Help with hidden components in scenes for layout
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I am trying to create a set of dimensioned drawings in layout for a wood working project I designed in Sketchup. To start the process, I have begun creating scenes in SU of the different views I want. In some of the scenes, I want to show an individual component so that I can get detailed dimensions of drilling patterns and what-not.
To create the scene of the individual component, I have hidden all of the other components. I then created the scene with the "Hidden Geometry" box checked. After I have done this and I return to other scenes,the other scenes have all the components hidden as well.
Some searching suggests that the best practice is to not hide components when creating scenes. Is this correct? Are there cases when I should use the hide function in creating scenes?
It seems that the recommended practice is to put the component I want to highlighton an individual layer. So, if I want detailed drawings of a 100 individual components in a model, I would have to create 100 individual layers? Is this correct, or is there a better way?
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Sending components to layers is the recommended way. Unless all the components are in the same place, you might not have to create as many layers. It just depends on the components you want to hide. For example if I wanted to display each piece of furniture in the house model (for some odd reason) I could hide the house component by giving it a layer and probably find isolated views of each piece without too much additional hiding by layer.
IDK if some ruby might help in parsing a model's scenes and components in such a detailed way. That might be interesting. Have you looked for plugins?
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Scenes will remember an objects hidden status (as long as it isn't nested). Have you looked at using SU's "Outliner" it may be more suited to what you are doing?
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I would agree with Peter that layers would be a better way to deal with this although Trevor is correct that scene attributes can remember hidden states.
@unknownuser said:
It seems that the recommended practice is to put the component I want to highlighton an individual layer. So, if I want detailed drawings of a 100 individual components in a model, I would have to create 100 individual layers? Is this correct, or is there a better way?
I've never needed to create anywhere near that number of layers for the projects I've done. Currently I'm waiting for the LO viewports to rerender on a plan for a tool chest. From the stats: there are 242 component instances, 61 component definitions but only 22 layers.
I tend to put related components on the same layer. So both case sides are on one, the bottom is on another, drawers are on a third and so on. In the model space I have the fully assembled model at the origin and an exploded view behind and to the right a bit. There are copies of individual components located nearby but out of view for the exploded and assembled views. For example, the case has two sides but there are six copies of the component in the model space. Two of them appear in the assembled model, two in the exploded view and then I used two to create a scene showing the part in 2D. I could have done that using two different scenes and then two different viewports in LO but this method works for me. One thing I'll stress is that every part in the model is drawn as a component. There are no groups. If/when I need to edit something in the model, I do it on the fully assembled copy knowing without doubt that my changes will carry through to every scene.
In any case, you should be able to get everything you need displayed without a hundred layers. I think that would be a lot easier to manage than hiding and unhiding components.
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@dave r said:
I tend to put related components on the same layer. So both case sides are on one, the bottom is on another, drawers are on a third and so on. In the model space I have the fully assembled model at the origin and an exploded view behind and to the right a bit. There are copies of individual components located nearby but out of view for the exploded and assembled views. For example, the case has two sides but there are six copies of the component in the model space. Two of them appear in the assembled model, two in the exploded view and then I used two to create a scene showing the part in 2D. I could have done that using two different scenes and then two different viewports in LO but this method works for me. One thing I'll stress is that every part in the model is drawn as a component. There are no groups. If/when I need to edit something in the model, I do it on the fully assembled copy knowing without doubt that my changes will carry through to every scene.
In any case, you should be able to get everything you need displayed without a hundred layers. I think that would be a lot easier to manage than hiding and unhiding components.
I think this makes sense. Right now I am using the outliner and everything is a component. That said, I have created a lot of groups of components to help organize my model. Is this a bad idea?
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@mrstop said:
I think this makes sense. Right now I am using the outliner and everything is a component. That said, I have created a lot of groups of components to help organize my model. Is this a bad idea?
Not necessarily. Combining a collection of components into a group or component can be usesful. These nested components make it easier to select the collection for moving them. For example the drawers and the lid in the tool chest I was talking about are nested components. That make it simple to slide a drawer out after a single click to select it. Or I can rotate the lid into the open position and it is simple to select it.
The downside to nesting is that to edit a component you have to open multiple wrappers to get to the geometry.
There are some potentially interesting ideas related to nested components and layers. You might have more than one layer for the components inside the nest and another for the nest itself. So I might set up my tool drawers on a drawer layer and then create layers for the drawer fronts, another for the sides, a third for the backs and so on. Maybe also one for the pulls. From that point I could either hide the entire drawer by clicking on the 'Drawers' layer or I could just turn off the 'Pulls' layer to get the pulls out the way.
Generally for my work flow, I wait to make nested components until I have all of the other components contained inside created and I wait to create layers until after I've got the model done. While I'm working on the assembled model I'm thinking about how I will organize the views I'll need to show in the plan. that gives me a guide to what layers I should create. Once the entire assembled model is complete, I create the layers I want to have and I turn off their visibility temporarily. Then I go through the model assigning components to layers (or is it layers to components). I continue this until the drawing space is blank and then I know I've gotten everything assigned to layers.
There can be an awful lot to all this but it isn't really all that difficult if you work in a methodical way.
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Thanks for your help. Starting with the end in mind and the methodical layer creating tip solved my problem. My model now shows 71 components and 34 layers.
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