Cutting the top off a model
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Hey Folks,
First-time poster here. I'm a 2D character animator and I recently started using Sketchup for backgrounds and foregrounds. The piece I'm working on takes place in a retail store. I'm building the interior of the whole store with grouped objects I can hide for different camera angles. Here's my question - I downloaded a model of a gondola (island with shelves) from the Sketchup warehouse (Thanks PhilW, nice work). The problem is that the gondola is 7 feet high and I want it to be 5 feet to the top shelf so a tall character can look over the top. The obvious solution is just to lop off the top 2 feet. I can do this with the section tool, but then I want the tool to go away and leave the remaining 5 feet of gondola ready to be stocked with merchandise. But I can't figure out how to get the tool to do it. Any suggestions? -
Me again. While I was waiting for an administrator to sniff my armpits and pronounce me okay, I found something that worked. I dropped a plane over the model at the height I wanted and clicked "Intersect with Model". After deleting the plane, I had a horizontal line at my cut level. I exploded the model several times to get it down to components but I couldn't get the stuff above to group highlight by pulling a marquee around them. I had to click my way through every line with the eraser. It was tedious, but it worked. If there's a faster way, I'd appreciate knowing about it.
Thanks,
Tim -
Hi Tim,
Yes, I sniffed your armpit and found you okay..
Anyway...
As you figured out, the section cut is not the ideal tool for this as it only gives a visual cut (doe not cut the geometry itself) and you may have problems later. A fine tool but for different purposes (there are plugins to play with here but I guess you would like to learn the ins and outs first).
Intersecting (and removing the intersected geometry) may work depending on the model. Note however that the lines created during the intersection are always created in the editing context you are in. In your case, outside the group/component - thus they do not actually cut your geometry and you will either need to explode it (as you did) but of course, this way you loose the advantages of groups/components or you need to copy the created lines into the group.
Better would be to edit the group until you reach the raw geometry and intersect it with that plane - although in this case you may intersect with a whole lot o other things like the goods on the shelves.
Maybe the whole gondola (interesting, here they also call it this way) is organised in some wiser way. Would you mind posting a link to the model in question?
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I looked at a gondola model by Philw, and it appears that the only thing that needs cutting is the vertical slab that represents the support of the shelves. The top shelf (a separate group) can be grouped with the top part afterward so it can be hidden at the same time.
Intersect is the correct way to cut it. Once you place the intersecting plane inside the group of the shelf back support you can "intersect" "with selection" (selecting all "raw" geometry inside the group and the grouped intersecting plane.) this way the intersection is only with that plane you drew.
I started by drawing the intersecting plane outside the groups, then I grouped that plane and pasted IN PLACE once i have opened the back support group.
After intersecting, remove the plane, find a view edge-on and do a left to right marquee select from above the top to below the cut line. Group the selection. Then do the same with everything below the line (or in this case select all but that top group). Done correctly this should keep your faces intact for both groups.
[this is the best way to clean up after an intersection. Similarly, if you are removing excess portions: marquee select, group, and delete. it leaves the remaining faces intact]
There may have been some extra nesting of groups but it is fairly straightforward once you open the back support group. One thing is the gondola is made up of several of these units. They are not offered as components, but you can make a component of one that you modify and make a new array from that.
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You know... from your description I thought you wanted to keep the top part to be able to show or hide it in camera shots. If you just want lower shelving, that back support can also be modified by selecting the edges at the top and moving them downward, aligning with the blue axis... (since all the sides are exactly vertical).
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