Change lines and faces within a group to designated layer
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Hello. I got this problem: when u assign a group to the new layer it only changes the group itself. The lines and faces the group consist of remain on the old layer. Is there any plugin or way how to change the group and all its contents to the desired layer? (without opening the group and manually doing so) Thanks
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Never do this!
All geometries must remain in layer 0.
Layers in sketchup is just a way to show/hide things so only put groups or components in them. -
well makes sense
I have never thought of this this way... -
@gilles said:
Never do this!
All geometries must remain in layer 0.
Layers in sketchup is just a way to show/hide things so only put groups or components in them.All geometries do not actually need be on layer 0. I can't think of any reason why you would want all of a group's or component's entities in a layer other than layer 0 but you might occasionally want to put some of them into a different layer to exploit the 'color by layer' option or when you want a quick & easy way to hide/unhide only specific entities in one or more groups or components.
For the same reason, it is also occasionally helpful to put some ungrouped entities into a layer other than layer 0.
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I tihnk its John Clements who has some fairly decent reasons that he sometimes puts geometry on layers other than zero.
Personally I'm more of the kind who would recommend never ever putting geometry on anything other than zero. TIG even has a plugin that helps keep things on zero called "default layer" or something along those lines. SU has a way of moving geometry onto layers other than zero, so you have to run that plugin every so often on your model to get all geometry back where it belongs.
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@livemixer said:
...All geometries do not actually need be on layer 0. I can't think of any reason why you would want all of a group's or component's entities in a layer other than layer 0...
Well, they do not have to but (especially with for less experienced users), these are good suggestions.
SU is designed this way. Just one example to contemplate on: if you keep raw geometry (not every other entity as there may be nested groups/components too) on Layer 0 and you turn the visibility of Layer 0 off, this geometry will still be visible.Maybe it should be called "Drawing layer" or something.
@chris said:
For the same reason, it is also occasionally helpful to put some ungrouped entities into a layer other than layer 0.
Yes, you can do it otherwise, too. I also have one (regular) reason but only (generally) used with entourage - more precisely, plants. In Twilight, you can set a component to render everything (even hidden layers). In these cases, I usually put the faces/edges/whatnot of very high-poly plants (or low poly but used in masses like grass) on a certain layer and (maybe but not necessarily) some dummy geometry on Layer§. This allows me to work on extremely high-poly models and not even to have to turn layer visibility on when rendering.
These are the exceptional cases though.
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Now that's an ancient topic, Gilles - but everything still applies (and no wonder why Wodan became a SketchUp Sage, Top Contributor and Top SketchUcator here and Jim is one of our highest valued plugin contributors and moderators)
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I learned the hard way about keeping all raw geometry on Layer0.
Same with Grouping or componentizing EVERYTHING, that is NO raw geometry outside of a group or comp.
Updating a few of my old drawings is almost harder than redrawing the whole thing all over.Layers control VISIBILITY, Groups/Components control object separation.
My rule of thumb is if the object appears only ONCE in a drawing, it can be in a group; Twice or more, it MUST be a component.
There are several valid reasons to assign raw geometry to other layers, most are for experienced users to do special things with layer visibility.
One exception I use routinely is for notes, labels and dimensions.
Within the group/comp containing the raw geometry and other groups/comps, I may plant a note, label or a dimension. I do not want them to show at all times, but they must reside with the object.
I will create a separate layer(s) called Documentation or Dimensions.
I will then assign those raw notes, labels or dimensions to those special layers, and then turn them on or off as needed. Keeping them INSIDE the objects group/comp means that if I turn off the objects layer, the Docs or Dims turn off as well, even if the Doc/Dim layer may still be on.
One final note; If a nested objects layer needs to be changed and you simply change its layer assignment, its visibility is still controlled by the layers it is nested within.
To maintain its independent layer visibility, first drill down to its group/comp and select it.
Copy it to the clipboard.
DELETE it.
Back out of the nesting to Layer0.
Either stay there or enter some other group/comp nest and drill down to where you want it to be.
PASTE-IN-PLACE, Do not Paste. This puts your object exactly in place at the layer level you want.You can also transfer objects between separate drawings this way.
Open a second SU session and load the "other" drawing.
In either drawing, select the object and clipboard copy it. Do not delete it, unless you really want to.
Switch over to the other session and again Paste-in-Place. This will put it in the same XYZ co-ordinates as its origin drawing. It will also transfer its layer ID and any layers contained within the objects group/comp. However, it may duplicate the contained materials/colours.I do this a lot drawing my airplanes and stuff where I want to keep separate drawings of the internals of the airframe, wings, etc, but must maintain the spatial orientation and position consistent between drawings.
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@unknownuser said:
Well, they do not have to but (especially with for less experienced users), these are good suggestions.
I certainly agree that it is a good general suggestion. I really just wanted to point out it isn't absolutely necessary to follow it & mention a few of the reasons why someone might want to do something else.
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