At some point I realized a mistake I had made with one of the walls and adjust the wall’s size. Eventually I started noticing strange geometry where it looks like it was splintered where it was once solid. How can I clean this up to make the geometry true again? Here are some example photos of what I mean.
It looks very much as though you are not using components or groups properly (or at all?).
Can you upload your model (the .skp file) so others can look and see what’s happening?
That very well could be the issue, I started grouping things into components and groups after the walls were up.
Remember, Sketchup geometry is ‘sticky’ with other geometry unless it is isolated in a component or group. Maybe before you grouped the wall, you moved something that was still connected to it.
OK I’m trying to compress it to upload since it seems the file size is too big
Try uploading to Dropbox or OneDrive (for example) and provide a link here to the file, if it’s still too big when compressed.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j1v5zgJppYWEU30V8IlCXWL7smr2ewt0/view?usp=sharing
Here is a link to the skp file
I think this is going to a good candidate for starting over.
First and foremost, you must have all geometry (edges and faces) untagged.
See the little pencil? Wrong tag.
You have I guess learned about groups and components. That’s good.
I ran cleanup on the model and got this report:
Had a quick look.
Most of your model is ungrouped geometry, and almost all walls, and some floors that I looked at are ‘cracked’ - that is, they are not single faces. And some faces in the floors are reversed.
I changed to View/Face style/Monochrome and View/Hidden Geometry, in order to see this more easily. Here’s a small part of the view I see, with a sample of sub-faces selected showing dotted, edged by dashed lines, and reversed faces showing blue.
All of those dashed lines are extra edges showing that your central floor is both reversed (backside up, showing blue) and cracked - lots of dashed lines showing multiple faces.
Please, if you haven’t already, view the Skill Builder series of videos at https://learn.sketchup,com for Sketchup. Learn how to draw using mainly the rectangle tool to outline the plan view of your walls, pushpull them to height, and immediately make the wall into either a group (for walls that are unique in your model) or a component - either for all walls instead of making them groups, or for walls that are found at the same size in more than one place.
Here’s a more general view of all of your model. You have stray hidden lines and faces outside the house, and more cracked than flat walls.
You have not understood how to use Layers (Tags in SU 2020) properly. ALWAYS (with VERY rare exceptions when you know what you are doing), leave Layer0 (Untagged in SU 2020) as the Default layer. You have the default layer set as ARCH-Walls. ALL geometry (edges and faces) should be drawn on Layer0) or Untagged in SU2020).
Immediately, change the default layer (marked by the pencil tool) to Layer0 (Untagged in SU202) and leave it there.
Your four kitchen appliances have been drawn and assigned to the ARCH-Walls layer. Create a new layer called Appliances (or similar) and hide them, and all other layers except floors and walls.
The edges of your Cabinets have been assigned to the Cabinet layer, but the faces are assigned to the ARCH-Walls layer, and all are ungrouped geometry.
Many of the edges in your roof are assigned to the ARCH-Roof layer, but are visible even when that layer’s visibility is turned off (which I simply can’t understand) and won’t delete. They are highlighted blue in the image below.
I’d suggest saving the current model, and use Save As to create a copy and work in it.
Turn off all the Layers (Tags in SU2020) except Walls and Floors.
Delete all the cracked faces and stray hidden geometry.
And when I’d done all that, I still couldn’t get a clean, flat plane on which to restart drawing the walls.
Tried drawing a plane on the ground, and Intersect faces with Model, but that didn’t work well either.
It sounds harsh to say it, but it is actually simpler to redraw this using groups and components properly, and assigned Layers ONLY to groups or components, NEVER to loose geometry (edges and faces). than to try to fix it. It’s possible, to an extent, to fix it, but it is tricky and time consuming, and would be quicker to redraw it from scratch.
I’m very sorry I can’t be more helpful. I did try to fix it so you were left with just a floor plan from which to recreate the floors and walls ‘in plane’ but I simply couldn’t manage it.
Where did you get the original floor plan? Do you have it as an image, a PDF, or a DWG drawing?
If you could upload that, it wouldn’t take me long to redraw the walls for you, and tidy up the cabinets and appliances.
Sorry, @Shep I didn’t see your post until after writing mine. I think I have to agree with you on this point, as on the others you make.
Fear not, your response is much more thorough. Good of you to take the time.
Shep
Final contribution before bed.
