I’ve been trying to draw up some plans for outdoor animal housing. I keep running across the same problem where I try to Trim two components so that I can get an accurate model for reference.
Right now I’m working on the roof for a chicken coup but can’t get it to work. Components are nested, not solid. I’m at a loss of how to use this tool properly and if there is a better way to be doing this.
Edit: The only thing that I have found so far is to go into editing the component, creating another solid component inside of it, then using the subtract tool. This works okay but seems to be a lot of extra steps.
Are you trying to cut the notches in the rafter? If so, you need to explode the outer components so that you don’t have the nesting. There’s no point in the nesting anyway. Each of these for example is a solid component nested inside another component wrapper. That outre wrapper is why you can’t make the Trim tool work.
FWIW, instead of using Trim from t he native Solid Tools, I would recommend using Trim from Eneroth Solid Tools (from the Extension Warehouse) because it respects the components. The native solid tools will convert components they modify into groups.
I’ve been poking at your model more. I see a lot of these double wrapped components scattered throughout. It makes sense to wrap up several components to make a larger one as in the case of the hinges, latches, and doors. But there’s no benefit to double wrapping a single part like you did with the rafter and the top plate components. I removed the double wrappers and then purged unused from your model. This reduced the file size by nearly 72%.
Is there a reason SU does it this way? Seems from what you say that it would be better if the default worked the Eneroth way. Maybe that should be a Feature Request?
That’s a very good question, Simon. The behavior of the native Solid Tools with regards to modifying components is different from what happens if you modify components with other tools. It’s why Eneroth Solid Tools and BoolTools2 exist. There have been many requests for the native Solid Tools to be fixed (I’ve been asking for it since they were released in V8) but it’s evidently been a lower priority thing especially since there are alternatives. At 3D Basecamp in 2016 I had an opportunity to speak with the author of the Solid Tools extension about this and he agreed with me that they needed to be fixed. Maybe we’ll see it in the next version.
Probably not. I know the SketchUp team are aware of this request. I, myself, have made the request in person to four or five different members and I know I’m not the only one. I expect that they’ve put it on the back burner because they’ve had more pressing feature requests and bug fixes to take care of and they are a fairly small group. I guess that’s understandable.
Besides, imagine the whiners who will come out of the woodwork to complain when the native Solid Tools stop converting components to groups and calling them all ‘Difference’.
