Newbie question: why do I end up with these extra edges on my walls, and how do I get rid of them?

SketchUp
1

Hi all,

I just started using SketchUp today, so sorry if this is a stupid question. So far I’m very impressed with the tool, but one annoyance is that I seem to keep accidentally creating extra diagonal edges on my walls. It seems to happen when I use push/pull to cut out windows and doors. See this screenshot:

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If I just try to delete the edges, chunks of the wall disappear:

1806×973 336 KB

Anyone know why this is happening, how I can fix it for these walls, and perhaps how to prevent it in the future?

I’ve found I can remove/hide some (but not all) of these unwanted edges with the “soften/smooth edges” tool, but I have no idea why this works, and whether it is in fact just masking something I’m doing wrong.

Thanks!

2

Go to Styles window, show color by axis and check your model whether your lines are parallel to the axis.

1 Like
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Make sure that you take this only as a hint because you can have lines “very little off the axis” and they will be shown in the correct color because of the internal tolerances.

2 Likes
4

Thanks for the tip! I can definitely see have some edges that aren’t aligned with the primary axes.

I’m not sure I fully understand though: are you saying that arbitrary angles in my edges prevent push/pull from working the way I expect, and will result in these unexpected edges being added?

5

I think it is difficult to get those edges with only the pushpull action, did you move some parts around after this (e. g. the floor, top of walls, …)? And if they have been there before the pushpull, you wouldn’t get the hole as expected…

(click to animate)

3 Likes
6

Aha! That must be what happened. Thank you, the animation makes the cause very clear.

7

You’ll find many more ‘animations’ here:
SketchUp Video Tutorials

Off-axis issues go away once you learn to employ SketchUp’s guidance system, Inferencing.
Locking inference direction via the Shift Key and Arrow Keys puts the tools on rails.

Inference — SketchUp Help