Is it possible to toggle the bounding box visibility for a group/component? Sometimes the dashed lines are distracting.
No. It’s not.
I’m changing the topic into a SketchUp feature request / extension request.
1 Like
I’m not sure about this. The box is the primary sign telling you are within a group or component. Even as an opt-in this could cause some confusion, e.g. if you get distracted by a phone call or go on lunch and then think you are in another drawing context.
Rather than disabling the box I think we should start asking why it is distracting, in what situations and if anything else could be done to make it less distracting.
3 Likes
I’ve never seen it as a distraction or otherwise had any problems with the bounding box but I can see how some users might like the option to make it less noticeable. If the color were editable as with selections and those other color settings in the Styles window, users could make the color a light gray or something.
Maybe slider similar to the ones for fading rest of model and similar components?
2 Likes
This could also depend on what you use SketchUp for. In woodworking you can maybe have some metal hardware, within a drawer front, within a drawer. In architecture you can have a that metal hardware, in a the drawer front, in the drawer, within cabinet, within a room interior, within an apartment, within a building etc.
Despite the large number of nested containers often used in architectural modeling, I haven’t had much problems with this either, but that could be because I prefer to work much in external linked models (pieces of furniture, re-occurring identical apartments etc).
Anyhow, as humans we love to find solutions. Sometimes it’s good though to take a step back and find the problem, before trying to find the solution for it. @Forestr, do you have a screenshot where the box is getting in the way of modeling?
1 Like
I think the fading is enough of a sign to tell if you are in a group or component. But if the fading is off, then I agree with your point.
It’s distracting when I do basic lines because they look similar. It’s also overlays the model, so it creates intersections with the line. It’s not a big deal, but removing the bounding box might help me focus.
The bounding box could have a fade slider, so you could fade it all the way transparent too. You could turn it off with the slider as @slbaumgartner suggested.
Hmmm… They don’t look similar to me at all. As I said, they’ve never been a distraction to me and I’ve never had any problem thinking there are intersections where they don’t exist.
Neither have I, but I’d still prefer to have a clear view of what I’m working on. You know that feeling when you clean your computer screen and then everything is more visible? Or when you turn off the axes for a clearer view of your model? That’s all I’m going for. A clearer view. Again, this is a minor aesthetic problem (in my personal opinion), but I figured I’d mention it anyways.
And maybe I should clarify what I meant by “intersection” and “similar”. By intersection, I meant it’s intersecting on the screen. By similar, I meant they’re both black lines. I’m not confusing the dashed lines with the regular lines, but I think the dashed lines are mildly distracting. More aesthetically pleasing than AutoCAD, in my opinion, but I think the bounding box would be better with a visibility slider.
It’s just my personal opinion.
I’m adding my upvote for a feature like this. Until now, I had no issues seeing the selection bounding box, although I read of some (maybe less expert) users reporting a visual difficulty related to the dimensions of the BBox representation. BTW, I’m now in the need of having no “selection box” visualized, would be great if anybody could develpo a plugin for that (with payment, obviously).
If Hide rest of model was checked, there’d be no real reason to display the edit box.
1 Like
I think part of the issue is Forestr may be experiencing the bulky graphics issue on the Mac.
The bounding box doesn’t bother me, but I would like a feature where you can spot in which context you are in without the need of Outliner
Perhaps a filtered Outline extract inside the entity info panel?
If Trimble implements drawing to the view outside of an active tool one of my first extensions would be a breadcrumb at the top of the view in a similar visual style as “Top”, “Left” etc.
Something like:
“Building > Level 1 > Apartment (62) > Door (128)”
Perhaps a subtle text style like italics could be used to differentiate groups and components too. Perhaps the solid square and the 4 small squares from the outliner can be re-used.
2 Likes
Most likely, a lot of people would see this:
Group > Component#12 > Group > Group > Component#8
However, this might encourage people to give meaning to the model.
The icons in outliner (4 little squares and square) get the dotted surrounding when editing, but many have Outliner closed due to performance issues.
2 Likes
How about adding an optional color to the BB lines, that would be a great assist for my tired eyes.
1 Like
Yeah, I’m a bit frustrated that these can’t be disabled also. I’d like to create some screenshots of groups within my model. I can’t do an “Export” as that always displays the entire model (not just my group). I also cannot get a clean screenshot without the distracting bounding box. 
My current workaround is just to draw a bunch of lines to expand the bounding box beyond my viewport. Then I can get a clean screenshot. It’s a bit of a hassle though, and I have to remember to delete my lines later.
1 Like
Another option is to put it on its own layer, then turn off all the other layers. Or copy-paste it into a blank file.
Can you show an image of the sort of thing you are trying to accomplish?