I’m new to SketchUp, and I’ve been modelling with it for a couple weeks (Ubuntu, Chrome, December 2021). I love it so far and I’m using the free web version to try it out.
I’ve got the beginnings of a shed in the works and I’m learning about entities, components, groups, etc, and trying to understand how the pieces work together.
My main question today is how to merge components or add a component that is identical to another with a different name to the same group (not the defined SU “Group” but the more generic group that makes up a component).
I’ve got 8 foot “poles” and I made these by creating one rectangle, then extruding it, then making it into a component (called “8’ pole”). I then copied it multiple times to make more identical poles. This worked very well, but somehow along the way, I ended up with identical poles as their own components, eg, “8’ pole#1”, “8’ pole#2”, etc. They are the same pole in the model but are different components. I think I ended up deleting, then redrawing a new one and tried to give it the same component name, but SU named it for me…
How do I rename or change them so all my poles are of the component type “8’ pole”? I’d like to clean up my Outliner and purge unused components but I need to clean house first.
As it turns out, this problem occurred with other components, as well, not just the poles.
Somewhere along the way you used Make Unique after making the copies of the poles. Sounds like something you shouldn’t have done. Perhaps the easiest thing at this stage, since you are using the free web version, would be to delete all of the pole components. Then go to the components panel, click on the house icon to show the In Model components and click the Purge button at the bottom of the panel.
Outliner is only a text representation of the model space. And you can only purge components if there are no instances in the model space.
Sounds to me as if you might have been a little over-zealous with Make Unique. Make Unique is useful when you want to change some component instances without affecting others. For example, you could start with a bunch of 8’ poles laid out but then select the poles on one side of the shed, use Make Unique and then edit them to be 12’ tall instead. Keep like components related, though.
I do recall using make unique a time or two, but I think my original description also happened. I deleted a pole (maybe because I wanted to change my design and make that one a 10 foot pole), then decided to keep it an 8 foot pole. Instead of just making a copy, I made a new one and tried to give it the same component name (which I thought worked, but apparently didn’t).
Is there not a way to remedy this without deleting and starting over?
So by making a new component and trying to give it the same name as an existing one you basically got the same effect as making unique. Instead of doing that you should have just copied the original one and moved it to the location of the one you didn’t want.
In the desktop versions of SketchUp you can select components and then replace the selected with another component. That’s not an option in the web versions, at least at this time.
Yes, I’m fully aware of the correct way to do it. But unfortunately I am stuck. And I get that the web version is limited. I’ll just delete and copy, as suggested… Shouldn’t be too bad. Thanks for the assistance…
In the desktop version, you can use the Component Browser to replace one component with another. for example, select all 8’ pole#1 components in your model, R-click in the Component Browser on 8’ pole and choose Replace selected.
But you can’t do this in the Web versions (Free or Shop) - I just tried (I’m sure @DaveR already knows this, hence his offered solution.)
If you have a computer that will run Windows 7 or later, or Mac OS X or later you could use the Make 2017 desktop version of Sketchup, which would allow you to do this, and to use plugins/extensions. Make 2017 is the last free desktop version of Sketchup, licensed for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.
Depending on what you later want to do with your modelling, you might find a desktop version more suitable. If you will be using SU for commercial purposes, then you need to be using Shop (Web) or SU Pro (desktop), now only available with an annual subscription.