I purchased Sketchup Shop. Prior to the upgrade I could make exploded views by copying an object and assigning a different tag to it. The I could turn off the original tag and explode the copy and create a scene with dimensions. No I can create the copy an assign a tag to it, but when I turn off the view of the original tag, the new copy goes with it. I can’t separate the new copy from the original. It is NOT a component. The copy was made with Move. I tried Copy and Paste in Place, but I got the same result. I turn off all of the tags to clear up the drawing with the exception of the object I want to detail. Then I use Move and move a copy out of the way, say 4’. Then I change tags to the new tag. Then I assign the new tag to the new copy. Then I turn off the old tag. Then I move the copy back to the original location. Then I break it apart, add the dimensions and create a new scene with just the tag visible. But now, when I hide the original tag the new copy is invisible also. It is as though the tag assignment is being ignored.
This sounds to me as if you are using tags incorrectly. Untagged should always be left active and ALL edges and faces should remain untagged. Only components and groups should get tagged.
Maybe you could share your model so we can see what you’ve got and see what it’ll take to clean it up so it works right?
A gotcha that may be affecting your workflow: when you explode a group or component, SketchUp assigns the tag from the object to all of its (now loose) geometry. Many of us consider this to be a bad design. It isn’t really a bug because it was done deliberately.
@ScottinTexas If you explode a group or component whose entities are in the Default Tag (Untagged), they are assigned the former Tag of that group or component. If you now create a new group or component and assign another Tag to it, the entities will still remain associated with the Tag of the old component. It is understandable that in this case, turning off the visibility of the old component or group Tag, the new component or group also becomes invisible, or rather - all the entities of the new element become invisible. If this is the right problem, then after the old element’s Tag is turned off, the new element’s placeholder borders will remain visible, if you select this element before.
The solution is to assign a Default or New Tag to all entities in the new element.
It is best to manage it by turning on the Color by Tag option as shown below.
The Default is Untagged, quite literally meaning ‘without a tag’ and to suggest assigning a tag to raw geometry (except in very specific instances) show a lack of understanding on the correct usage of Tags.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare / Romeo and Juliet / Act II, Scene II
This is a separate conversation that would ever be worth talking about, namely whether renaming Layers to Tags has changed their behavior. No. Even CleanUp’s old command Geometry to Layer0 makes all entities Untaged, so only the name has changed, not the essence.
I long wondered why in SketchUp Layers are called Layers because they didn’t quite match that name. Their order in the Layer Palette did not change anything in the model. AutoCAD still uses the name Layer. Compare this, for example, with Photoshop, Illustrator or CORELDraw, where the order of the layers has a significant effect on the design.
Is the name Tag better? By content more relevant definitely. However, it has also inherited the name Untagged from the concept of tagging, which I do not think is appropriate in the historical context and operation of this program. The Default Tag would be more appropriate. For example, the Select / All on Selected layers command selects entities belonging to a “non-existent” tag as well as entities belonging to any “existing” tag. There is no difference here. So to say that Untagged means that the tag does not exist at all is not quite adequate.
And back to the question, has renaming layers somehow changed the way the program works or improved it? No.
Thanks for your reply, Box. I don’t know what you mean by using tags incorrectly. I designed a cabinet with 2 sides a back a bottom and a face frame. Then I added drawers. Now I group all of it together and assign a tag to it. Then I can make it visible or invisible whenever I want. Is this not the correct way to use tags?
Using tags incorrectly generally refers togiving raw geometry tags. The correct usage is to leave Untagged as active, create and leave all geometry as untagged and only give tags to components and groups. (objects). An important thing to remember if youexplode components or groups is that the contents will get the tag that was assigned to the component/group. If you have to explode an object to raw geometry (something I very rarely do in my workflow) you should remember to immediately make that geometry untagged in Entity Info.
Perhaps “Explode” is causing confusion. When I have a collection of objects grouped together, to move one of them away from the group I have to explode the group. For my dimensions I explode the group and move ever object so that dimension lines can be applied to each object. The I print that and take it to the shop. In my post “Explode” was meant to convey the image of all of the objects being a separate piece.
It can be confusing to use only the word Explode as you did but I understood you to mean you are making an exploded view by moving the objects away from each other. I’ve run across new users who thought that Explode in the Context menu would create an exploded view and used it on their project which of course explodes the objects back to raw geometry.
I can see that. I have been using SketchUp, off and on, since it came out years ago. I am trying to remember how things worked before and use them today. So I will have to be careful in my description when writing a post so I don’t confuse SketchUp commands with typical words.
Really there’s very little that has changed in the way things work with tags from when they were called layers. Mostly just the name. Layer 0 and Untagged are basically synonymous.
I can see now what you meant with Explode, but many people do explode things just to edit them, so I was concerned that you were doing something odd that was causing your issue. Obviously you have a handle on it.
