Hi, I’m new to SU and stuck at my very start of my project.
My timber supplier provides fixed lengths framing timber but I will need to cut these to desired dimensions and was wondering if there is any way for SketchUp to use my custom component and show the individual pieces as I cut them, whilst keeping track (inventory? list and quantity of materials needed).
For example, the supplier has a standard timber size of 75x225x4800mm. I have designed the timber as a Component (75x225x4800mm) in SketchUp. Now, my project (custom bed frame) requires a rectangular base of dimenstions: 2off 75x225x1420mm and 2off 75x225x540mm. How would I use SketchUp to create/“cut” my Component into required lengths (540 and 1420) to draw the base, AND such that SketchUp would “know” the quantity of the standard 75x225x4800 I would need to make the that base.
You’re doing this in the free web version? You’ll need to do some of it manually. You might name the components based on the full length and just edit the components for length to suit.
If you were using the desktop version you could use a cutlist extension to give you much of that information automatically.
appreciate the replies guys; accept my apologies, I should have stated that I am using SketchupPro 2019 v19.3.253.
CutList?
Unique components ?- I already have one called “Framing Timber” and that’s one piece as supplied by the merchant , of size 75x225x4800mm - I need to know how many of them I need for my proiject that uses several of these (I presume) but cut to shorter lengths such as 1410mm and 540mm.
p.s. In Extension Warehouse there are lots of “Cut List” extensions??
Folks, thank you for the help, but I have no idea what you are talking about.
I am struggling to make this simple, but I’ll try again another way:-
So I have a piece of timber from my supplier, that is 75 x 225 x 4800 mm; lets call this ‘X’
In my project i want to create a rectangular frame, sized: (L)2440x(W)540 mm , lets call this ‘Y’
How do i setup sketchup so that I can create MY OWN parts list for the piece of timber ‘X’ and create a model that uses '‘X’ (cut to the appropriate sizes) to create ‘Y’ and then run off a Cust List so that the quantity of ‘X’ is shown and how to cut up ‘X’.in order to build ‘Y’
Its pretty simple, just a basic model for learning purposes, but I’m struggling with the interface and the terminology, plus its very “American” in its vernacular so thats another hurdle.
Very simple stuff and would appreciate very much a kind link to a suitable guide on how to do this or better still some written instruections.
Thank you for sticking with me.
EDIT:
I have managed to work out how to place items in the model and create components and attach materials to those components. At the moment I just have 1 material called “Timber 4x2”. I see on enity info for the components in the model that the material size for the component is correct , i.e. the supplied timber size of 75x225x4800, but each of the components is smaller, 2440x540mm (naturally) , so I thought the Cut List extension would show how many 75x225x4800, I would need, i.e 2 off, but it just shows one part and no cut list ?
The Cutlist extension will report the Length, Width and Thickness of the components you have in the model. It also reports the number of component instances in the model that have the same definition. For this to happen you must model them accurately.
From your information I did a quick example. See the image below. The components are drawn in place to make things easy and avoid errors. Make parts you see as individual pieces of wood into components as you create them and give them useful names which will be reported later in the cutlist. I drew the lower “Rail” component first. Then drew the left side “Stile” component. I copied the left “Stile” component to the right side and flipped it’s red axis. Then copied the lower “Rail” component to the top into and flipped it’s blue axis. Now are 2 component definitions (Rail and Stile) and 2 instances each of these definitions.
Once you have this done you can run the cutlist extension to get the information you need. Go to MENU>EXTENSIONS and click the Cutlist menu item. this brings the following options and the ones I used for this example. Hit run after choosing the options…
This generates a web page of the components in the model. The length/width/thickness of each component definition is reported along with the number of instances too…
The total linear meters are also shown for each definition which can be added together quickly to tell you how many meters of the section you require from the yard and hence how may lengths to buy. Exporting as CSV give powerful options to create spreadsheets which I make often, but for this sort of simple thing I wouldn’t bother.
For simple materials where you aren’t concerned about things such as grain patterns, knots, and other flaws, you can use CutList 4.1’s Layout Output to see how your actual parts will fit into specified sizes of timber, hence how many pieces of raw stock are required. Note: despite the name, this part of CutList has nothing to do with SketchUp’s LayOut!
Ian T - THANK YOU but , I still cannot get this bloody software to work.,
Ive attached my model, basically I have material called “Timber 3600x225x75” which is a std length of timber from my supplier.
