I have a group of components that I had previously angled about 26˚. Now I’ve angled it back to level but the blue rectangular square around it is still at the old angle. This isn’t causing a problem for me but I’m just trying to figure out how Sketchup works and understand what is going on here.
Thanks to the help on this forum I feel like I’ve jumped past the hardest part of the steep learning curve on Sketchup and now I’m starting to really understand how to use this tool. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me!!!
You had modeled the rafter at an angle. The bounding is created with its alignment parallel to the axes. You can right click on and change the axes so they and the bounding box aligns with the rafter. Correcting the orientation would make applying materials easier because the texture will align with the “board” and if you were to want some sort of report like a cutlist, the dimensions would report the size of the bounding box which would create errors.
When you first create a Group, the bounding box and group axes are oriented to the model’s global axes. If the contents were drawn at a slant, that will produce a loose bounding box. If you subsequently rotate the group, its axes and the BB rotate along. You can fix this by opening the group for edit, select all, and rotate into alignment with the axes. For a component you can use the right-click change axes without opening it for edit.
Thanks for all these great answers/explanations. So I think that in the future, if I want items at an angle it’s probably best to build the components “level” and then rotate the entire group to the angle I want, so that the components are still “square.”
That’s one way to work. If you are making components, it might be easier to set the axes to the right orientation when you create the component. Personally I would prefer to draw something like the rafter in place using the wall framing as a guide. That would probably require entering fewer dimensions and certainly there’d be less screwing around getting the rafter into the right location and less chance of creating errors in the model.
it might be easier to set the axes to the right orientation when you create the component.
Just to be clear, by “right orientation” do you mean the final orientation that they will be in, or having orientation that lines up with the length/width?
Yes. I prefer to model the parts in place. So the rafter would be drawn at the angle it’s going to live at and in place over the walls. After creating the geometry, select it, hit g to Create Component and give it a name. Then hit Set Component Axes and place the align the axes with the geometry.
