Hide Rest of Model: but still see parent context?
-
I want to edit a nested component, while seeing the component it's nested within. Many times I need to modify a deeply nested component to fit within it's slightly less deeply nested parent. Toggling Hide Rest of Model allows me to hide the clutter and edit the component, but it's futile without the ability to see it's parent. I end up having to hide obscuring components in the outliner, edit without using HROM, then unhide them. Any plugins out there that do this?
Thx
-
I don't know of any plugins that do anything like that but a possible work around would be to place an instance of the component you want to edit into the model from the In Model Components library. Do the editing you need to do, close the component and delete it when finished. You can place that component somewhere out of the way. You could also place a copy of the nested component, explode the nest so you can delete components you don't need, edit what you need to edit and finally delete all of them. Since you're using components you know your changes will get propagated through the model.
-
Yeah, that works. I should have mentioned that I'd like that functionality with nested groups too. Not too hard to convert to components though.
Thanks
-
Well, that's one of the reasons why I don't use groups. I frequently leverage the fact that I can make a copy of a component and move it away from the rest of the model to edit it. I know that whatever I do to that copy will get passed on to the other instances. when I've finished editing I can delete the copy so I avoid having to move a component out, edit it and put it back. This is also handy when creating things with small details where SketchUp might not fill in the tiny faces. I can make a copy of the component, scale it up, perform whatever operation would create the tiny faces and then, instead of scaling the component back down, I just close it and delete it. The original small version has all the required faces. And since I only make components, I never have to wonder if the thing I'm working on is a component and I never need to stop and make a group a component.
-
I am slowly and painfully beginning to see the logic of only using components. I'm working on a large model with a mixture of groups and components. I thought it made sense to use components for things I would replicate, and groups for unique objects. I thought using groups would save me from having to remember to make a component instance unique when, well, making it unique by editing it. Way too often I've changed an instance and inadvertently screwed up all the others. However, now that I have a mixture of groups and components, I frequently suffer from that bug that changes names in Entity Info when moving from group to component (and vice versa) in the Outliner. Arg!
-
I feel your pain and sympathize with you.
Often when I talk to woodworkers about using SketchUp they tell me that they would make components of things that have multiples in the model such as the legs and aprons of a table. The top, on the other hand would be made into a group because there's only one top. That's fine, I guess. But in my work, there wouldn't be just one table top. The entire table model would get copied off to one side and an exploded view created from that copy. If the top needs to be edited after the exploded view and I had made it a group, I would have to either edit both copies or edit one and copy it to replace the other. Since I would make the top a component, I don't even have to think about it.
Yes, you can get snagged by the Make Unique but with a little practice it becomes second nature.
Of course there's also the old saying, "Don't draw anything twice." Components can be saved out into a library for future use so that makes them a "labor saving device."
Advertisement