With a GREAT deal of fiddling and deleting of hidden lines, I managed to get a fairly clean floor plan. In fact, I discovered, much of the apparent ‘cracking’ in the floor was artificial - hidden lines actually in the plane of the floor and the bottoms of the wall edges.
FWIW here’s a clean plan to start remodelling the walls.
Floor plan - cleaned up.skp (65.0 KB)
Go back to your original to select out your cabinets, make them into proper components in a new drawing, then bring them in to your new set of walls.
And do much the same with your appliances, doors and windows, and roof.
I wish you happier modelling in future.
BTW. Your model was v2019. Your profile says you are using v2018. Please update your profile. I’ve saved the floor plan in v2019 but if you ARE actually using 2018, let me know and I’ll save it back to 2018.
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Wow, thanks so much John! Your explanations are very thorough and will help me make better models in the future. I believe that I modeled the walls when I was just learning Sketchup, and as I added components like doors and windows I started learning how to do things better and more organized. I will check out the Skill Builder course that you recommended before moving onto version 2. Thanks for cleaning up the model! I’ll use that as the baseline for my version 2.0.
Well, it was an interesting exercise for me in a different way. You are welcome.
I have just noticed, but will leave you to fix, that there are still a couple of funnies at the outer corner of the garage, and the ‘lower’ (in the image) garage walls, where their outer edge is missing, and near what I think is the front door - centre left.
There are lots of ways of grouping or making the walls into components (which I generally use instead of groups, but there are pros and cons).
One way is to draw the external walls as one face with no internal divisions, but separated from the inner walls by lines. The cleaned up version doesn’t quite do that - open the floor plan component for editing, and check all the intersections with other external wall edges, and also with internal walls. Note the right hand top and bottom corners in the image above - a few stray lines there should go.
Double-click to select that face and edges, then make it a component first, then open it for editing and pushpull up to height.
Treat each set of internal walls either room by room, or wall by wall, and do similarly.
Never leave ‘loose geometry’ in the model for longer than it takes to draw it before you make it a component (or group). Then assign a layer to the components as you go, but ALWAYS, ALWAYS draw the geometry on Layer0 (while you are still using SU2019) or the Untagged tag in v2020 and later.
And give your components meaningful names as you create them. Later on, you will thank yourself, since it is very hard to remember in the Component Browser or Outliner what Component#47 refers to!
And a final couple of points before I head for bed - 1220am here - Don’t add materials until near the end, and model in Monochrome so you can see and fix reversed faces before you move on.
Remember to use Window/Model Info/Statistics [Purge unused] frequently, to get rid of components you no longer use, and materials as well.
And if you bring furniture and other components in from the 3D Warehouse, import them first into a blank model, and check whether they are well made, and not horribly overdetailed with huge numbers of faces and edges, and large material textures. My experience is that you have to look VERY hard to find 3D warehouse models suitable for use in modelling a house. One sofa or chair can add hundreds of thousands of edges and faces, and many many megabytes to your model size. The bloating will slow down your modelling, and in the extreme can so bloat the model that it becomes unusable. It’s often actually better to model your own, simplified furniture or kitchen cabinets that are the right overall dimensions, but not any more detailed than you need.
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Thanks again for the advise, I will follow your suggestions and watch those courses for SketchUp. Sleep well where you’re at, thank you for taking so much time and energy to help me out.
Great advice John!
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@john_mcclenahan I want to let you know that I just finished the courses you recommended, and feel much better about best practices in Sketchup. I’m redoing my model now, with proper components and groups and all drawings on Layer 0. Probably the biggest thing that I learned from the courses (besides how to better use all of the amazing tools) is to be patient and go slow if needed, thinking out each and every change before committing to it. Thank you so much for your help and guidance a few weeks ago!
Bravo you! I’m glad I was able to help.
You might like to look at another answer I gave recently for a few further tips. The title is misleading, but later advice might help you too.
I appreciate it John, I’ll look over that post. On other note, how would you best create the eves for the roof. When I get to this point, the follow me tool does some strange stuff. Seems to work well until that point however, maybe I need to intersect faces and clean that area up? Here is a photo of what it actually looks like as well
I’m not sure if you’ve redrawn this area or not. I worked from your original upload. Follow me can’t cope with the "messed up geometry but you can still sort out the valley and overhang with what’s there.
In the gif I’m using inference lock quite a bit I hope you can tell when. Usually the line darkens.
The gutted file is attached below.
Shep
Edit: forgot to down save (as usual)
tf_remodel valley.skp (2.9 MB)