I am finding in Sketchup 2023 I can not remove tags from individual entities.
Where this problem is arising for me is when I copy a component and place it elsewhere in the model. I want to retag this new component differently from the original so that I can hide/unhide the two components individually in my scenes. I am finding that I can retag at the component level, but, for some reason, individual entities within the component (e.g. faces, lines, etc.) maintain the original tag, and I cannot mark them as “untagged”.
Typically I leave entities “untagged” within components so that I only have to change tags at the component level when creating scenes. Sketchup is letting me change the entity tags to something other than “untagged” though which makes no sense to me.
I have attached the model I am working on for reference. I am looking at the “Entry Truss” that is
placed in the property and the copy of it (that has some slight modifications) to the east.
I always use the tag toolbar.
It seems this does not happen when changing within the “Entity Info” tray (?). Is this the proper way to change tags? For some reason I don’t usually look at entity info except for a few specific things (radius, number of segments, etc.)
I don’t know that “proper” is the right way. As I wrote, I don’t waste toolbar real estate on the Tags toolbar. I have Entity Info open all the time, though. I refer to it very frequently and just use it to change tags, too.
FWIW, I had a look at your model. I note a little incorrect tag usage and a lot of unused stuff.
Even though your model isn’t huge by any stretch, keeping it cleaned up as you go is good practice. This purging reduced file size by about 25%.
Oh wow. That is very useful to know (file size reduction). Thank you DaveR.
I don’t expect an explanation here, but do you have a good resource that explains what you did/do with “Default Tag Geometry” and “Purging”? I remember you mentioning this in previous posts, but never fully grasped how and why this is useful to do and keep track of (beyond file size?).
I don’t know if this is a good resource but I don’t know of a consolidated resource to recommend so I’ll just add this:
First the how-I-did-it.
Fixing the incorrect tagging: Although it can be done manually I use TIG’s Default Layer Geometry to do it because it’ll quickly go through the entire model and untagg all edges and faces and then give the report to show how many entities were affected.
Purging unused stuff: This can be done individually for Components, Materials, Tags, and Styles via their inspector panels or it can be done via Window>Model Info>Statistics>Purge Unused. I use Purge All again from the Venerable TIG mainly because it gives a report. I have a keyboard shortcut set up for that.
The general rule for working with tags is to keep all edges and faces untagged. Only put tags on groups and components. For the vast majority of users there is no benefit to tagging raw geometry. Leaving all geometry untagged also simplifies your work flow because you don’t have to chase the active tag as you work. If you do choose to tag the geometry then you need to make sure when editing groups and components that you make the correct tag active before adding new gerometry. By leaving the geometry untagged you don’t even need to know what tag you’ve put on the group or component when you are editing. The tag isn’t a factor.
You need to keep in mind that the geometry from imported CAD files generally comes in with tags that match the layers from the CAD file. If you follow the general wisdom about using the imported .dxf/.dwg as a reference and get rid of it when you no longer need it, you can purge the tags after purging the components. If you are going to keep and use the imported geometry it would be best to fix the incorrect tagging. Also be aware that entourage from the 3D Warehouse sometimes has incorrect tag usage. Often the tagging isn’t useful for you anyway so cleaning up the entourage before adding it to your project is a good idea.
As for unused stuff, components, materials, and styles remain ‘In Model’ even if you delete them from the model space. This can be useful in some cases. For example, if you right click on a component to hide it but ham hand the mouse and hit Erase, what happens on screen looks the same. There’s a huge difference later when you want to unhide it and there’s nothing to unhide. You can go back to the In Model components and drag in a new instance of the component and move ahead. (Note there’s no such option for groups. If you erase a group and don’t catch it immediately it’s gone.) Materials and styles that you might try in the model also get saved that way.
The downside of this is that your model can quickly get cluttered. I tell my interior design students who like to try out different pieces of furniture in their models that just deleting the couch from the model space is like stuffing it up into the attic. It doesn’t get the couch off the property. Eventually the attic is so full of furniture the ceiling collapses on you in the middle of the night. The same with materials. Pretty soon the garage is full of buckets of paint and boxes of tile that aren’t getting used. In SketchUp this is when the model gets so large the computer struggles to handle it. All of that unused stuff becomes a liability, not an asset. Getting rid of it is important then.
