Hello,
I am currently following along in a SketchUp class on my MacBook. I have been using the program for architectural drawing for the most part. During my class this has happened several times where I am trying to push-pull walls and then trim them using the solid tools. It always says that my walls are not ‘solid’ and there for the commands don’t work. Does anyone have any thoughts? I have locked the technical drawings and triple-checked for stray marks that could be disrupting the process. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Base Construction_Forum Upload.skp (368.5 KB)
Share the .skp file. There’s nothing we can see in your screenshot to help us help you to determine the reason the wall object isn’t solid.
I have uploaded it. Thank you for taking a look!
Stray edges in the wall group are preventing it from being a solid.
Edit the group and erase those two edges.
Also erase the unneeded edges inside the walls.
After that, Trim will trim the walls with the roof.
Make sure you are using tags correctly. Leave Untagged active at all times. Create and leave all edges and faces untagged.
Here’s the file with the roof cutting the walls after making them a solid.
Base Construction_Forum Upload solid.skp (376.2 KB)
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I am very grateful for your kindness and your help!
A few questions if you do not mind me asking…
1.) What do you mean by “Also erase the unneeded edges inside the walls.”
2.) When you say, “Create and leave all edges and faces untagged”, could you explain that a little bit deeper? I grouped walls after they were push-pulled and turned them into groups and then components as suggested in the tutorial I was watching. Is that malpractice?
Thank you for your guidance with this beginner!
Base Construction_Forum Upload.2.skp (341.5 KB)
I have the same issue when I try the same thing on the other side. I found one stray edge on a corner as you said. Then I went around an deleted any other unnecessary lines. It is still stating not a solid. Is there an easier way to scan for double lines?
Thank you!
I was referring to the edges it appears you drew tracing the roof group. You can see them in the upper part of the walls in my first screen shot. Those edges are just loose geometry and are not needed for anything.
First, this part: “and turned them into groups and then components as suggested in the tutorial” I don’t know that it’s malpractice but it doesn’t make any sense to create a group and then make it a component. That’s like knowing you’re going to paint the walls blue but painting them red first. If you’re going to create a component of the geometry don’t make waste the time making a group first. Just select the geometry and create the component. If the tutorial is teaching that you should make a group and then make it a component, I would be very skeptical of the quality of the tutorial.
In your model, though neither the walls nor the roof are components. They are still groups.
As for tags, Untagged should be left active at all times. That is the red pencil icon should be to the right of Untagged. All edges and faces should be created untagged. Then after collecting geomtry into an object (group or component), the object can be given a tag but the geometry inside it remains untagged.
In your model you have the tag called West active and all of the geometry inside the wall and roof groups is tagged as West.
Changing the active tag leads to errors and confusion. You have to always be chasing the active tag as you work through the model and if you miss changing the active tag as you are editing the model, you’ll wind up with parts of objects disappearing when you don’t want them to. Here I’ve temporarily set the Base tag active while I drew the opening for a couple of windows. Notice what happens to the edges of the openings when I turn off the visibility of the Base tag.
If you leave Untagged as active at all times and only tag groups and components, you don’t have to chase the active tag as you work. This makes your workflow easier and it reduces the chance of create problems in your mode as you create new objects and modify existing ones.
There are two like I showed in my screenshot. One is inside the wall. Set the Face Style to X-ray and zoom in on that corner. You need to erase that edge as well.
There are tools like Solid Inspector 2 that can identify reasons why your groups and components aren’t solid and it will even fix some issues. It’s a good idea to learn to recognize what prevents an object from being a solid though so you can deal with them as soon as possible. In this case you drew a couple of edges too long. Don’t do that kind of thing and you won’t have to clean up the strays.
Base Construction_Forum Upload.3.skp (328.7 KB)
Thank you for your knowledge. I am not intentionally overshooting my lines, but I will be more careful when drawing my rectangles to ensure the points snap exactly. It snaps and makes the ‘intersect’ sign when I draw my rectangles, so that seems to be the correct step.
Thank you for the extension. I tried it and it fixed one edge but it says there is a gap in my mesh. Is it better at this point to redraw the wall? Or maybe this is hard to spot to a new and untrained eye.
Your expertise and patience is much appreciated.
It’s highlighting the bottom of the walls. There needs to be a face on the bottom but there isn’t.
Open the object for editing and trace an edge segment with the Line tool.
By the way, don’t create the insets where the doors and windows are. You’ll just have to fix the walls later. Draw continuous edges straight across those openings. Actually it would be easier to draw the edge for the exterior of the walls and then use Offest to create the interior edges. The funny bump-outs on the corners can be added after the walls are 3D.
I suggest editing the topic title. None of this is specific to Mac, it is all basic modeling technique that is the same on Windows.
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