I’m now trying to make my workflow more efficient. I’m being (I think) methodical about naming components so they are well sorted in Outliner. I’m rethinking how the model I’m drawing correlates to the workshop and trying to build the model using similar steps as I would building a project in the shop.
I’ve worked out some issues by searching the forums and Help, but many remain. That’s OK, I’ll get there. But as I attempt to move to the next step I’m having problems. Bear with me, as the terminology used here still confuses.
For this type of cutting board the next step is to make an identical, but unique, glueup with reversed materials. i.e. “glueup second maple” has alternating strips of maple and walnut. “glueup second walnut” will have alternating strips of walnut and maple (the reverse of “glueup second maple”.
OK, so I move/copied and “Made Unique” to get the second glueup to start modifying. I need to change the colors in the unique copy so that they alternate walnut, maple, walnut, maple, etc. I have tried following the Help, but can’t get it to work. What am I missing?
Have I made this more complicated than it needs to be? That is my first inclination since it became clear that if I attempted to do something to a lower component in “glueup second walnut” it also did it to the same component in “glueup second maple”. That made me realize each lower component need to be made unique, but trying to do that has my head so screwed up I can’t think straight.
So - I’m sure I made a mistake somewhere early on, but I don’t for the life of me know where. HELP?
On a similar note, if a mistake is discovered, is it better to try to edit it, CTRL-z to back up, or just start over?
Seeing your model would be very helpful but if you’ve used components for the individual pieces and then made a nested component of the pieces for the whole cutting board AND you’ve applied the materials to the faces in the components, you need to make the copied cutting board component unique and then make the components inside unique, too. Then you can edit those individual components and change the materials to suit.
And thinking about it, I do think starting over would be better. Those glueup seconds are overly complicated and could be eliminated altogether. The same thing could be accomplished on the glueup firsts with dashed lines to show saw blade kerfs. Then I would just build the components for the final glueup separate.
My end goal is to produce shop plans in what I assume will be Layout. So I’m trying to imagine the work flow in the shop as well as in SU and that gets muddled. cutting board.skp (511.0 KB)
As far as giving changing the materials for the components, again, you have to use Make Unique on the components inside the component. With this model you have the components making the individual blocks as components inside components representing the strips inside the cutting board component. Each of those levels of components needs to be made unique before you can start changing the materials. Here I’ve just done the blocks for the end strips.
That’s what I did until I saw that every row and every block would have to be unique. My brain is too old and can’t handle all that. I can see where the glueup seconds are far more complicated than necessary and are actually unneeded.
I also just read that dashed lines have to be drawn in Layout, which is fine since they are only guides for use in the shop.
So I’m pretty sure the best move is to start from almost scratch and name as I go. I just have to remember whether a unique copy will behave as I expect and check that behavior before I get too far along.
They can be drawn in LayOut but with current versions of SketchUp you can draw your dashed lines in SketchUp, create a group or component to contain them, give the group/component a tag and give that tag a dashed style. I actually wait until I’m working in LayOut to give the tag the dashed style.
Here, for example, I added the dashed lines for the drawer bore pegs in SketchUp and collected them into a component which was then given a “dashed lines” tag. In LayOut i gave that tag a dashed line style.
However, since the purpose here is to not only see what the end result will be (I do that in my head pretty well) but to wind up with the necessary information to waste the least amount of wood in the shop.
Here I see I need 30 7/8" (call it 31") of maple AND walnut strips, or 15 1/2" of walnut and 15 1/2" of maple. Now that I see it in front of me I get it. For the life of me I could never figure out the correct lengths I needed of each species and always wound up with more waste than I thought I should.
I’m not sure how much further I will take it. For now I’ve got what I think I need. cutting board.skp (259.5 KB)
I’m not sure what you mean. I zoom in and out and orbit often to focus better on the current operation, but something tells me that’s not what you’re talking about.
I’m guess you are sometimes holding Shift while zooming in. That will reduce the angle of the field of view or increase the focal length. Really long focal lengths like your model has shown in the last several iterations can cause problems for you. Don’t hold Shift while zooming.
Hmmm, that must happen when I pan and/or zoom at the same time. I have this model open now and tried zooming with and without holding crtl, but can’t see any difference.
But based on your response I’m pretty sure this is important. Is something happening that isn’t readily apparent?
Are you selecting the Zoom tool off the tool bar or using a keyboard shortcut to get it? If you are and you are holding Shift while zooming, the angle of view/focal length changes. That can create some weird distortion and other issues for you.
Here I’m holding Shift while zooming with the left mouse button.
If you are going to zoom by selecting the Zoom tool and dragging the cursor up and down the screen, don’t hold Shift. Better would be to use the scroll wheel/center mouse button for navigating around the model. Scroll to zoom, Shift with the center mouse button to Pan and Ctrl with the center mouse button to Orbit.
I zoom with the scroll wheel, orbit is press scroll wheel, pan is shift-press scroll wheel. But since the ctrl and shift buttons are so close together, I have probably inadvertently hit ctrl instead of shift. (I hunt and peck type, so that would be easy for me to do since I have to look at the keyboard to hit the correct button).
How did you get that Measurements window to show? That might better help me understand this. I definitely want to avoid things that complicate matters.
I activated it as a toolbar so I could position it in the center of the view. Normally it is at the bottom right of the screen. It’s an important part of working in SketchUp so you should be keeping an eye on it.
I got it up into the model window, but it doesn’t do or show anything when I zoom. For what it’s worth, I use it fairly often, such as push/pull, scale, etc. It’s just that I’ve left it in the default lower right.
In order to get it to show the focal length you have to select the Zoom tool from the toolbar, Camera menu, or with a keyboard shortcut.
You can also type in a focal length or angle of view when you have the Zoom tool selected. I find that around 75mm is a good focall length for most of my work.
Got the focal length set to 75mm, but how do I set it to inches instead? If I type, say 3", it only changes field of view. If I try to type 3in or inch or inches, the i doesn’t type. But 75mm works fine.
