Attributes swapping between components

sibenj

Hi, I'm finally putting this out there after much frustration and searching on google.
I'm a cabinet maker and I'm really pleased to have finally found a program that allows me to build cabinets dynamically and put together whole kitchens based around a collection of different cabinets.
However I've been getting some very strange cross talk between cabinets. Even though each cabinet is unique some attributes formulas seem to be swapping from one cabinet to another.
To explain further, each cabinet is a component made up from other child components so I often end up with large amounts of components in a kitchen and quite often components are repeated many times (doors for example come from a root component to allow editing and reloading if need be).
Although each component is unique the attribute formulas seem to change randomly when I introduce a new cabinet and size it. Is it even possible for a child components attribute to link to a different parent? Has anybody experienced any similar behaviour?
I'm can pm an example of this behaviour if anyone would be willing to look at this. I'm using pro7 on a mac (maybe this is an old problem??)

fcborik

Hello,

My name is Frank, and i've recently been working with components for a residential electrical system. I'm also a woodworker and have designed new kitchen cabinetry in sketchup. Although I have not "componentized" my cabinets (yet --I want to do so in the future to get better material estimates), I have learnd a few things about components in my electrical system design efforts.

First, some disclaimers:

I'm working on a Windows 7 machine with SketchUp Pro v 8. Not sure if my experience will be of use to you in a mac/SketchUp 7 environment.
I only did a few indentures of components (only 3), so my experience does not extend to multiples of sub-components past the third sub-component.

Having said that, the thing that helped me out the most was to use the native reporting function in SketchUp to see what all of my components were doing and how they related to eadh other. While you can do this in the outliner, it is denfinitely helpful to see the data dump of your components in the report.

The key field is called "path" (the first one) that will tell you how each component and sub component relates to each other within SketchUp. What I would recommend is that you select all of the troublesome components and make a report (File-> Generate Report) and see if the "path" gives you some insight into why your components are crashing together. I think this will help in evaluating how your component orgainzation is strutured, which may assist in solving your problem.

Please let me know how this works out. I'm getting ready to undertake a simlar project with my own kitchen cabinetry, so any information I can get will be very helpful to me.

Thanks!

Frank Borik

pcmoor

Hi

I am currently creating a dynamic component based roof frame. (refer Warehouse, pcmoor) I had similar problems too, As you create each new parent, you need to make all the sub components unique as well, otherwise the child will change with the parents name, Consider cub#1 with shelf#1, made unique to cub#2 containing shelf#1, now shelf#1 has two parents and will alter as you change either parent... reference stuff-up!! Plus you remove it to another file, change it, works fine until you bring it back, then it updates itself to its original parent, or change all the other children. So copy the item within the main model, make it unique, open the "outliner",select the parent object, select all of its children, grand-children... and make them all unique. Then no problems.

Another point I discovered, is that copying within the dynamic is memory hungry. My rafter can reproduce itself, however for 100 times it makes a file of 3.5MG, whereas, copy as per normal, instances are produced, file is 300kb, 100 times different. The roof I placed in the warehouse, is 6MB, much too big...will change soon, current can get it down to 3.5 mainly because of copy within the component. I hope to combine some more elements and ideas to make it smaller.

Once the design is finally built, there will be a need to do a take-off, the one supplied with Pro, is too slow, can some one point out, or make a custom one, so one can pre-select what attributes one needs to report, units? and totals....

Also I am experimenting with hole cutting, by putting cutting planes within sub-components, moving them via the dialogue, then exploding after to leave an existing item behind. Thus you could cut a hole for a sink through a number of surfaces.

Cheers
Philip

pcmoor

Referring to other posts, it seems that it is good practice to refer to the parent component literally as (Parent!wantedAttribute) So for shelf#1," =(Parent!Lenx)" instead of "=cub#1!LenX" or for the other "=cub#2!LenX"; works for both without problems, a much better way to go..for reuse.

"Re: copies of DC cabinet door not working properly"
Jim says.....
I also prefer to use the 'Parent' word to reference the parent component. This makes sub-components more interchangeable with other DC's, so you can change-out sub-components more easily.

we live, we learn.....