I’ve created a simple drawing of a small deck for my yard, but some of the edges can’t be selected and moved to the correct tag. Thanks for any help, still new to SketchUp Pro
Here’s the DeckBoards and Untagged Tags viewable (1st pic) and then just the Untagged viewable. Why am I unable to select the visible edges?
Upload the model to get help.
Generally, don’t apply tags to edges or faces, just to groups or components. Leave all raw geometry Untagged (Layer0 in SU before SU 2020).
It would be helpful if you share the .skp file but from your description it looks like you are probably using tags incorrectly.
Adding the skp file.
Small Deck.skp (960.7 KB)
Yes. Tags are being used incorrectly. ALL edges and faces should be created and remain untagged. Only groups and components should get tags.
Fixing the incorrect tag usage:
Your deck planking is all loose geometry. Each board should be a component of group.
Those components of groups can then be given a “Deck” tag so you can control their visibility.
Also note that one of the deck planks is missing some geometry on the bottom.
Thanks DaveR.
I selected all loose geometry and assigned it to Untagged (I don’t know how you did it in your screenshot). I’ll properly group them and then use tags.
Yes. I screwed up one of the deck boards. I was gonna just copy another and fit it in place.
Thanks!
As a general note, I wouldn’t bother modelling the rounded corners in the deck planks. Leaving them square reduces your edge/face count drastically.
Thanks Anssi. So let me ask a very unintelligent newbie question. What’s wrong with a high edge/face counts? What does it impact?
Just trying to get educated…
I used a plugin that does the same thing you did but it gives the report so I can show how much geometry was had Untagged assigned to it.
that’s a good way to go.
Anssi’s point about leaving the rounded edges off is a good one. The radiused edges just load up the file.
On a small file like yours it doesn’t have a huge impact but as your models get larger, that kind of thing can make a difference in performance. Unneeded geometry can make your models difficult to work with. Another reason for leaving the edges of the planks square is it makes them easier to work with if you need to make changes.
By the way, are you using 4x6s for the longer joists?
You might give some consideration to using components instead of groups or at least giving your groups some sort of names that make it easier to tell what each part is. And, if you might want to generate some sort of report such as a cut list, it’s important to get the axes aligned with the geometry. Your joist groups, for example have their axes aligned at 45° to the geometry. Cutlists and other report options will report the size of the group/component bounding boxes and result in nonsense in your report.
Here I’ve run a cutlist for just the joists.
I picked 4x6 because…I have no good reason to use them. I’m just getting this together to use Photo Match and show my builder what I want built. It’s so small maybe 4x4 would work too.
Ah… The builder should know what is right. Very likely for a small deck like this 2x6s will be fine. Some years ago I did a SketchUp model to show our builder what I was hoping the screen porch we were having him build would look like. I kept it really basic. He looked at my printed drawings and the first thing he said was, “You aren’t going to tell me where to put the studs are you?” 
I had no intention of detailing the model to that point, of course, and we got what I asked for.
In this case a simple box that shows the overall shape of your intended deck, together with an accurate description of what kind of material you want it built out of, would probably tell your builder quite as much as a full model. For more realism, you can paint the surfaces with a suitable decking texture.
