Somehow I mistakenly made several objects in my drawing a member of more than one tag (or group, not sure what terminology is right here - I always make a group, then tag it - so it seems a bit redundant to me).
So when I hide a certain tag, a bunch of other items also disappear. I’ve got through and re-grouped and I think the groups are right. I’ve also re-tagged while doing that. Yet, when I hide one tag, two sets of things disappear.
So it seems the issue here is when I click on an object, or series of objects, is there any way to see if multiple tags are applied, and how do I clean that up? There is no group management in the right hand tray like there is for tags, and I find that a bit odd. Maybe it’s somewhere else.?
An object (a group or component) can only have one tag given to it. If you gave a tag to the geometry inside the object, that could cause what you are seeing (ALL edges and faces should be made and remain untagged). If you share your .skp file we can help you diagnose the problem exactly and get you sorted out.
Thanks for your help, much appreciated. File is attached. If I hide the Garage, both Garage and External Walls disappear. If I had External Walls, only they disappear, as it should be.
You have numerous edges and or faces tagged with Garage, even some that are in the External Walls (in the most deeply nested group). So they disappear when you turn off that tag. It seems that you also have more layers of nested groups than really needed, which can make a model confusing to work with!
As Steve pointed out, you have geometry that is tagged. All edges and faces should be left untagged. Only objects (groups and components) should get tags. Here is the result of fixing that.
The unneeded nesting tends to just get in the way.
Sorry for the late response, I’ve been pretty busy at work, so I’m just now getting back to this.
Thanks for all the advice. I think I need to go through more training videos on how to best go about mapping out this house. The floor layout is pretty complex in this house and I’m constantly measuring/remeasuring, adjusting and chasing things that don’t line up. It’s quite a job.
So on the groups - perhaps I should delete all tags (err, I mean groups) and start over. I was told that grouping things was a good practice, so I’d just highlight a whole room, or all external walls and group them. So if I understand correctly, surfaces were also selected in this process. So how do do it? Zoom in and select (shift click or whatever) on each line itself? And I’m still a bit hazy on managing groups. Unlike tags, there is no widget or way to view all groups, and select that group and see what makes it up, unless I’m missing it.
I’ll keep at it, but appreciate you folks taking the time to answer my rudimentary questions!
So once I figure out how to properly tag (or group? both?) - is there a way to select that group (or tag? or both?) and use my keyboard to easily move things up, down, right or left using the arrow keys? I do this in Visio for precise movement. It’s rather easy to flub with a mouse and typing and is more steps. I keep wanting to bump things around to get them exact with the keyboard arrows. Is that possible?
I think first you need to get a real handle on groups, components, and tags.
Groups and components can be thought of as containers that hold stuff and keep that stuff separated from other stuff. Think something like jars of mayonnaise and mustard and grape jelly. The containers prevent them from combining. Tags are like tags you put on the groups and components. Another analogy: boxes packed up for moving. Some boxes get tagged for the kitchen while others, the basement and yet others, the bathroom. Tags don’t do anything to separate parts of your model. They just allow you to control what is visible and what isn’t.
Wel, the surfaces make up the walls, right. At the lowest level groups and components contain geometry–edges and faces. You can also select a number of groups/components and put them in a group or component container. This would be a nested group.
It depends on eactly what you’ve modeled. Best practice is to create the geometry that will go into a single group and put it in a group before you move on to the next stuff. If you want to have a group for the exterior walls that excludes the interior walls, model only the exterior walls, select them (their edges and faces) and create the group. Then move on to modeling the interior walls, select only that geometry and make another group. Rinse and repeat as you go through the model.
You’re missing it. It’s called Outliner. The thing with Outliner and groups though is normally groups just get called Group unless you take a moment to give the group a useful name after you’ve created it. You do that by selecting the group and editing its name in Entity Info.
Once you have a group you can move it around with the Move tool. The cursor keys won’t move it but you can lock the move direction with them. Right for red direction, left for the direction, and up for the blue direction.
You can’t “bump things around in SketchUp” but you can move with precision. A key thing to using the Move tool correctly is to grab an object by a point that has a place to go in the model space. Yet another analogy: Imagine closing a chain gate across a drive into a farm field. If you want to hang the end link of the chain on the hook, you don’t pick the chain up at its middle. You pick it up by the end link and put that on the hook.
Spend some time going through the instructional stuff at learn.sketchup.com
