How to unmerge floors?

SE.skp (2.0 MB)
Hi everyone. I’m new to SketchUp and hope you could help me with this problem of “accidentally” joining two floor together.
I initially created two floor plans side by side and made sure to put them on different layers. Last night I wanted to see how they look when combined and moved the second floor to precisely above the first floor.

This morning when I wanted to move the second floor back to the side, I couldn’t do it without affecting the first floor. It seems like the top surface of the first floor and the bottom surface of second floor have merged together. I didn’t do this on purpose. Any thoughts on how to undo it? It really gives me headache!

One of the early Rules of learning SketchUp is that you Can’t use Layers to separate Raw Geometry.

Instead create Groups, or Components… for these types of things. And use Layers for controlling the ‘Visibility’ of whatever is placed on them.

Also worth mentioning… Don’t draw directly onto other Layers, as this can create a few problem later on that are tricky to sort out. Instead draw everything onto ‘Layer0’… then reassign things to other layers via the Entity Info window… to control visibility,… or, simply to manage project elements.


SketchUp will always merge it’s Raw geometry together even if it’s set onto different layers.

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because layers don’t separate geometry. As Jim said.
Not sure what the process would be, but you can post the file here so one can see what you have and show you. Put everything on Layer0. Don’t add layers until you need to. They won’t help you in modeling for the most part.

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I learned my lesson. Please help check the SKP I’ve attached in my original post, maybe there’s still a way to undo the damage? :cry:

On this occasion your incorrect use of layers and the structure you’ve built actually make it possible to fix.
By turning off one layer you can select and group the geometry, note how I assign the raw geometry back to layer 0 and then assign the relevant layer tags to the groups I create.
Layer%20fix

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It has already been shown to you how you should work, but to give you an idea of how you can structure your model.
SE (SU 2017).skp (217.7 KB)

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This is great! Thanks, Box. Some lines and faces from first floor still stick to the bottom of second floor. But I just deleted them manually.

Do you mind elaborating what I did wrong with layers so I can do better next time? Is it about grouping things as shown by mihai.s?
And why do some lines and faces from the first floor stick to the bottom of second floor?

Thank you, mihai.s! It’s immensely helpful! Do you do all of those by manually selecting each entity/surface one by one and then group them together? Or are there steps to make the job faster?

Thank you very much, JimD. I really appreciate your feedback.

Thank you so much, pbacot!:rose:

Have a read here.
https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/controlling-visibility-layers

You’re welcome, stelle123!

In this way I arranged the elements in the model:

If you watch a few of the existing tutorials, you will understand more easily what and how to do - https://learn.sketchup.com/track/sketchup-fundamentals-part-1

You’re welcome.

I see. Layers will help you in a building model like this. so you can hide the top floor and work on the bottom floor etc.

You are the best! Thank you so much, mihai.s! :rose::heart:

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