Problem with glued components
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Hi all,
I've got a question regarding glued components. It's an option I've never really got the hang off I think. I made this window component to place in vertical walls. So naturally I set the glue option to 'vertical' and 'Cut opening'. Now when I place a new component or place a copy from an existing one, one of two things happen: 1. I place the component, but for some reason it won't cut through the wall. 2. I can place it and it will cut through the wall, but I can't properly move it in the horizontal plane of the wall (in this case green / red axes). Last point is rather annoying since I want to place windows along a certain dimension. I've tried to change to edit the component glue-options in the components tab. Yet setting it to horizontal, vertical, sloped or any, it won't make a difference. Though setting it to horizontal, I can only place windows on the roof, but this is not my intention.
I hope someone is able to help me out with this, I still find glued-components a complicated part of Sketch-Up.Thanks in advance!
Sjotcher
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Please attach an example of a problematic component and what you expect it to do.
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I use glued components all the time and have no issues. The advice I'd give you up ahead is use glue to any for every component. It's more flexible and I'm changing the axis of my groups and components all the time so my components work in any scenario.
The second problem and most common (that's probably what you have) is that you must have the following mandatory things happening with your component:
- There must be a planar polygon inside the component that will be used to cut the wall (without face and edges can be invisible);
- That face must be parallel to the X and Y axis of the component and be set on Z=0 of the component.
Every component like that will work fine.
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I admit that after all these years I still have gluing and cutting components act up sometime. I usually model them on an existing wall surface, but an more foolproof method seems to be to start them on a horizontal surface and use glue to "any" or "vertical"
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Without an example of your gluing/cutting component we cannot help - we have to guess !
I suspect that you are not setting the axes of the component correctly.
A gluing component's axes should always be arranged so its blue axis is perpendicular to the face on which it will be placed.
A cutting component must also have a 'loop' of edges on the plane of the face it is placed and then cuts the hole.If you create your gluing/cutting geometry on an existing face, and then select it all, and choose to make a component of it, then SketchUp guesses you probably want it to glue to, and perhaps cut into, that plane/face - and you set those settings in the options offered in the dialog as you make it.
Otherwise you need to set tour new component's axes - as you create it - it's one of the options in the create-component dialog - choose the blue axis so it's perpendicular to the plane of any face you'll hope to glue/cut... -
Thanks for the replies. I attached my glued component in two different files, the 'original' (with the problems, and a 'new' one which has no errors in placing). As far as I can tell, I did everything right. The blue (cross) axe is perpendicular to the face i try to glue it to. I also made a loop of lines, so the component does cut through the wall.
I also made a new file to place on the thread (since I don't want to paste the original file with the building design on here). Now I'm gobsmacked. In the new file I drew a plane (wall) and copy/pasted my glued component into this new model as you can see. And guess what, the moving error I get in my 'original file' is gone! I can move / copy the glued window along both red and green axes. I can even move the vertical side of the wall on the green axe and it will move my glued component as well. Now this is something I cannot do in my original model. For some reason when I copy a window in that model, it will either not cut the face or I can't move it properly along the desired axe as written in my first post. I do know to paste it on a face, not a group or component. Also note that the 'original file' is a part of my building design to demonstrate the problem. I hope this clears things up a little.Sjotcher
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I think I have found the problem! My complete file (with building design), is drawn from an imported CAD-drawing. And as with most CAD drawings, the two endpoints of the wall don't align on the red axes. There's a 0,1mm difference, which is invisible. This could explain the not cutting when through wall, when I copy it along the red axes for example. Blame those inconsisted CAD-lines / drawings! I hate it when someone doesn't draw precise enough and make those common mistakes (I did not make the CAD-drawing, since I know why it's so imported to draw along axes, at least when it comes to 90 degree corners). It's rather annoying for us as 3D-artists, when someone leaves those faults in a CAD.
So all-in-all I think this thread can be closed.
Sjotcher
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TIP: Use View By Axes to check your Axes from time to time. Very important.
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That's why I don't import cad files of a building and rather trace over a jpg.
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srx: Very true, I often forget the color by axes option... Really should implement it in my brain to always use a default style with said setting.
JQL: I often find it handy to see the dimension I need to input, CAD files help alot in that. On a JPEG I can't see the dimension and have to guess them (when they are not given on the drawing).
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You are probably right. But I only trace buildings that I have to refurbish/convert, and I always double check measurements on site. The only other scenario I can think of for tracing buildings is for archviz, where that accuracy doesn't seem needed to me.
All my other buildings are modelled directly in sketchup.
An advice I'd give you if you want to really use CAD imports is to group it and trace over the group with the rectangle tool. That will assure the orthogonal results which sketchup needs
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