I am fairly new to Sketchup (first post) and I have a lot still to learn. I have made some pretty awful drawings over the past several months, with geometry all over the place. I am slowly finding my way to a better place… but I’m still not quite there yet.
In my drawings I have been creating groups for everything that probably should be components- repeated items, such as individual timbers in a construction, etc… I am just now learning that component is probably the way to go here, during my self-taught: try/fail/learn/improve progression.
Anyway, I have been staying fairly organised by using layers to keep content separated into logical compartments to keep things clear and make it easier to work. And it has been going very well on my most recent project…
However… I seem to be making some mistakes that put individual groups in multiple layers, such that I can make them visible/invisible by toggling visibility on more than one layer. Prompting me to believe that I have made some error along the way.
Can anyone point me to how I can first, prevent this from happening, then possibly go back and correct? Or other useful tips for a motivated newbie?
Or in words, think of it this way and you’re not likely getting into these problems with visibility and layers.
Only top level entities should have (if needed at all) another layer assigned to them than Layer0.
There’s one exception for basic geometry: edges and faces. These should always be “on” Layer0.
This way each entity, i.e. edge, face, (nested) group, (nested) component, independent on how deep nested will only “listen” to one layer button for being visible or not.
Assuming that you always (as should) leave Layer0 to be the active layer. Then it can’t be turned off.
Guides, dimensions and text may be assigned to other layers if desired.
You could assign another layer to a nested group or component for special purposes, But it requires you to keep track of what you are doing it for.
@Cotty/@Wo3Dan, Thanks for the quick reply. I guess the root problem is probably overuse of layers, but I have to admit, I find them very useful for easily toggling visibility on large groups of fiddly things, when I need to add/modify something and need room to visualise and change. I suppose that in my haste, I have been inadvertently nesting items along with other groups, then banging them into different layers, or modifying in one layer, then trying to go back via Entity Info and change it to another… which I still have not quite fully understood- since it will only report one layer for a group- even if it exists in several. And because I have only recently learned about the Outliner, going back and trying to make heads or tales of it now, is… challenging.
I will chock this up to inexperience and try to be more organised on future drawings. Also finding hide/unhide to be helpful, so should limit my exposure to risk of using too many layers.
This can’t be since each entity can only have one layer assigned to it.
If non, then the entity is still “on” Layer0.
Through ‘Entity Info’ it should be easy to change an already assigned layer to another existing layer in the list of applied layers. You thus replace one assignement for another.
Hide isn’t always the best way to get inside geometry to make changes. It’s not saved well in scenes when it is applied to nested groups and components.
Read about scenes and what is stored via the list of options in the ‘Scene Manager’. One of them is Layers, which makes it possible to save sets of visible layers per scene (or not if turned off).
Scenes can be handy to toggle layer(s) on/off
