Priority visibility of overlapping components

SketchUp
1

Hi,

I am fairly new to Sketchup still, I am trying to make a basic floor plan, I made a component out of the floor plan. Inside the floor plan component there are multiple rooms which I gave a color.

Then I want to place other components (in a different layer) on top of the floor plan component, each additional component has its own color.

However when I place them on the floor plan component, it brings the color of the floor plan out to the front and hides the color of the second component…

I can’t seem to figure out how to control what is background and what is foreground

2

It sounds as if you are making a 2D drawing. SketchUp is a 3D modeling program so you should be thinking in 3D not 2D. If you want the additional components to mask the floor color, put them above the floor. Or you could use SketchUp as it was designed and make a 3D model. You can still make 2D views when you get finished.

3

Thanks DaveR for your reply, so are you saying Sketchup is not made to make 2D drawings at all?

The problem of having the components sit above the floor is that now I can not snap to any reference of the floor plan which makes positioning very difficult…

Is there no way to lets say pull an object to foreground and/or push floor plan to background, but still have the objects physically sitting on the same pane?

Thanks

Philip

4

In a word, no. A 3D modeler such as SketchUp has no concept of “stacking order” such as you get in 2D because the order would depend on the direction from which you view the 3D model. To say that another way, “foreground” is closer to the camera, “background” is farther away from the camera. The meanings of both change depending on where you place the camera.

5

No. You’re putting words in my mouth. Sketchup is a 3D modeling application. It is designed to make 3 D models. It is possible to make 2D drawings but you have to do things differently. Faces have no thickness so making overlapping faces will give you what you are seeing. If all you need is 2D. Why not use a 2D application?

6

Thank you slbaumgartner and DaveR.

DaveR, I used to draw in CAD at the company I used to work at, I started my own company and was interested by Google Sketchup as it had a lot of possibilities, as a general I just like Google apps as well.

What would be a good 2D application other then autocad?

Thanks