Next I have (or had) a single component called “Rail 540x225x75”. For some reason Ive managed to get two of the rails as the icon for the component. Don’t know what I’ve done there. Also I copied the Rail and then run Cut List, only to find that it thinks there are 4 Rails to be cut. The only thing I managed to get working is the length of the Timber (3600) is correct in Cut List. Bed Frame Model.skp (21.1 KB)
HELP!
arrrrgg
You seem to be quite confused about how SketchUp works and how to model using it. Have you followed the various introductory tutorials available through the help center? There is terminology (much of which is indeed American) and there are concepts to learn before you will make much progress. Just forging ahead blindly is leading you to frustration!
Some examples:
I don’t know what you mean by “the icon for the component”. The SketchUp view window shows the contents you have created and placed in your model. I see two instances (that is, distinct copies) of a component named “Rail 540x225x75”. That means you have either copied the first instance or pulled a second instance out of the components window onto the model view.
You expect more from a SketchUp material than what it actually does. You have added a brown material and named it “Timber 3600x225x75”, but to SketchUp that is just the name (textual) of a color to paint onto the surfaces of an object. The named material does not convey anything to SketchUp or CutList about the dimensions of the raw timber. There is no such concept in SketchUp; everything is drawn to actual size.
When looking at this, I noticed that although the cutting list is right, the CutList extension’s Layout system does not understand metric sized timber, even if the model units are metric. It only supports American sizes! This is an unhappy limitation of the extension and is likely why you seem to be seeing 4 of your board in the output: it is using some American nominal timber, not (as noted earlier) getting any information from the name of the material. Unfortunately the developer passed away a few years ago and nobody is actively maintaining this extension any more, so there isn’t even anyone to ask to add this capability.
FWIW a while ago I inquired about taking over support and was told that the only way would be to ignore the Extension Warehouse’s license terms and create a new, separate extension stealing the same code. That struck me as such a bone-headed policy that I dropped the idea.
Ok,
Yes I have read the tutorials and watched various YT vids. I am actually a software engineer developing Aerospace SW for fast-jets, 30 years experience, and I have NEVER dealt with such a un-user friendly and unintuitive application such as this, and I have used literally '000s. The main problem is the peppering of American language , concepts etc. that we do not use or the majority of which we do not use, over here.
I guess the cut-list extension wasnt working.
Ok, what I have found is “Builder Free” written by an englishman and very intuitive. This is now working and I have what I want.
Thankyou anyway
I think a great part of this thread is about the concept of ‘Material’
SketchUp has not the same concept of ‘Solids’ or ‘Material’ like other CAD-software.
You draw edges in SketchUp. Draw them right and you have a face. If you put the faces together, you can create a ‘watertight’ entity. That’s it. You can create Components or Groups and add an enormous amount of information to it, but you must do it, yourself. (or automated by extension)
A SketchUp ‘Solid’ still only has edges and faces, nothing in it (eg. no material)
Materials are just colors with a texture, they have no other properties like Mass, thermal expansion, etc.
When we have students that are familiar witch certain software (ie Adobe suite) I am more cautious about their use of Layers and expectations of what can be done etc.
A brief intro (either in the ‘Welcome to SketchUp’ thread or in your profile) along with the correct version info would have saved a lot of misunderstanding, IMO…
Like most software, you have to learn to deal with it’s limitations.
Here is a link to the extension the OP ended up with:
YES
I concur with you 100%
It just takes time, we all learn at out own pace using proven techniques that work for us as the individual
Thank you for recognising this
As in said and as you point out, I’m a CAD guy by trade, so this is an adjustment of paradigm, but I’ll get there.
Thankyou for your kind help
Very good, but when I enter the cut list values as above, I do not get the same output as you. What did you call the COMPONENTS in SU versus what did you use for the list of values in Cut List->Part Words box?
We may be talking at cross-purposes. CutLIst 4.1 will generate a CutList just fine for metric dimensioned parts. But if you look at the Layout configuration panel, it only offers American sized raw stock. The thickness choices are 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 8/4, 10/4. And although the board width and length choices display the nearest approximate metric equivalent, e.g. 4"(100mm) and 8’(2.4m) you can’t chose metric sizes that don’t approximate an American standard size, e.g. 275 cm width or 2.5m length.
