What rules do you guys set for the use of tags and groups?

SketchUp Pro
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What rules do you guys set for the use of tags and groups?
Like the previous layer, I use tags for each floor of a building, walls, roof, furniture, etc. Many of the assets in the 3D warehouse have detailed tags, such as for each part.
Also, if I group objects across multiple tags, the tags to which the group belongs and the tags to which the objects surrounding it belong will get mixed up, complicating the controls for showing and hiding.
Please let me know if there is an optimal way to use this.

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I use ISO and NCS, the amount of tags depends on the project and the level of detail and graphic information I want to have on my documentation.

The only strict rule I follow is to keep geometry untagged, only groups and components must be tagged.

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I tend to use “Tags” to define objects and then group those objects in “Outliner”.

Objects might be lumber by size or application within a structure. The wall or floors or roofs ,structural units or assemblies, built of those objects would be organized in “outliner”

No right or wrong way. Just do what ultimately works best for your needs. The process requires some thought to gain benefits for your project.

The idea is to avoid getting “mixed up”.

Good Luck

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I use tagged nested groups as Mike Brightman describes in his books and videos and I can’t recall if Nick Sonder also describes this workflow in his book with Matt Donley.

Aside

Mike’s latest ConDoc 5 has a “multi-tag” feature that I believe leaverages attributes, which eliminates nested groups.

I have a custom script that I wrote that turns tags on/off or toggles tag states that I assign to keyboard shortcuts.

So pressing a certain key will turn, say the wall tag, on and off. Or another key will toggle between existing and new or I can turn on/off Level 1 or 2 or 3…

I have one modelling scene and I do all of my modeling in that one scene turning tags on/off or toggling tag states on the fly – it’s fast.

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SketchUp allows for different workflows to suit your personal needs. My workflow (architect) is:

  • Every group and component (and nested sub-group/component) is named. I use the SfB code to name the objects. So you get named groups like ‘16_foundations’, ‘22 inner wall’, ‘31 outer doors and windows’ ‘32 inner doors’ etc.
  • By nesting groups, more complex hierarchies can be made and the number of unique top-level groups are reduced in number. ‘31 doors’ has a sub group called ‘doorX1’, ‘doorX2’ etc. All with sub groups ‘door’, ‘frame’ and ‘fittings’ etc. See picture for the nested groups for ‘28 structural elements’ (with Dutch names)
  • Almost every group/component is on the default layer (tag). Tags are only used to control the visibility of categories like ‘non-structural work’, ‘helpers’, ‘dimensions’ etc.
  • The nice thing is by naming groups and not using tags, the exact same hierarchy also is created after importing in UnrealEngine. If you would use only tags and not name groups in SketchUp, the hierarchy in Unreal would consist of ‘group01…1000’

I have been using this strategy for almost 10 years now and it suits me well in SketchUp, LayOut and UnrealEngine.

hierarchy
hierarchy257×647 85.4 KB

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