# Is it possible to select/view all same materials at once? **URL:** \ **Category:** Pro\ **Created:** [January 19, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777 "2021-01-19T17:55:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Peter\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/peter_b/32/48426_2.png) [@Peter\_B](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/Peter_B)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/1 "2021-01-19T17:55:47Z")
Hello Forum! When it comes to Renderings (in my case Lumion), it is important to use individual materials/colors in SketchUp to be able to work on each individual surface in Lumion. But sometimes it occurs, that when working in Lumion with the imported SU-File and working/placing Material, for example the walls, another surface somewhere within the model, for example the tea pot, also flashes up, because of using the same color in the SU-Model by mistake. Question: Is it possible, to activate all geometry which has the same Material/Color on it to avoid these kind of errors before exporting the model to the Renderingsoftware? Greetings, Peter ---
**Author:** ![paul.millet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/paul.millet/32/236258_2.png) [@paul.millet](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/paul.millet)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 6:02pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/2 "2021-01-19T18:02:56Z")
hello, I believe thomthom plugin selection toys allows you to do that [Selection Toys | SketchUcation](https://sketchucation.com/plugin/738-tt_selection_toys) ---
**Author:** ![DaveR](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/daver/32/7601_2.png) [@DaveR](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/DaveR)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/3 "2021-01-19T18:04:13Z")
There’s an old plugin designed to do this called Select by Material. It would be worth a try. [http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=276175#p276175](http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=276175#p276175) In both cases they would select only in the active context so if you’ve applied the material inside a group or component, you would need to have it open for editing to access the material and then it wouldn’t select anything outside that context. ---
**Author:** ![paul.millet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/paul.millet/32/236258_2.png) [@paul.millet](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/paul.millet)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 6:25pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/4 "2021-01-19T18:25:37Z")
hmmm true… But in that case, sketchup can do it natively. right-click on a face \> select \> all with same material. I know for sure that Vray has a function to select every face for a particular material in the whole scene, no matter if it’s in a group or not. but because you use lumion, I doubt you have both ? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/peter_b/32/48426_2.png) [@Peter\_B](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/Peter_B)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/5 "2021-01-19T22:59:38Z")
Thanks guys! @Paul: “Rightclick on face \> all with same material”: Seems to work only within the same group. Not within the whole scene. @DaveR: Installing this old extension does not work. ---
**Author:** ![paul.millet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/paul.millet/32/236258_2.png) [@paul.millet](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/paul.millet)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 11:08pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/6 "2021-01-19T23:08:01Z")
> [@Peter\_B](#): > > Seems to work only within the same group. Not within the hole scene Yes, that is what we where saying, about the “active context”. The plugins we talked about won’t do any better. If lumion works the same way other renderers do (I’m thinking of Atlantis, twinmotion…) You should have an option to apply materials to objects instead of replacing materials, for the few exceptions you might encounter (rather than having to go back and forth from one software to another) ---
**Author:** ![Box](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/box/32/235164_2.png) [@Box](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/Box)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/7 "2021-01-19T23:17:50Z")
One workaround is to edit the colour to something really obvious, this works despite context. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/peter_b/32/48426_2.png) [@Peter\_B](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/Peter_B)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2021, 10:12am UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/8 "2021-01-20T10:12:44Z")
@Paul, thanks again. As far as I know, in Lumion it is not possible to import models by objects - like it is in Twinmotion. @Box: Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![AK\_SAM](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/ak_sam/32/126155_2.png) [@AK\_SAM](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/AK_SAM)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2021, 10:49am UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/9 "2021-01-20T10:49:10Z")
I also encoutner this issue a lot - epsecially working on houses where a lot of the fittings are white, grey, off-white, etc, and a lot are named things from other software or with generic names "“ColourA005” or “'Archi-55” or “Wall3-1” The trick of making everything bright is a good way to find it, but it doesn’t help fixing it! It would be amazing if the Materials pallete could be sorted or grouped somehow, based around the model’s heirarchy. I always seem to end up with 100s of materials in a model, just because i have some furniture, vehicles or landscape components. Hopefully Trimble are working on an upgraded material/component browser interface for a future release… when working in other software (eg lumion) it becomes very clear how dated the SU interface now is. ---
**Author:** ![paul.millet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/paul.millet/32/236258_2.png) [@paul.millet](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/paul.millet)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2021, 11:12am UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/10 "2021-01-20T11:12:56Z")
hmmm… After a few searches, I found this gem : [material\_selection.rb](https://forums.sketchup.com/uploads/short-url/hLKj5Y9wG6Ba1ShBUwIVyaJQaPz.rb) (1.8 KB) it allows you to select the same material among model, even inside groups or components. careful though. because it selects faces inside groups as well, use with caution (for example, grouping the selection would cause unexpected behaviour). But you can then use thomthom’s plugin listed above to hide everything that is unselected, perhaps other manipulations that i’m not thinking of right now. Note that it’s a rb file and not rbz. You won’t be able to install it through the extension manager, place it in your plugin folder. (and restart sketchup) to then use it, once the desired material is ‘loaded’/selected, go to extension menu \> material selection ---
**Author:** ![LinearGraphs](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/lineargraphs/32/122428_2.png) [@LinearGraphs](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/LinearGraphs)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 3:03pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/11 "2022-02-04T15:03:22Z")
Is there anything like this that only drills down to the group, and not to the geometry? ---
**Author:** ![paul.millet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/paul.millet/32/236258_2.png) [@paul.millet](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/paul.millet)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/12 "2022-02-04T16:04:56Z")
hello, I guess it is feasable but that would imply modifying the rb file so perhaps someone skilled in ruby could ? @DanRathbun@dezmo ? probably modifying this part ```ruby def self.recurse(ents, m, s) ents.each do |e| if e.is_a? Sketchup::Group unless e.material == nil if e.material == m s.add e end end recurse(e.entities, m, s) elsif e.is_a? Sketchup::ComponentInstance unless e.material == nil if e.material == m s.add e end end recurse(e.definition.entities, m, s) elsif e.material == m s.add e end end end ``` ---
**Author:** ![dezmo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/dezmo/32/51058_2.png) [@dezmo](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/dezmo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/13 "2022-02-04T16:51:33Z")
I have just posted my code snippet in the topic from @LinearGraphs where he requested the same… 😇 ---
**Author:** ![LinearGraphs](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/lineargraphs/32/122428_2.png) [@LinearGraphs](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/LinearGraphs)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/is-it-possible-to-select-view-all-same-materials-at-once/149777/14 "2022-02-04T16:58:28Z")
Awwwee you’re so nice! Thanks! I’ll check it out!