Trying to make a flexible assembly for use in Home Designer

I’m designing a brace to be used under the roof overhangs and balcony’s in an architectural design I’m working on in Home Designer. Since I’m a metalworking kind of guy, I thought something fabricated from aluminum would be fun, so I decided to use a section of ASA I beam with a fitting at each end to attach to the underside of the eaves or the balcony’s and the wall. Since Sketchup is new to me, it was a little painful, but I was able to create the section of I beam with tabs and mounting holes on each end and import it into Home designer, but am not sure how to handle the end fittings. It would be nice to make them part of a brace assembly, but the assembly would need to flexible to adjust to the varying angles of the roof and balcony’s, depending on where it was used. The lengths would need to vary as well. Would a flexible or dynamic assembly like that be possible, or would I need to create dedicated assemblies for each location with fixed angles on the fittings and lengths on the beam. I’m a mechanical designer, and a task like this would be simple in the CAD program I use, but I’m not sure how to approach it in Sketchup.

Thanks,

Tom

SketchUp importers and exporters do not translate to/from OEM specific native parametric object types.

SketchUp internally has dynamic components, but they are really just plain components driven by an extension that reacts to attributes attached to the component’s definition and instance(s).

I’m not familiar with “Home Designer” and a websearch gives several sites using that name.

There are a number of different 3D file types accepted by Home Designer (by Chief Architect) and I was using Collada File (*dae). What I’ve decided to do is make an assembly consisting of the beam and two fittings for each location, with the fittings set at the proper angle. That will only result in four or five variations, so it’s not that big of a deal. Not sure if there is an easier way, but that works. I’ve included an image showing one of the braces used to support an upper balcony.

Thanks for responding.

Tom