Preparing models for 3D Warehouse

mac
#1

Can some kind soul help me with this please?

I am trying to prepare some components for the 3DW. It’s a collection of rooflights.

I started by creating a basic model of one rooflight in the range. I made the insertion point very particular so that it could be used in cross sectional detailing. that requires the rooflight to be set at a specific depth in relation to the tops of tile battens.

I then made the rest of the collection by adjusting sizes. At this stage, I only had one level of nesting.

It then occurred to me that people might want components to glue to a sloped surface and cut a hole. I wasn’t sure how to do that without increasing the nesting depth. So I grouped all the sub-components into a single one and then applied the cutting and glueing functions. But I wasn’t sure I needed to create the extra nest level.

The attached shows the result. The rooflight embedded in the roof is the one that I added the cutting and glueing functions to, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference. The other is unamended. Outliner shows the difference in nesting levels.

So what I want to know is:

  1. Did I need to create the extra nesting level?

  2. What did I do wrong with the cutting and glueing?

  3. Anything else I should do to make these components suitable for the 3DW?

Test roof.skp (393.3 KB)

#2

https://blog.sketchup.com/3dwarehouse/what-makes-great-3d-warehouse-model-checklist

#3

Thanks Mike. I think I have followed the principles advocated. Looking at the checklist, the last item of section 4 says “remove empty wrappers”. So would the glueing and cutting still work if I exploded he component after applying the functions or would that stop them from working (if they worked in the first place, of course!)? This is also covered by the first point under section 7.

The very last item in the list, 16, asks you to “test for correct behaviour”. Doing that made me aware that the cutting and glueing weren’t working as I expected.

For anyone else reading this that cannot find the checklist, here it is:

3DW checklist.pdf (91.6 KB)

#4

You need a ‘cutting’ component, basically a square the size of the window, glue set to any and only the edges, not the face.
The component itself has to have glue to any property, as well.

Mind you , the Cut opening only works when the component is placed on a face, hence within the context of the roof wrapper.

There seem so be some fooks in your model that are interested, you might purge before uploading (all though it is mentioned when uploading)

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image.png886x601 13.2 KB

Test roof.skp (434.1 KB)

#5

Mike, I called you Mike again. Sorry Jack.

That makes it clear and something I had clearly not understood: the need for an embedded cutter. I wish I had understood that earlier. I will now have to add one to each of the rooflights I have created. Doh!

Was “fooks” a typo? Did you mean people (folk)? I think the component drawings have been purged, although I didn’t bother with the uploaded file.

#6

Jack, I’m being dim I think.

In your model, you show the cutter element separate. It seems to consist of four lines and no surface.

You then have three identical instances of the rooflight, one inside the roof group, the other two outside. The two outside are not cutting the roof, suggesting they need to be inside it to do so. The one inside does cut the roof and can be moved or copied with the cutting always working. But if I explode the roof and then try to use one of the two non-cutting instances, it doesn’t cut the roof. If all instances are identical, I would expect all to work in the same way, at least once they have been moved. I am probably missing something obvious.

#7

I only edited one component.

the floks were in the ‘In model’ collection of the component-library :grinning:

#8

Now it’s “floks”?? I’m ribbing you. I realize you must mean Sophie and the kids that need purging. We all need to get the family out of the way when working.

I think (after a lot of trial and error) that I may have worked out how to edit a component to make it work. Not only do you need a cutting component but it AND the top level component need to have the cutting and glueing functions applied.

Just to show how dumb I am, it took me ages to work out how to inspect and alter the component attributes! You can’t get at them from right clicking nor from the menus. To add confusion, the menu item for Component Attributes only relates to Dynamic Components. It’s easy once you know but for a bear of very little brain, it can make you tear your hair out!