Hi,
I have searched older topics and some tutorial videos on what the proper method of organizing geometry, components, groups within Tags and Outliner, though still am a bit puzzled. I have spent considerable time cleaning up my project (simple residential wood frame house but detailed down to the studs) and now have a fairly robust list of Tags nicely organized, but maybe too lengthy.
I have just started understanding Outliner a little more in depth and am starting to see how to utilize it for hiding nested items. I do plan on using Layout to produce drawings, so am anticipating preparing for line types, etc. My model is too big to upload (I think), unless I make a small portion for an example.
I’ll describe an assembly:
Exterior Wall:
Wood Framing
Hurricane tie down clips
Seismic hold down brackets
Stucco
Sheetrock
Windows and Doors
Any thoughts would be appreciated or if you can direct me to more sources that will describe the organizing processes.
Although you can hide and unhide objects in Outliner, it’s generally best to use it as a temporary thing and use tags for control of object visibility in scenes. Using tags for that gives you better control and you can control them from LayOut. You’ll likely be able to reduce the number of scenes you need in LayOut. Also, for line weight control tags are the thing.
Ultimately you are going to need to come up with your own system and stick to it. This is something I’m spending a lot of effort figuring out for our millwork stuff so I can share some of my thought process with you.
I think the outliner / component hierarchy should be used to define “belonging” or “adjacency” relationships between objects, and the tags should define “category” or “sequence” type relationships.
For your framing stuff you wouldn’t want to put studs in a group/component and hurricane clips in a separate group component. Clips need to to be sticky or adjacent to the framing members they’re attached to, so that if you need to move a stud, the hardware moves with it. They should be in the same group or component, or possible 1 level up from each other in the hierarchy.
On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to have a tag for west wall, east wall, roof framing, deck framing, etc. Those are groups. You would want to have a tag for “framing” and a separate tag for “simpson anchors” etc. Then you can use tags for visibility and to generate quantities of like components. Or you can turn tags off and on to indicate the order or sequence that construction is to occur in. Or tag folders per each trade to isolate their work from the other trades.
The other organizing tools that you have that aren’t really talked about much:
naming convention for groups/components (and within that, definitions and instances). Keeping in mind the list is in alphabetical order and the entries at the top are easier to get to.
Materials. A lot of extensions allow you to filter selections by material separately from component name or tag. Same deal with alphabetical order being a factor.
Scenes: interesting stuff can be done with them when turning off some of the update check boxes.
Thanks Dave, That was my thinking at first, but then I read a few posts where some folks swore by Outliner, so I wasn’t sure the right way to proceed, given that this has to go to Layout.
Thanks renton,
I agree with your suggestions and have listed items in my own builders mindset, keeping them separate for now until I feel comfortable amalgamating some. I do need to rename the tags alphabetically and rename components. I wasn’t aware that one could filter with materials, I’ll have to look into that.
I have attached a screenshot of the Tag list and of the project. This started off as just a deck addition (albeit with some nice detailing, hidden gutters, etc) but now has morphed into an almost complete gut/demo to retrofit for seismic, hurricane and now fire…
Since I will build it myself, I like to place items to visualize which helps me develop a schedule and material list. Also have to show the boss (the misses). I tend to load up on items from 3DW which of course bogs down the file.
i’ll dedicate more time to reading your list of tags later but at a glance it looks like your rooms or areas of the building could just be groups in the outliner and then that would allow you to not have nearly as many tags that you’re having to duplicate within each one. Then you can tag each of those room/area groups with their own tags, and then the objects that live inside them get tagged separately.
edit: example: instead of two separate Shingles tags for House and Garage, you just have Tag-House and Tag-Garage, and Tag-Shingles, and you make sure anything with Tag-Shingle’s is nested within a group that is tagged separately. This gives you the same flexibiliity in terms of turning on and off specific areas of shingles in the project.
Yes I am slowly learning the virtue of patience (after 6 decades) and referred to many of your past posts and replies to me directly. I wish I had taken the time to learn some of this earlier rather than just jump in.
Yeah. Looking over it again a bit more closely it looks like you could benefit from some nested tagging. It would give you the same flexibility of being able to turn off anything you need to with just tags, but it would force you to use the outliner and I think your project would be more organized for it. Would also probably cut your number of tags down by at least half.
Hi Mike,
When I was building full time, I was using paper…lol. Yes I realize my tag count is probably overkill, but this is a personal job so can afford the time and it helps me keep things separate as I make changes. Can you elaborate more on the template suggestions.
I started with paper, then with printed paper from 2d software, then CNC machines and specialized software and eventually SketchUp and often my sketchbook.
You can build a template in SKP that as all your tags built in, with scenes setup and those tags on and off, and the camera setup as needed. I also have 4 section cuts with scenes linked and ready to go in my template. Makes life down the road easier … BUT! you need to do a couple of projects first and you’ll get a sense of what you want included or not.
I’m starting down that path now, as most of the modeling is complete so don’t need to turn individual components on and off as much. Now I must tackle scenes, which I have used before, but not with utilizing Outliner.
That sounds very robust and effective. Not sure if I have enough projects to gain that learning curve, but I’ll give it a stab. I’m completely in the dark as to how one can set up scenes as a template, as I assumed those have to be captured after a model is complete. The section cuts sound brilliant.
Developing a model organization that works for you takes time, good systems thinking and the making of many models. The outliner, tags, and scenes all work together to give you a navigable and effectively displayable model.
Here is some of what I have discovered, some of which has been kind of mentioned above:
I like to use groups for the “where” and tags for the “what”, and scenes for different collections of those for different situations. Basically:
In an architectural situation, your rooms are grouped, and nested inside them are the elements - their windows, doors, trim, etc. That way you can turn areas of the model off to, say, mess with their footprints or clear the space visually.
Then in tags, I’d have cross-model elements, irrespective of their location: ALL the doors, ALL the windows, ALL the trim.
Then scenes do many kinds of things (oh if there only was a hierarchical or folder functionality for scenes!!): standard view, views to go to layout, views to render, views with cool styles, color-by-tag, this room with these elements (kitchen with just the cabinets)… I also include an “ALL ON” and an “ALL OFF” as well, which I keep to the left.
Hope this is helpful. It is merely the tip of the iceberg.
