it is possible to determine whether components or individual lines have been drawn from a model. to make a kind of wipeout, so that the original component remains intact, only a visual wipeout is possible.
for example, if you want to make a wall breakthrough in an existing building, without modifying the components or wall itself.
Autocad has a wipeout function for it.
Some programs work with substraction, but you can also disable this with a feature.
The only thing SketchUp has similar to that is the hole cutting property of components (which creates the visual of a hole without actually modifying the face). Perhaps you could make a hole cutting component containing just a transparent rectangle. Note that hole cutting works only on a single face, so you’d need an instance of the cutter on each face through the wall.
the wipeout area should be not visible. on the parts i want.
as an example: if I want to make a breakthrough in a wall, it should not visually display the wipeout part. from the wall. if I put a door in this wipeout. I would like to see the door. some breakthroughs or cutouts will remain as openings, and others will be filled with doors, windows, or cabinets etc.
The AutoCad Wipeout object is actually (technically) an empty totally white raster image, which makes it rather useless because it slows the application down a lot and doesn’t export cleanly to any other format. You can achieve same kind of effects by stacking viewports and transparent or white filled shapes in LayOut
I have built my own dynamic window components and within this component is a cutting block (same size as the window, and 10” thicker in both directions than the wall thickness). I model all my walls solid and when I need to cut openings I copy the cutting block, paste it in place, and then trim this from the wall…
I actually saw this function for window components.
Could you send an example of how this works?
I have sketchup PRO, but still in the early stages.
A dynamic window component with cutting block could be a nice solution, allowing me to work with most openings.
It is just a dummy block that is sized according to the dynamic windows I built. I will not share it (developed it for my workflow and my clients) - but you can build your own dynamic components if you wish to emulate this. Nothing here is automatic except for what I achieve within the dynamic component (ie - sizing of the block).
I adjust the component and turn on the cutting block:
When I have dozens of windows I copy > paste in place all my windows to a new file, turn the blocks on, explode my window components, use Selection Toys to select all instances of the cutting block, right click and create an outer shell (the blocks are solids), cut, return to my main drawing, Edit > Paste in Place, trim from walls.
I understand the idea, I would also like to make such a kind of block myself.
With some practice I should get there
what I wonder… if your wall is a component, does this also work? and if so, I would like to make a copy of this wall,
Install the frame in 1 wall. the other wall should not have a recess, but should remain the same wall component.
If I change the wall component, thickness or length or shift it in the component itself, this happens for the wall without a frame and the wall with a frame.
That’s why I like to make openings in existing walls, without having to adapt the existing walls themselves.
I will try to provide a comparison using further software to make it visible
I rarely use groups, so my walls are components. If I make a copy of the wall, of course when I use Trim and Keep (plugin for solid tools) to cut out the opening all instances of that wall will change. I would make a copy unique if I wanted it without the opening cut.
Otherwise I don’t understand what you mean.
And before you get too far along make sure you have good skills in all the basics of SketchUp.
That would be cool, but to the best of my knowledge, that can’t be done in SketchUp, at least not with native tools. In order for components to be different, they have to be made unique, and then it won’t inherit edits to the parent.
I know there is other software that does what Solid Tools does and maybe more, but does it non-destructively – that is you can go back at any time and edit the earlier objects to effect the final results.
The closest thing I’ve seen is the use of cutter tools in Medeek BIM plugins, but they’re specific to all the stuff it’s making like a whole floor framing assembly. It’s another thing that @medeek might consider spinning off as a generally useful plugin for other users.
This function is what i was looking for in Sketchup
in HICAD in looks like a substratction, but it’s not. If i make a substratcion, than the two walls will not be the same and will not have the same reference.
This function creats a visible “view substration”
