I wish I could create a “cutting component”, which is really cutting through everything. Nested objects, regardless of its position in the outliner. And I can move this component, and it will still work. And it works in all three dimensions. And it will work with section cuts and fills. Just native.
This old fashioned “cut opening” option is from my point of view just outdated. It is just usable in very, very simple models where I have a cube and want to cut an opening. What a challenge…
But we are in a 3d world. If we cut something, we want to cut it in 3d, and not only in the surface we are working on.
I am a Pro user and I bet all the other Pro users work with complex models with several nested components and groups. I searched the web several times. There are so many tutorials (more precisely workarounds) for architects (windows in walls) or designers for 3D printing, Woodworkers and so on. But they are so unhandy… Try to move or resize a hole which cuts several nested objects. It means a lot of work to do! And if the planes are not planar: Good look!
I don’t use the “cut opening” anymore. It is just useless to me because I work with groups and components. I do all the openings by hand, push/pull or with eneroths solid tools – and a lot of work if I must change them…
There are some plugins, each with restrictions. They all create some dummy geometry, but this makes the model more complex and some functions are not working correctly (like section fill, which is really helpful). They are all still workarounds.
Or just look how many beginners create a “cutting opening” which is not cutting because they don’t place it at the right position in the outliner. How silly is this? Is there really someone out there who is creating a “cutting component” which then should not cut??? As I said before, a “cutting component” should cut through everything – in all 3 dimension - and not only the surface it is placed in.
So please dear Sketchup Developers, make our daily life easier (at least mine)! Redesign the “cutting opening” to a “cutting component”, so it cuts through EVERYTHING. And the components, groups and geometry it cuts should also get the corresponding geometry from the cut, so the volume of solid tools is reduced as the area of surfaces is. THANKS!
I would rather not think users in the old times did not deserve “cutting components” (it would have been technically possible then as well, but it was designed as “cut opening”). It’s not the fashion that changed, but the expectations. And I agree, it would be a very powerful feature!
You can today mostly achieve the desired effect by applying boolean operations on solids.
What you want are maybe non-destructive operations, where you can still edit components in their original state, and cut-off parts of them are just not rendered. This is similar to constructive solid geometry (but a different modeling paradigm than SketchUp’s surface modeling paradigm).
Imagine how long boolean operations on some complex components take in SketchUp. If you move two cutting components, would it work as well in real-time as it currently does with “cut opening”?
The cut opening is still very usefull in conceptual drawing, I think, SketchUp evolved and now somewhat ‘hanges’ between that concept-tool and a real world solid modeler.
This option would be great to differentiate between ‘Make’ and ‘Pro’ if embedded in the solid tools (extension), but now there is ‘Free’ which has no possibilty to use extensions.
Yes exactly, a non-destructive operations!
Maybe it would take some time in a complex model with spheres or other complex geometry. But I think that’s not a problem. Some standard tools to model terrain like the stamp/drape tool already take a while to process.
Take a look at a thread I started back in October 2016. It’s a bit disjointed because one contributor decided to delete all his content. I think it satisfies your “cut anything” and “non-destructive” ideas:
What if you could draw & edit a cutting components 3D void? “Draw void” could be an option on the “make component” dialogue box & “edit void” could be in a components right click menu. Also, there could be an “ignore void” option if you want something to pass through a void without being invisible.