Overlapping Components

[durrenm]

I do solar designs. I import a solar panel as a component then copy - the panel. There are times where I'll get a duplicate panel occupying the same space as another panel. When I pull up the component count (entity info window) it will show the wrong count.

How do I find overlapping components where one completely obscures the other? (short of deleting all the panels and redrawing...)

Thanks,
Mark

[Gaieus]

Hi Mark,

Have a look at here. I am not sure what they are talking about but sound suspicious enough:

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=21917

[durrenm]

Gaieus, it appears they are describing a similar issue but not offering a solution.

Makr

@gaieus said:

Hi Mark,

Have a look at here. I am not sure what they are talking about but sound suspicious enough:

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=21917

[Jean Lemire]

Hi Mark, hi folks.

Using the outliner, you can quickly see which component hilights when you click on its name in the outliner list. Of course, if the model is very lerge and/or complex, some components may be hidden or inside other geometry. Use X-Ray mode to check for that.

Another possibility is to use SketchUp Pro Report Generation feature. This can produce an Excel file. After that, you can sort on X, Y and Z coordinates which are in the H, I and J column respectively. You will then see which components occupy the same space. If you have hundreds or thousands of components, reading this file might prove quite a chore. Try adding a calculation of DX, DY and DZ for each component, where DX is the difference in X relative to preceeding component, DY is the difference in Y and DZ is the difference in Z. Then, adding a simple addition of all the 3 differences, will yield 0 (zero) when all 3 are 0, meaning that this component position is the same as the preceeding one. Reading only one column to find a 0 is easier. You can even use an adjacent cell to put an easy to find mark, like an uppercase X, if the cell is 0 and nothing otherwise. Spotting these X will identify which components are unneeded.

Just ideas.

[JackHill]

I had the same problem and I was placing solar panels on a large roof space.

Best way to find duplicates is to edit the component and make the face or shape colour and then change the opacity to half. any duplicates will then be staked and show on the model as darker. then you can simply delete the dark components.