In this image I want to move the face labeled A, so I would need to swing my camera around to view A. When I hover over it with the push/pull tool, it only selects this face in the front.
It would be great if there was a modifier key or some option for me to select the face A without having to move my camera.
Without having to move the camera.
I understand. Is there a way you can select that face without moving the camera or hiding the face in front of it?
The original post is simply my feature request.
What you desire is possible in Blender, for example, but it requires a dedicated Face Select mode, with a dot in the middle of every face so you can pick them through the X-ray:
That’s quite a convoluted method, and it gets visually busy very quickly as the number of faces rise, not very SketchUp-like, so I doubt something like it would get implemented in the official package.
Curic has a plugin called “Go to Level” that can pick elements under the pointer even if they’re nested within groups, but even that can only select the first face:
I’m not sure if that was a design decision on Curic’s part, or if SketchUp’s API doesn’t allow more than that, perhaps due to a potential performance hit calculating all faces that might lie under the pointer would bring.
Hello,
For selecting a hidden face like face A without moving your camera, I recommend trying the Trowel tool from Curic DIO2. It’s quite straightforward: hover over an edge and hold the Shift key when you need to select a face for pushing, but it’s obscured. This will select the obscured face for you. Additionally, the Trowel tool features an ‘Isolate Object’ function that quickly isolates objects, allowing you to select faces that are otherwise not visible.
Give it a try; I believe it will greatly simplify your workflow.
Best regards,
This is exactly what I was imagining. I’m surprised this is not a native tool but your extension seems to have created exactly the solution for this situation. Thank you for sharing it.
Native:
Ah! This works! Now if only I could make a shortcut for select connected faces lol… 
Thank you for introducing me to this option!
Ah, I see. Thank you! This will help me.
Doubleclicking an edge would select the adjacent faces, too.
Yeah, I would do that, then select the visible one.
I mean, I would probably orbit but if I didn’t want to orbit, I’d do that 
Native:
- right click on the top edge > Select (context menu) > Connected faces
- with [Shift] deselect one of the two selected faces (the top face)
- ‘Push/Pull’ the one and only still selected obscured face that you asked for.
For some reason I can’t seem to get this native solution to work for me?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
(As a side note, if I group the shapes beforehand I have no issues and easy to manipulate.)
Yours is a different example than rhe one that OP presented.
All as expected.
Which face would you like to push or pull?
For both top faces are selectable independently without tricks.
OP’s example lets you select only two faces where you deselect the top face.
Ooops, thank you for clarifying. Still learning….
I’d like to move the side of the L-shape facing the rectangle (i.e. the face of the L-shape hidden by the rectangle).
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
To help achieve your goals, some time spent at the SketchUp Campus and at the SketchUp - YouTube channel will be very worthwhile. Both sites are from the SketchUp team. On the YouTube channel, pay attention to the Square One Series and Level UP series. They cover the basics for each tool.
In that case the solution would be similar to what the OP requested. So:
It’s easy to orbit around to see the thing you’re working on. I would suggest it’s a good thing to always do that. I orbit my model all the time, even not thinking about it, and for no thought out reason, just because looking at what you make is kind of what designing is about.
