Draw order
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DO you mean you want components to occupy the same space and control which is visible and which is not? Assuming that is what you mean, if you make components or groups of the geometry you draw, they won't "mix" together. Then create layers and assign different layer associations for each component. So Component A will be on Layer A, Component B on Layer B and so on. then you can adjust layer visibility as needed to show only the component you're interested in seeing.
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Thanks for answering; It's more like "Bring to Front" or "Send to Back".
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There isn't anything like that in SketchUp. You can rearrange the order of the layers but the order doesn't do anything visibly to the model. Since layers are only used to control visibility of groups/components, their order in the list is not important.
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This stacking order is only relevant in 2D drawing where you need to tell the program which object to display "on top". In 3D, you physically move everything on top of the other object.
Certainly you can "remain" in a 2D drawing in SU but that is not its natural way. In 3D, everything has a certain thickness so in theory, having to define what is on top should never happen.
What is exactly that you are trying to do? (as there may be solutions/workarounds).
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This would also be very useful to me. I often work graphically in 2D before moving to 3d. Sketchup 'picks' one plane to draw when in ortho mode, and does not mix them. Isn't this an open gl parameter you can define? Is there a command that could send faces to "back" when occupying the same plane?
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No function like that. In 3D, the thickness of object should define what is in front and what is in the back.
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Nope, no way you can do that in any 3D program that I know of. As Gaius says, it's a function of 2D drawing. Even if you were to do such a preliminary drawing in a 2D CAD program, or Illustrator, or Corel, all the components would still import into SU on the ground plane.
The only thing I could suggest would be to draw a series of rectangles at slightly different elevations, place them on different layers, then draw on them. You could turn layers on and off to access those drawing planes in the middle or bottom of the stack.
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@dallen said:
Thanks for answering; It's more like "Bring to Front" or "Send to Back".
No way to use "Back > Front" as mentioned here before.
You can create a predifined order that avoids z-fighting (faces visually occupying the same space.
Stack (nested) components that are set to "Glue to + Cut Opening".
Attached is a simple example of how to go about. Once you started you can hadly change the order but it has some good options for working in 2D.
Note that a nested component also cuts openings in several levels above, not only in the parent component. Thus no Z-fighting.
Use scenes for components and the outliner to jump (in-)to their editing context.
additionally you may want to use "Hide rest of model" when editing (drawing in) a component.
With 3D there's no real need for a drawing order.
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And here is another example I did some time ago.
So in certain cases it can be useful to stack 2D nested "glue to + cut opening" components. No z-fighting and once you make a component invisible (turn off it's layer) the heigher levels in hierarchy are healed automatically.
(see link to 3D Warehouse):
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=9c59cf81374fdcc2b2dd3120ca5e0662 -
Here is what I think you mean:
Can you use sketchup layers with 2D entities like you do in photoshop? Not exactly, but you can approximate this, and it doesn't necessarily require Layers Manager, unless you want to independently control the visibility
Example- import 2 2D images into your Sketchup drawing
- assign each to a different layer, like Layer0 and Layer1.
- assuming you're viewing from the top, select the 2D entity you want on top, then
- Select move that entity up the blue axis so it is physically on top of the "lower" 2D entity.
- Now you can control visibility of each image entity with layer manager.
CCK
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