Hi, can someone please help me? I have model that would like to turn off layer but have error that come up when selecting the differing parts of the drawing. The error is (you cannot hide the layer the active group or component is on). I have deadline to meet and not sure what I have done wrong.
Please help?
I already replied to your other post on this. One post is good enough.
To avoid dragging the other thread off course, let’s use this one.
Your model has a lot of issues related to the way you’ve used layers. In SketchUp, layers are only used for controlling visibility of entities. ALL edges and faces should be created on and left on Layer 0. It is only components or groups that should get associated with other layers. You have edges and faces on other layers. You can see that in this screen shot. Notice there is no layer indicated in Entity Info because there’s more than one layer involved here. You need to get all of your geometry back to Layer 0 and start over making groups/components first and assigning layers to them.
This is going to take a bit of time.
ok thank you for your help
There are a lot of layers in your model. In many applications this would be commendable, implying that you have a very fine-grained structure to your model or drawing, capturing a logical hierachy of parts, sub-assemblies, and assemblies. However, in SU, I would wager that many or most of your layers are meaningless and useless as well. As Dave mentioned, layers are used in SU for one purpose only: to control the visibility of objects.
That many layers would mean that you envision many, many distinct scenarios involving the visibility of different combinations of objects.
In SU, groups and components serve many of the same structural and logical functions that are served by layers in other applications. Groups and components isolate and protect the geometry they contain; layers do not. Groups and components are used to form the logical structure that corresponds to an indentured parts list or bill of materials.
An individual piece part–like a board–consists of some number of faces and edges and makes a logical group or component; it may be combined with or separated from other groups or components but is unlikely ever itself to be disassembled. Some number of parts make up and are contained by an assembly with some distinct function, such as a roof or a stairway or a door, each of which would become a group or component. In turn, some combination of these objects would either form a yet higher-order logical grouping or perhaps the end-product or top assembly.
In this manner, groups and assemblies are used to define the nested, hierarchical structure of the model. Layers play no part in this. You can have a complex, fine-grained, hierarchical model structure without a single layer.
I say all this because it seems likely that as you reallocate objects to layers (actually, assign layers to objects as attributes) you’re probably going to want to rethink the logical structure of your model. You would do well to bone up on groups and components in the SU Help Center (not to mention layers).
-Gully
You can help yourself to deal correctly with SketchUp’s layers if mentally you do two things:
- substitute the words “visibility flag” for “layer”. This will help break the mental association with what the word “layer” means in other apps.
- Use the phrase “this item references layerX for its visiblity flag” rather than “this item is on layerX”. This will help break the mental notion that a SketchUp layer contains, owns, or structures anything, which it does not.