Exploded Views in SketchUp Make

Can you do exploded views with the Make version or do you need the Pro version for this feature?

Make a new Scene, positioned away from your model.

Make a copy of your model, and move it to where it is visible in your new scene.

Then move the parts into an exploded view.

Make any internal components Unique before moving apart any sub components inside them.

There’s nothing different in Pro for this purpose.

1 Like

As John says, this is the same between Pro and Make versions. It does require that you’ve create the model with the parts as components or groups so they aren’t stuck together.

This is one I did some time back.

1 Like

Thanks

y no se puede hacer el despiece de forma automatica con la opcion explode view?

No. Explode (in the context menu) explodes components and groups back to loose geometry. It is not intended for making exploded views.

Please tell me that there is a plugin that can do this without the manual intervention so long as components have been created during design!

There is at least one but it’s too difficult to control exactly where the components wind up. I find it’s much easier to get the exploded views I want using just the Move tool.And it’s a trivial thing to do if you’ve created the components correctly.

1 Like

Exploded views that look good are incredibly difficult to automate in 3D. If you look at the example @DaveR posted earlier in this topic, you will see a lot of aspects that required artistic judgement. For example, some parts are left as assemblies when similar ones elsewhere already show the idea. Some parts are displaced horizontally either in x or in y whereas others are displaced vertically. The distance the parts are moved is chosen so important things are not obscured by others but it is still evident how they fit together. The viewing angle is chosen for the same reason. And all of this will vary depending on the details of model contents!

Formalizing all these things into a reliable set of rules, even without coding them for a computer, is quite complicated. I don’t know if anyone has ever succeeded in any 3D modeling app. If anyone reading this knows of an example, it would be fascinating to see how it was done.

2 Likes

Thank you both for your decent replies! I can understand that it is difficult to make decent looking exploded views automatically.