almost like it’s too easy.

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There is also this one:

Thank you for your replies. I have worked on removing as many groups as possible but some are left over and deleting them removed some of the parts of the design.

I have attached the file so you can see:

AutoSave_Wood Store Groups.skp (953.5 KB)

Can you please tell me if there is anything I can do to resolve this? It seems that I cannot use the tool to trim as things stand with some things still being in different groups.

Also, I have tried to add round bits like in your gif but it’s not working as shown, is that because of what I mentioned above about groups or is it something else?

How easy do you find it to do what you have shown but with my model?

The remaining groups are nested one in the other and they are nested in a component. Look at Outliner and you can see.

Keep in mind that due to the way you’ve left that construction there are no post components so they won’t show in a cut list. As you can imagine with a project with so many parts, it’d be easy to miss them until you’re ready to build the real thing.

Trim works on Groups, too, but they also have to be solids. It doesn’t work on loose geometry. The reason you can’t make the holes as I did in the GIF is partly due to the fact that your cylinders are part of the rail they are supposed to be drilling.

And also because the posts aren’t solids. Below are the back posts. It’s three post shaped hunks of loose geometry inside a component container.


FWIW, that component will be reported in a cut list as being 75 mm thick, ~1640.5 mm wide, and 2400 mm long.

You need to break up the nests and get the loose geometry under control.

I would highly recommend leaving the textures alone until you have your modeling in hand.The textures just get in the way of showing issues like reversed faces. The outside face on the two rails shown below need to be reversed, for example.

It would be impossible with the Trim or with Eneroth’s Trim without first repairing these problems.

I fixed up the grouping problems and set it up so the holes can be drilled with Eneroth’s Trim tool. You can do it. AutoSave_Wood Store Groups.skp (722.8 KB)

I’m puzzled about why some components for parts that are identical are different.

Wow, thank you for your comprehensive reply and the updated file. I did realise about the groupings but couldn’t work out how to fix it and get rid of the extra groups, you did a good job cleaning it up and spotting some issues.

When you said there were identical components that are different, do you mean they have different names? Some of the components were manually created when I first started working on the project rather than copying. WOuld that explain it?

I have kind of got the trim tool working but it’s not behaving as I would expect, as you can see from the screenshot:


When I clicked on the posts and then on the pegs it places holes on the other ends as well, why is this and how do I fix it please?

The short timbers are instances of the same component with the inside end of the left hand one corresponding to the outside end of the right hand one in the screen shot. Before cutting the holes, in this case, I would have flipped one instance end for end and then only drilled holes in one since the other would get the same treatment.

Thank you for your reply.

I’m really sorry to sound stupid but I am not sure what you mean, how do you identify what is appropriate and how to do it? WHat other instances are there, as you said in this instance.

Every copy of the component in the model is an instance. In your screen shot you have two instances of the same component shown; those short timbers with the holes. Once the holes are drilled correctly, the pieces will be mirror images of each other. So if you flip one instance along its red direction (open the component for editing to see which way the axes run) what you do on one end of one instance will happen on the opposite end of the other one. See below.


I edited one component to add the arrow temporarily so you could see what Flip Along does. Then, before Running Eneroth’s Trim, I had to make the components solid by removing the arrow geometry.

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Thank you for the information. After trying your suggestion I understand better how it works. However, I noticed on one side that the holes did not line up perfectly all the way through and I don’t know why, especially when they do on the other side!


They don’t allign exactly because the parts don’t all line up exactly.

I deleted the holes and drew new circles using guides on the one side and when I tried again it seemed to do the trick. I hope the project lines up or these holes will end up in the wrong places.

I then used the trim tool and it has produced holes in many of the bottom pieces, what is the best way to fix? I know make unique would work but that would require me to conduct that operation many times.