Paste in place is ignoring layers

DOD3R

Hi guys,
I usually use cut and paste in place for editing structure of nested components. My problem occurs, when i place component on wrong layer. So i try to solve it by cutting it into clipboard and than pasting using paste in place to put it into desired position like in component structure and axes location, but layers doesn't work.
I am sorry my for my English and i use example for better explanation.
I am modeling family house in the model are layers and two of them are vegetation and furniture. I did made mistake by placing a chair into a vegetation layer. I try to solve it by ctrl+X
cutting it to clipboard and placing it to different component named kitchen furniture, witch lies on layer furniture. What happens is it put it on same layer in different component structure even though layers 0 is active all the time.
So what i thing i want from programing prospective is: that basic copying of components ctrl+c remembers layer information and cutting don't.

It can be very confusing i copy mentioned chair in scene one where is layer vegetation active and i am pasting it in place at scene 2 where layer vegetation is not active so i am pasting chairs on hidden layer and it seems like bug.

best wishes
D.

jeff hammond

hi D,

you can use the entity info panel to move groups to other layers

(right-click on the group, choose 'entity info' in the context menu, use the layers drop down list to choose the correct layer)

Dave R

@unknownuser said:

My problem occurs, when i place component on wrong layer. So i try to solve it by cutting it into clipboard and than pasting using paste in place to put it into desired position like in component structure and axes location...

There is absolutely no need to do this. You're description indicates you are thinking of layers as you would have in other programs but they aren't like that in SketchUp. As Jeff says, you change the layer association by selecting the groups or components and changing their layer association in Entity Info.

I would gather you are not following the "layer rules" if you are doing what you describe. You can search the Help files for this but in a nutshell here they are:

Leave Layer 0 active always.
Draw everything on Layer0.
Only make layer associations for groups, components, labels, dimensions and screen text.
Leave the edges and faces in your components and groups on Layer0.

Not following these rules is a sure way to mess up your model and make you go crazy.

DOD3R

Hi,
I remembered that i used this work flow somewhere and i believed that it was in SU, but probably i am mistaken. so I did some testing in few applications, where i performed copy and cut+paste combo, and observed behavior of layers information.

so autocad is behaving same as sketch up - copies are distributed on the layer of the original object same is cut+paste.
photoshop makes new layer for anything inserted from clipboard
illustrator does exactly what i wanted SU to do. When i cut some object from layer A and paste them somewhere when layer B is active, objects are put on layer B

And quite frankly i like this mechanics.

Dave R

The layer association is an attribute of the component or group. If you make a copy of the component or group, the copy will have the same attributes. It really isn't quite right to say components or groups are "on" layers in SketchUp.

If you think of an application such as an image editor, layers are sort of the digital equivalent of sheets of film. Each sheet has some image on it. Rearranging the order of the sheets can impact the appearance of the whole. In SketchUp, layers are only used for controlling visibility of entities. The order doesn't make any difference to the appearance of the model.

Maybe it would help to think of things this way, you aren't putting components or groups on layers, you are assigning layer attributes to components and groups.

Perhaps it would have been a good idea to choose a different word instead of "layer" for these attributes. I guess we're kind of stuck with it now.

DOD3R

i hope that trimble can come up with some combo controller for layers visibility and structure of nested components. like layers and outliner combined into ultimate and better tool. something like corel draw has.

Dave R

There's already a ton of power there for controlling visibility. You can associate the parent component with one layer and the child components with other layers. This gives you all sorts of options for controlling what is visible and what isn't.