Component linking

[pmolson]

Here is a little glitch I am experiencing with this trick.

I selected 10 column components w/ unique names and used the process to replace them with
the selected component within my component browser. The existing unique components imediatly
vanished from the model. It turns out that they did not disapear, but relocated themselves to
a point about 2000 feet away on the red axis. They were also stacked on top of each other.

So I says to myself...humph...Must be an axis isssue. I looked at the original unique components
with show component axis turned on and there was none. No axis I mean.

I then opened each component and gave them an axis at the same spot on the column base and tried
the process again.

It worked. Unfortionately, this dilutes the usability of the component linking trick in that one
has to handle each component individualy to define an axis.

I am guessing that this lack of axis is a result of exporting a .3ds model from Archicad into sketchup.

Any thoughts on how to assign an axis to a bunch of unique components?

This is still a handy trick even if it does not work out in this instance.

Thanks again.

pmo

[thomthom]

@pmolson said:

So I says to myself...humph...Must be an axis isssue. I looked at the original unique components
with show component axis turned on and there was none. No axis I mean.

I'm guessing it was just very far away.
Where they based of AutoCAD drawings by any chance?

[Gaieus]

My guess would also be that the component axes were somewhere very far. Maybe every component has its axis origin in the world axis or something - depending how they were made. There is no way a component doesn't have axes (even groups have - we just cannot access them).

When editing such a weird component, how far (and where) did its bounding box expand? Bounding boxes should contain the component axes as well so if they are really huge, try to right click on a component and Zoom extent to see all its edges. The axis should now definitely be wizhin your viewport but maybe itis overlapping with the world axes.

[pmolson]

The bounding box fits snuggly around the component.

As a test, I am going to go into the original Archicad model
& explore one of the original objects. Maybe there is a setting
to orient the object on itself vs the model world origin.

If that is the case, in the future I will have my Archicad using
clients set up there objects accordingly.

I will let the forum know what I find out.

p

[Chris Fullmer]

The bounding box will look like it fits snugly, even when the axis is not anywhere near the geometry.

But once you double click into the component you can see the axis location.

Also, someone did make a plugin that automatically sets the component axis to the bottom center of a selected component. Perhaps that would help automate the axis cleanup process?

Also, do you have a small model that illustrates the problem? It might be interesting to look at.

Chris

[mac1]

@pmolson said:

Hi all,

I am new to this forumn, but not to sketchup.
I am wondering if there is a way to tell a bunch of individual components within a sketchup model to no
longer be unique.

Heres the situation...I have imported a 3ds model that was originally an Archicad model into sketchup.
It came in pretty nicely and is very much usable as a base for a more refined Sketchup model.
There are about 4000 individual uniquely named components in this model even though many of them are exactly
identical. For intance, a nice 14" dia tuscan looking column component is repeated 20 times, but they are all
unique only in name, so when I edit one the others do not change.

Is there a way to rename & relink these components so I don't have to edit each individualy?

The only thing I can think of is to rename one and do a save as, & then bring it back in & replace each of the
others manualy. Thats a bit time consuming in that there are aproxomately 100 individual copper standing seam
arched roof panel components just in the entry area alone.

Any thoughts out there?

If this is the wrong place to post a question, I apologize.

Thanks

Pmo

Check this ruby and see if any use to you , by Matthieu NOBLET, make component

[Gaieus]

Yeah, that's what I also meant; "When editing..." - so not the blue bounding box when you just select it but the dotted one when you are inside its editing context. Also, in Window menu > Model info > Components tab, at the bottom, you can check to "show component axes" so you don't need to enter every component to see where they are.

An example would indeed be cool (maybe just copy a couple as they are and "paste in place" into an empty model)

[TIG]

If you have several components that are effectively the same geometry but have very different axes then it is difficult to 'unify' them into being instances of one component definition as their replacements might jump around unexpectedly, BUT assuming they are all in the same orientation (like columns on a façade) to give them all the same axes you can do this, in turn to each one [it works best/quickest with shortcut keys set up]... It might also be best to group all of the components requiring 'unification' and have the rest of the model hidden whilst doing this...
Select one Instance.
Explode it.
Immediately use 'Make Component' from the highlighted Entities
Accept the defaults and OK the dialog
Select the next one etc...
Quickly you will now have a set of similar components with similar axes.
Select all of the component instances and then in the Component Browser hover over a definition that is as you want [the first one would be logical] right-click context-menu 'Replace Selected'.
All of the component instances should now share the same definition.
Tidy up by Purging the unused definitions...

This won't work if the components have been rotated in 3D but I think this is not the case here ?

[pmolson]

Chris & Gaieus,

You were correct. When I open the component "that" bounding box does shoot out to the axis for that component and it looks like all components in the model
are referenced to an origin that was set in Archicad. (about 2000 feet away)

Tig, the components jumping around is exactly what happens when I convert them to one instance. I can see now that my hopes of changing a large # of
individual but identical components into multiple copies of the same components and have them stay where they are positioned is not possible without
touching each component at least once.

There are very few components in this model that have the same orientation... columns follow an arc, roof panels follow an arch, a conical shape, and
a sphere. Seems the architect was not happy unless he was creating something....ummmm....grande!

I thank you all for your help. I think with the ideas and pointers you have given me I will be able to clean this .3ds model up enough to be productive
with the face lift.

I did attempt to create a cut and paste model for you all to look at, but I have crashed 3 times when in copy. In the past I have found this problem
to be a result of bad materials/textures. I am going to export a clean .3ds model from Archicad without textures to see if this helps.

