Scoped components

Kind of a weird idea, but this occurred to me while I was trying to sketch out a trellis using cattle panels for the main part. Each section requires only a part of a cattle panel (which are sold as 50"x16’ units), so in real life, the panels must be cut to fit. Representing this in SketchUp, the only way to make this work that I can think of is

  1. Build each element up separately, which is boring.
  2. Take a stock cattle panel (or build one) and then cut it using a tool like Zorro. This probably works best if all the sub-elements (individual wires) are groups rather than components. However, you’re left with something other than a solid (the ends of each wire cut is sliced off), and there’s no obvious way to fix this.
  3. Make the panel out of individual sub-components and then remove ones you don’t want, and resize the ones you do. BUT, once you have this set up, you also need to rename every last sub-component.

It’s the third case I’m thinking of when I say that it might be useful to have scoped components. That is, the name doesn’t need to change if you change the size within a given parent component; all the same-named components within that scope can change, too, but it won’t change any other instances’ implementations.

For now, I’m probably going to change the cattle panel model to using groups, and using method (2), but it seems to me that a scoped component approach could be useful for other things. Thoughts?

I’m trying to follow but can’t quite see it. Can you include some screenshots of your objects and of how you would use this imagined feature? It may be something that is achievable with the current tools,

Why is being solid important to your process?

Being solid isn’t necessarily important to my process, but I see enough circumstances where I would maybe want to use solid tools that I want to keep my options open.

I think I may need to make a short video to explain better.

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Seems like something that could be done with Dynamic Components… but without understanding what you are trying to build (i do not know what a cattle panel is) I am speculating…

It’s a 70s thing in ranch-style houses. They put cattle paneling up all over. You being from the midwest might be more familiar with the fake walnut panels :smiley:

It’s just heavy wire mesh fencing. I think you’re right. A DC might be just what is needed.