Hiding layers doesn't (Warning: ranty and picture heavy)

halkun

One of the more irritating bugs I've found with Sketchup is that when I hide a layer, the program still interacts with the hidden geometry. I guess that there is supposed to be some kind of philosophy behind it, but it doesn't make much sense to me. The idea is that when I'm hiding the geometry I'm hiding it for a reason.

Let me give you an simple example...

Here a building I have created that is bisected in the middle...

Now for my next trick, I make two layers... "Floor 1" and "Floor 2" and I send the bottom geometry to "Floor 1"

I now move My top geometry to "Floor 2" and this is where it starts to get wierd. I want to to notice that there are 3 types of selectoids in the layer dialog box (Radio button, check box, and highlight) ... I will get back to that later...

Now the problem. When I try and draw geometry on the second floor, the first floor is interfering with it after I explicitly hit it.

This causes all kinds of problems such as edges migrating to hidden layers, the eraser tool "picking up" on hidden edges, and my inability to make surfaces as parts were "hidden". What irks me the most is the edge that this program is complaining about is actually on Floor 2. I can see it's right there! That's broken...

Also, why does the layer dialog have three selectors? The highlight selector serves no purpose other than not allowing me to delete layer 0 (for some odd reason). I can't tell you how many times I've done a floor, only to find that I was drawing the level in the wrong layer and now I have to move the whole thing (of course the lines that are "hidden" or "smoothed" don't go, and I have to show hidden geometry to get those too! You would think selecting something would also select the hidden geometry too on the same layer.

Here is a proper Layer dialog box

Here the highlight is what you are drawing on, eyeball is what you see. It's pretty straightforward. I can also make layers opaque, would would be awesome too.

I guess the upshot is how do you guys get around the whole layer thing. Not using the layer system is completely impracticable for me because my object I'm building is huge. I'm only on floor 3 out of 24 if I turn on more than two floors at a time, my system screeches to a halt and updates the screen about once every three seconds. (Heaven forbid I accidentally select "select all connected", which also, strangely jumps layers too

That's my rant I guess... Go head and flame away

tomsdesk

halkun, in the example the top edges of the first floor walls are not moved to layer 1...they do not duplicate just because you separated layers: a logic that can be frustrating at times. The answer is to move the floors apart then group the items before moving them back together. You then have two edges, one on layer 1 and another on layer 2...so then you can edit separately.

Gaieus

Like TIG says, layers in SU are NOT to separate geometry. You can call it a bug but in fact it's a feature "only" May be an annoying feature until you get usedto it but still; layers only control visibility.

Watch this vide for more clarification about layers vs. groups (or components). Your problems starts around minute 1.

[flash=600,450:3tctbddo]http://www.youtube.com/v/fBdP499iw0Y&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:3tctbddo]

alpro

Also you should just model on layer 0, then move your groups or components to your desired layers. In the one picture the floor 2 layer is active and thats the one you're modeling on, this can get quite confusing on a model with lots of layers.

Mike

TIG

It's a basic tenet of Sketchup that to separate geometry you must either separately group the geometry or make it a component and then place instances of it. By default all geometry sticks together inside a model, or group or component. Hiding geometry or putting it onto layers that are switched 'off' will never separate the geometry.

Layers in Sketchup are NOT the same as layers in CAD. Layers are used to control visibility NOT geometry interaction.

Let's imagine a simple building. You'll probably want the walls on the 'WALL' layer and the roof on the 'ROOF' layer. That way you can switch off the roof and see inside the space from above...
To put things onto these layers so you can switch them on and off you should make the wall geometry with everything on Layer0 and then group the parts, make that group's layer WALL. Similarly make the roof geometry on Layer0 and group it [note how you can separate stuff early on - draw a couple of the roof's edges and group them immediately, edit that group and then everything you make inside the roof-group remains separated from the rest of the model, whilst you can still snap to any of it, drawn over it etc]. Now put the roof on layer ROOF. Now you can hide the roof or wall by simply switching off layers.

Also naming the roof-group and wall-group logically allows you to select these in the Outliner...

Putting the model's raw geometry [or basic geometry inside a group/component] will only stop it being seen - it will not stop it interacting with other things. It is usually best to have all raw faces and edges on Layer0 - keep the active_layer Layer0 [radio button], the visibility of layers is controlled by the tick-box...