I made my first model in sketchup this week. I thought it went well, but then I tried to make a cut list using the cutlist extension. 2 issues.
(This is the big one) When I bring up my component window, it shows multiple components representing single parts. When I right click on one component and click “show instances” it shows them. When I right click on the other, “show instance” is greyed out. BUT, when I make the cut list, it shows these ghost pieces. I labeled all the parts that won’t show instances the same name as the ones that will plus the word ghost. If I add one of these ghost components to the middle and triple click, the other components highlight. I’m really confused by this. Sketchup won’t let me delete either instance. What is going on?
Apparently I didn’t do a good job of ensuring everything snapped to it’s spot when building. In my cut list, some components are showing up with a measurement like “~1 13/32” I know next time to set things up to have precision at 1/16" and snap to at 1/16. but for now, is there a simple way to fix these components? Vanity-2.skp (218.6 KB)
You would do better to turn off Length snapping, set units to Fractional, and set Precision to 1/64th in. so that you have better control over the model and you can more easily see errors. Length Snapping is prone to creating inaccuracies.
I named the components ghost just to distinguish between the ones that would show instances and the ones that would not. I’m trying to understand why there are two components that seemed to represent only one component in the actual model
You have the ghost components nested inside other components, look at them in Outliner. The CutList extension reports the bottom level component so it’ll report the ghost not the upper level component you stuffed it in.
Interesting. That’s not what I meant to do, but I’m a newbie. I did make those from copying other components and then making unique. So I did edit within the component I must’ve messed something up.
There are enough issues with the dimensions in this thing that I would be inclined to start over instead of trying to repair it. You could use some of the existing components but you’d want to remodel others.
Set the units to Fractional, Display Precision to 1/64th in. (You want that higher than what you would work to in the shop.) and Length snapping off.
Personally I would model so the front of the casework runs along the red axis and the case extends back along the green so that the standard views would make sense.
There are a few construction details I would be inclined to change, too. I don’t know how fixed you are on what you’ve done, though.
Wonky dimensions almost always result from a combination of not typing precise dimensions when drawing or editing stand-alone parts and not using inference snaps correctly when drawing parts that meet with other existing ones. Having length-snapping turned on doesn’t itself result in imprecise lengths, but it will propagate strange coordinates from one place to another because it snaps to a length (i.e. relative to a starting point that might be imprecise) not to a grid.
I’m still working through your model and finding weird things. The left end panel is not rectangular. The height of the bottom panels in the long case is ~4 in. from the floor which indicates not exactly 4 in.
I started to try to rebuild your model but I’m finding more parts that need to be redrawn from scratch. some of the dimensions are off enough that I’m not even sure what you really intended them to be. As Steve mentioned, it’s important to type in exact dimensions when you are modeling parts or when you are moving them.
Thanks for your help. I built this by building a box the over all size and then building out inside it. I guess I over depended on simply letting thing’s snap Between parts and probably got off here and there. I built most of it in the web version then got pro and put it in there. Also lots of rebuild as this really was a first time for me. I guess all of that stacked up and caused issues.
DaveR, what thoughts did you have on construction? This is a bathroom vanity for my house. I’m new to both cabinet building (I’ve done a little) and sketchup (this was literally my first time to open the tool). Wide open to any input you guys have
