I have searched and watched several tutorials but cannot figure out how to see all the layers associated with a item. I have an item that is grouped and have changed it from one layer to another. the issue for me is shutting off either layer makes the item turn off. sometimes that would be a desired behavior other times it is simply frustrating. probably simple but i’m not finding our how see all layers associated with an item. the entity appears to only show the latest layer.
You can see what layer a selected entity is associated with in Entity Info. If you open a group for editing, you can see what layer the contents are on. All edges and faces should be on Layer 0.
Is your group nested? Maybe you could share it?
You might get what you want with Generate Report in the File menu.
that did it. apparently, I’m “nested”. the group shows one layer in entity info. however, when i edited the group everything showed being associated with a different layer. very frustrating feature. not sure why it just doesn’t show all associated groups without have to “edit” the group. if you want i could share it. however, i haven’t explored the sharing business yet. also i fixed it. thank you much for your help.
What’s inside the group? Is it just edges and faces? If so the group is not nested and they should be on Layer 0. Only the group gets a different layer association.
it was a model that i downloaded and altered. the item inside is an extruded rectangle with all the faces and and edges on layer “SC1-Floor”. I imported that model into another file and had changed the layer to “SC2-Floor”. however, everything in the group remained associated with “SC1-Floor”. apparently when I changed the layer to “SC2-Floor” only the group changed…not all the interior edges and faces.
You should fix the layer association for the edges and faces then. Set them all to Layer 0
is it wrong to change them to match the layer I want them associated with? other portions of this model appear to utilize this feature. for example a door has all components associated with “Door”. for the open and closed version the group is associated with a like named layer. open or closed requires the correct two layers. however, you can disappear the whole door just using the door layer. to my mind that was the desirous behavior I alluded to earlier.
funny I’m pretty new to sketchup (in case you didn’t figure that out) and had noticed that. I had already decided to somehow figure out that magic later. guess I now know the spell. however, you seem to be indicating that is a no-no.
Actually that might be a useful plugin: select a group or component instance and it lists the layers the object and any nested entities associate with (recursively). That would let users as well as experts instantly diagnose whether layers are being used correctly. The heart of the code is quite simple. Giving it a nice output would be 95% of the work. Maybe I’ll take a shot at it…
Layers only control visibility of entities but it works kind of like the Romulan cloaking device from the original Star Trek. The group’s layer state determines the visibility. You should read the help files on layers before you go any further.
I seem to recall discussing a feature request to add Layer associations to the Outliner.
Yes, that would be a better solution. But since that kind of FR tends to sit on the back burner forever, maybe an extension would be useful in the mean time. There are already ones that detect edges and faces not associated with Layer0 and optionally correct them, but that doesn’t show the user exactly where they went astray.
not trying to be obtuse, but I’m still not seeing why associating with layer 0 is important. it seems that at times it would be rather useful to not. is this a five monkeys thing or is there an actual rational for it. having association with multiple layers seems pretty handy. also, a lot of the more useful models that I download seem to utilize this “bug”.
You CAN associate non-primitives, guidepoints and guidelines with other layers.
Ie, dimensions, section planes, text callouts, etc.
But for geometry, … follow the advice, or suffer in “layer limbo land”.
http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/3000122
Try to understand that SketchUp layers do not have geometry entity collections. So an associated layer will not “own” any geometry that you draw whilst it is the active layer. Making a layer “active” is just a way to automatically assign the layer property of entities. This property is just a pointer at a layer object, which is a set of shared visibility behaviors (ie, like a property sheet.)
There are many topic threads here where you can watch new users suffer having not read the user guide. Do a bit of poking around. (Use the search feature.)
3 Likes