I will post a chunk of the model when I get it cleaned up.

Thanks again.

p

[Gaieus]

Sorry to hear about the mess but let's see that example and what can be done with it later (though I am afraid you are right that you will need to do a lot of manual work here).

[pmolson]

Its all good!

I am using this project as a learning experience for myself and my Archicad using clients. I think
one of the keys to getting B.I.M. software to play nicely with Sketchup is knowing that the B.I.M.
model will ultimately end up in Sketchup and being disciplined in creating a clean model and tweaking
the export process to eliminate unnecessary complexity.

I will most definitely follow up with an end result and how we got there.

Oh, by the way, I know there is a plug in for converting archicad to sketchup, but we are at an older
version (9) of Archicad and it only exports to su 6. I could do that and and open it with 7 I suppose, but
I am already traveling down this road and I will finish this adventure first and look at the plug in next
go around.

pmo

[pmolson]

Hey Tig,

Thanks for the idea of exploding a bunch of selected components and then immediately making them into a new component.
It is a real time saver for applying materials to all those individual original components.

Thanks

pmo

[TIG]

@pmolson said:

Hey Tig,

Thanks for the idea of exploding a bunch of selected components and then immediately making them into a new component.
It is a real time saver for applying materials to all those individual original components.

Thanks

pmo

If you're doing it to apply materials only then you could just group them and apply the material to the group - the instances as contents should take the material is <default> ?

[pmolson]

I am off and running on the above discussed project. I have been making good progress using the tips
offered above. I have now run into a snag.

I can no longer make a component.

Every time I select a group of highlighted items and right click/make component/replace selection with.. and hit ok,
I lock up.

I have to crash the program to get out. This was not happening for the the first several hours of work. I can think of
nothing out of the ordinary that happened prior to this problem.

I have purged & run fix problems. No problems found. I tried drawing a simple rectangle and tried to make it a component
& had the same problem. I opened a new drawing and tried creating a component there and it worked flawlessly so I
know it is a model specific problem.

Any thoughts?

I can make groups, so I will plow ahead using groups, but it is like having my legs cut off not having the component feature.

My dead line is staring me in the face so I must just keep going, but if anyone has ideas i would love to hear them.

Thanks.

p

[pmolson]

hooray!

I saved a copy of the file with a different name and opened it and I now have component making feature working.

Amazing how one does not fully appreciate something until it is gone.

Thanks for the answer you all would have given me.

p

[TIG]

Model Info, Statistics - Purge AND Fix Problems might also help...

[Gaieus]

@pmolson said:

hooray!

I saved a copy of the file with a different name and opened it and I now have component making feature working.

Amazing how one does not fully appreciate something until it is gone.

Thanks for the answer you all would have given me.

p

Oh, come on,man - it's not even an hour between your posts (BTW I am really happy you have found some workaround for now - but this is definitely more serious than a deadline - even if for you, of course, that is more "deadly" - if you allow me such a pun...)

Any more details? An example file - ???

[pmolson]

When I said, "Amazing how one does not fully appreciate something until it is gone" I was Referring to the
component feature, not this forums fine help.

So, the architects and designers and clients are in the conference room as we speak
looking at the model that you have been helping me with.

I learned a lot during this process. This was the first time for me converting a B.I.M.
model into a format usable with sketchup. To complicate matters this home is a monster
coming in at 45,000 SQ. FT. living space.

I made many mistakes that I will share with this forum.

I will also try to put together a step by step process for going from Archicad, to 3ds to sketchup to podium with the
hope that those more knowledgeable than I will redline it and offer different & or better methods.

For now though, I am going to bed. I am getting to old for pulling all nighters.

Oh, and I know I forgot to add the water texture and i messed up the....well, you know how it goes.

Thanks for all you help.

[pmolson]

@pmolson said:

I am off and running on the above discussed project. I have been making good progress using the tips
offered above. I have now run into a snag.

I can no longer make a component.

Every time I select a group of highlighted items and right click/make component/replace selection with.. and hit ok,
I lock up.

I have to crash the program to get out. This was not happening for the the first several hours of work. I can think of
nothing out of the ordinary that happened prior to this problem.

I have purged & run fix problems. No problems found. I tried drawing a simple rectangle and tried to make it a component
& had the same problem. I opened a new drawing and tried creating a component there and it worked flawlessly so I
know it is a model specific problem.

Any thoughts?

I can make groups, so I will plow ahead using groups, but it is like having my legs cut off not having the component feature.

My dead line is staring me in the face so I must just keep going, but if anyone has ideas i would love to hear them.

Thanks.

p

The above quoted problem is from an earlier post in which I managed to find a work around. At the time, Gaieus indicated that this was a problem that
should not be ignored. I agree and would like to identify what was causing this problem because i will have to work with converted Archicad models in
the future.
So, my question is this. Gaieus, or others, if you are still willing to look at the file what is the best way to get this big honking pig of a file to you?

Its about 50 mb. If the moment has passed and you are no longer available to take a peek, that is fine.

Thanks either way

p

[Gaieus]

Hi Peter (Peter, right?)

Is there anywhere (any file sharing site or your own ftp server) where you can upload such a big file? I am afraid this is much bigger than it could be emailed or anything like that.

I have my own web-space where I can upload files so I am not really familiar with these file sharing sites. Anyone any (good) suggestion (with the least number of popup ads and waiting time for downloads)?