n00b drawing, intersecting shapes

Please bear with me, I’m new to Sketchup…
See attached image - I drew a small square, then pulled it. Then I drew a big square (with a common corner of the pulled small square), and then I pulled the bigger square. See result in image - it’s not what I wanted. I wanted all of the big square pulled, not just the bit outside the small square - as shown by the red hand drawn line.

How do I achieve that?

More broadly, when drawing shapes that touch existing shapes, how do I prevent the new shape from being ‘cut’ at the intersection? And what’s the official Sketchup wording for this behavior?

thanks

tom

Read up on Components and Groups. They are the SketchUp facility that keeps geometry from sticking to or interacting with other geometry.

Thanks. I already figured how to make a rectangle a group or component after I draw it, but as soon as I draw the second square it immediately intercats with the first square, and I dont see how to ‘undo’ that. If I make them both a group then I can’t pull it. If I make them both a component then when I pull, I only pull the bigger square.

If you know the specific solution, please can you tell me, or point me to specific reading? Just telling me to ‘read up’ doesnt help me much, I already spent a couple of hours reading… that’s why I’m here asking for help.

tom

Draw the first one and make it a group, then draw the second one and make it a group.
Groups wrap the geometry up so it doesn’t stick to other geometry unless you want it too.
Once you make something a group you need to open it for editing if you want to change the actual geometry of it.
Here you see me make one group, then draw then next one on top and they don’t intersect.

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound snotty, but you obviously didn’t understand what you read. Hopefully Box’s animation has made things clearer to you. Your problem is that you have to make geometry into a group before you draw additional geometry. Afterward it is too late, they have already interacted.

Couldn’t you just…

if you want all geometry in the same context.

Shep

The Edges (lines) and Faces (flat surfaces) you create are collectively called Geometry.
Edges in SketchUp are “sticky”, meaning whenever they touch they irreversibly meld together.

To create separate parts that don’t stick to other parts you simply model the first part and make that portion of the model into a Group or Component before you begin modeling the next part, and so on, until the model is complete.

When finished, a properly constructed model is an assembly of Groups and Components, with no ‘raw’ (ungrouped) geometry left behind.

Think of a Group or Component as a container which isolates the geometry within it.

Thanks everyone for your detailed answers - makes sense now. This, in particular is what I was missing:

To create separate parts that don’t stick to other parts you simply model the first part and make that portion of the model into a Group or Component before you begin modeling the next part, and so on, until the model is complete.

After that, it all makes sense. And thanks for all the animations too.

tom