Howdy all! I’m having a problem with my floorplan. I made a basic floorplan and have been wanting to tag my walls and windows separately. But there is one window that seems to be somehow “stuck” to an exterior wall and I can’t select the window geometry to make the tag. Any ideas?
EmBedroom_Floorplan.skp (32.8 KB)
You want to create Groups or Components for walls, floors, ceilings, etc.
Don’t put tags on faces or edges. Just put them on Groups or Components.
Here is a cleaned-up version of your file:
EmBedroom_Floorplan.skp (22.2 KB)
Thank you so much! I’m taking a class on Sketchup and refraining from putting tags on faces and edges wasn’t explained clearly. I really appreciate the help!
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For your education as a newbie to SketchUp, there are two reasons for not applying tags to edges and faces. One is practical: doing so often leads to very confusing issues with visibility such as a group with one tag disappearing when some other tag is hidden. Or worse, just part of it vanishing. The other is more philosophical: SketchUp is designed to model surfaces of objects, not just drawings. Edges exist to define the boundaries of faces, and faces exist to define surfaces. Given that purpose, it makes no sense to hide edges and faces using tags.
Having written that, I realize that some experts may feel it is ok to tag edges and faces. Just be aware that is an advanced practice that requires you to understand and remember what you did.
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While we’re at it: keep Untagged as the active layer. Meaning, don’t move the pencil:
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Good point! Changing the active tag sets the stage for inadvertently putting tags on edges and faces.
Another subtle gotcha: if you explode a group or component SketchUp will transfer the group’s tag to all of its former contents, including edges and faces! That can lead to confusion later unless you immediately untag them. We’ve argued for years that this behavior is wrong more often than right, but to no avail.
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How did I not realize that? I guess I don’t explode stuff that much anymore, and if the group isn’t tagged yet, it wouldn’t matter.
The companion to this is the DWG translator that puts raw geometry on tags corresponding to the CAD layers.
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See my recent topic “group by tag” for a code snippet that gathers edges and faces into groups based on their tag, applies the tag to the group, and then untags the edges and faces. It was conceived to preserve the info that tags/layers convey in dwg or dxf while not applying tags to edges or faces.
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