[Tutorial > Modeling] why dont my doors make holes in walls
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But wait a minute - I want the nested components (the "inside" ones) to CUT faces! There's no point in this if they cannot cut faces!
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Gaieus, they DO cut faces once the "parent" is exploded. I've uploaded a SketchUp file with an example. I've tried exploding them all and they work fine on my machine. If they don't work for you, then perhaps it is an Open GL/video card issue on your machine. If they DO work for you then there is obviously something that you are doing different. Please note, the bottom row of windows was created by using Move/Copy of the original component and the top row was created all being placed one by one from the component browser. The top windows on the side wall were move/copied from the top row that came from the component browser. I'll say more about this, it is important.
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Since this method was first shown in SketchUp V3, there appear to have been some changes made in some of the behaviours. I wanted to put a tutorial together as Eric had suggested and while I was exploring I found a number of oddities, so I had better outline them here.
- The outside window is a SketchUp provided one from the Component Library and the properties are "glue to vertical", Cut faces selected.
- The inside window is a simple component that I made also with "glue to vertical" and cut faces selected.
- I selected both the outside and inside component and made a nested component called "back-to-back windows". I did NOT select cut faces and I did try ALL of the following steps with properties of Glue to Vertical and Glue to Any. There was no difference in the following results regardless of the 2 gluing properties.
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Regardless of which gluing behaviour you select, SketchUp decides to make the gluing plane the BOTTOM surface of the windows. As long as you do a "Move/Copy from the components existing position, there is no problem. It will copy and it will scoot around corners and place itself correctly on the new surface. The nested components don't cut until you explode the parent. Once exploded they all cut.
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HOWEVER, because SketchUp has made the bottom surface the gluing plane,they will not come in properly from the component browser. If you look at the icon in the component browser, you will easily see the problem. The icon presents the window with the "bottom" sitting on vertical plane. If you bring it in from the component browser, the windows will be lying down and will attempt to glue to the vertical wall from their bottoms.
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To avoid this problem, the gluing plane needs to be corrected when creating the component. The pictures in the attached jpg show the progression of steps.
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The first picture shows the incorrect default gluing plane ( grey surface) and the incorrect positioning of the axis colour segments. The green and the red axis bars define the gluing plane. The blue axis ends up as a little "X" at the origin. So both the green and the red need to sit on the surface that you want to glue to. In the default the green is in the horizotal orientation, not the vertical as it should be.
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Click on the "set gluing plane" button in the create component window. Your cursor will be attached to the origin point of a new set of axis. I've experimented with this, and it seems to be pretty important to set the origin and the red axis to conform to the real world orientations. Watch out for the "negative" directions, they will mess up the orientation of the components.
Click once to place the origin in the same position that SketchUp selected for the default one, arrange the red axis to be in the same line as the world red axis and click to place it (don't worry about the orientation of any of the other axis it this point, just the red)
Now you can orient your cursor so that the green axis is flush with the surface you want to glue to. Click to commit and then the blue axis will create the little "X" at the origin. Complete the creation of the component. -
Now the component will have the correct orientaion in the component browser, will come into the model and glue in the correct orienation.
But here is a caveat: the move/copy of the original component created will work just fine so long as it is on the same plane. For some reason, it will NOT scoot around the corner properly. You may recall it did the scooting just fine when the component axis and gluing plane were not correct. However, not only will the components brought in from the browser place themselevees correctly on any surface, if you Move/Copy one of them, they will scoot around corners correctly. My guess is that this is a bug of some sort.
Please look at the pictures as your read the steps, it will help in the understanding of the axis directions.
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Well, Susan, thanks for the input - your example file is just working fine. I'll try to see what I did differently - right now I1m already guessing something; there is a terminological misunderstanding between us. I call "nested" component what is inside another one while you call nested whatever is containing the inner one.
Let me just experiment a little bit.
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I kind of thought so Gai, so that is why I said the "parent"
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Cool. Works, thanks a bunch, Susan!
I have been using these two components together a lot and could never figure out how to "regain" this cutting ability if ever grouped or made a component of them.I really like my new toy!
Thank you again! (Now it seems that it was well worth joining this community!)
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The fun is in the giving. I'm so glad I could be of use.
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Moved to the Tutorials & How to - SketchUp - Modeling.
Thanks a million Susan.
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Thanks Gaieus and Suzan for your tip about âwall thickness and components cutting holesâ (just back from 3 wks France, that explains the delay in responding)
I will certainly look into it to see where I went wrong. I do remember also trying to nest two components (inner/outer) in one and later exploding that component again. But in vain. The result was always: loss of the cutting ability for both the inner and outer components. Thanks again.Wo3Dan
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Wodan,
I just saw you online and then that my PM was "delivered".
I hope you had a nice time during your vacation!Here the solution is in the setting of the gluing plane of the "outer" component (to be aligned with the face the inner - nested - componetnt is cutting) - as Susan described - and then it works fine.
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personally, I gave up on the component cutting feature.
I preffer to just take a measure of the component, cut the walls myself (when drawing or after extruding the walls to 3D) and just put the component on the ready hole.
(AcesHigh)
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