Posts made by 94JZA80

i'll check that tomorrow morning when i get back into the office...i'm on my way out the door right now...

thanks for the quick responses guys...i could have sworn i'm set up to receive email notifications when someone responds to my threads, but i never got any email notifications...obviously i'm still figuring out this message board thing.

back on topic, i haven't tried the "copy and scale" method yet, but i did stumble across 2 other solutions today:

1. if i zoom in to make the small triangle of "missing surface" much more visible and then draw any random line across it (turning it into a trapezoid and an even smaller triangle), surfaces appear on both sides of the new line segment, filling in the original triangle. when i can delete the line segment, the newly created surface remains in place and leaves no void!

2. if i make a group out of all the edges, flat surfaces, and curved surfaces that i'm working with (or alternatively just highlight them all at once without making them an actual group), i can then use the "soften/smooth edges" tool on them. if i then make the "angle between normals" small enough (i don't know if it literally has to be zero or just a relatively small value), i can then place a curved line on the curved surface without causing any surfaces to disappear. i can then raise the "angle between normals" back up to any desired value and the curved surface remains in tact and unchanged.

I'm currently designing a cabinet door, the rails and styles of which are symmetrical in cross-section, i.e. they have identical edge profile (outer edge) and framing bead (inner edge). i started by drawing a rectangle. then i placed the 2-dimensional cross-section of the rail/style on the edge of the rectangle and used the "follow me" tool to create the door frame (rails & styles) around the border of the rectangle. then i drew in some lines on the frame to indicate seams between individual frame members (2 rails, 2 styles, and 4 corners):

then i added another curved line (to one of the curved surfaces on the frame) that intersects with another curved line on that same curved surface, but as soon as i move that second curved line segment into place, a small piece of curved surface (part of the door frame) disappears near the point of intersection:

here it is up close...you can clearly see that a small part of the curved surface is now missing, and you can now see "inside" the door frame:

my question is why is it doing this? and if there's no way to keep that small piece of curved surface from disappearing on me, how do i fill that exact shape in with a curved surface of matching radius?

btw, i know this has very little to do with dynamic components, but i thought i would post in here b/c the door in question will actually be a dynamic component whose width, height, and thickness can change. that way if i have any DC questions, the thread is already here...mods please feel free to tow the thread to the appropriate section if this is not it.

TIA,
Eric

i actually figured out my syntax error a few weeks ago, but thanks for the response. i also didn't get an email notifying me that you responded to my thread...i was just browsing the forums and noticed that someone had replied. i'll have to figure that one out so that i can get back to people when they post in my threads...

PROBLEM SOLVED EVERYONE

it turns out i didn't dig deep enough into the layers of parts used to compose the drawer boxes . For instance, the groups that comprised the middle drawer box component, dbox_2 (the left and right members, the front and back members, and the bottom), contained references to the top drawer box component, dbox_1. As soon as I changed all the "dbox_1" references to "dbox_2," the middle drawer box started resizing according to overall cabinet depth as it should. Obviously the same worked for the bottom drawer box, dbox_3. as you might have guessed, the reason the groups that comprise dbox_2 and dbox_3 had references to dbox_1 is b/c I created the middle and bottom drawer boxes by making copies of the top drawer box, dbox_1.

Hi,

 I've designed a 3-drawer base cabinet with working (animated) drawers.  Ive got the formulas set up such that the drawer box depth is 3" less than the overall cabinet depth for any cabinet depth of 24" or less.  For any cabinet depth over 24", the drawer box depth is designed to stay at 21".  Cabinet depth is an attribute determined by user input.

here's the problem - while the upper drawer box resizes itself appropriately along with any change in cabinet depth, the middle and bottom drawers don't follow suite, even though their formulas were entered and set up the exact same way as the top drawer. here is the model for you to download and look at in SketchUp:

Smithport_H-Series_3DB_exp_1.skp

the model will initially open to a base cabinet depth of 24" (we're looking at the backside here, and you'll see why in a minute):

if you open the component options box and change the depth of the cabinet to 18", you'll notice that the top drawer box resizes appropriately, but the middle and bottom drawer boxes remain stuck at 21" deep and end up poking through the solid back of the cabinet:

i cannot for the life of me figure out why the middle and bottom drawer boxes won't resize according to a change in overall cabinet depth, particularly when the top drawer works exactly as it should. i can't find any syntax errors or circular formulas in my excel code, nor can i find any formulas that try to reference a grandparent or grandchild component (everything references a parent or child component as far as I can tell). the thing that makes this issue so difficult to track is the fact that when I compare the excel code for the top drawer (and its drawer front and drawer box sub-components) and the excel code for the middle and bottom drawers (and their drawer front and drawer box sub-components) side by side, the code is identical, save for the names of each drawer and their sub-components. I'm going crazy here b/c I feel like I'm trying to track a ghost...any help really would be appreciated.

TIA,
Eric

Hi,

First a little background...I work for a custom cabinet firm and I'm currently in the process of building a library of cabinets. Generally, when I complete a cabinet, I save it as a component.

In this instance, I have created a base cabinet with a working door and a working drawer. I've since saved it as a component, and when I import it into a model, the animated door and drawer work exactly as they should (as far as I can tell). You can download and import my base cabinet component into your model and confirm that the door and drawer function as they should:

SPH_B1D.skp

However, I can't seem to get the working drawer to function 100% correctly from within the model I used to create this cabinet in the first place. The drawer opens and closes in the proper direction (along the Y-axis), but it appears that the animation function is causing the drawer to position itself along the Y-axis incorrectly. Specifically, when I open the model and I click on the drawer with the "interact w/ dynamic components" pointer, it opens twice as far as it should. Here is a snapshot of the model when I first open it - by default the door and drawer are both in the closed position:

In the snapshot below, you can see that after clicking on the drawer w/ the "interact w/ dynamic components" pointer, it has opened twice as far as it should have:

In the snapshot below, you can see that after clicking on the drawer w/ the "interact w/ dynamic components" pointer again (this time to close the drawer), it only closes half-way (to what I consider the standard "open" position):

If I click on the drawer once more with the "interact w/ dynamic components" pointer, it moves back to the "open too far" position, and any subsequent clicks with the "interact w/ dynamic components" pointer make the drawer toggle between these two positions. in other words, the drawer seems to go from "open" to "open too far" to "open" again, instead of going from "closed" to "open" to "closed" again.

Now I suppose figuring this out isn't absolutely essential since the component I created and saved using this model seems to work fine when I import it into another model. But I would like to understand why the component isn't working 100% correctly from within the model I used to create it, just for my own peace of mind. You'll need the actual model I used to create the component in order to reproduce the issue I'm having:

Smithport_H-Series_B1D_exp_2.skp

Any help would be appreciated.

TIA,
Eric

thank you for the responses. i've pulled off of the doorstyle part of the project...actually, i've put the entire Sketchup project on the back burner for now b/c we've had an influx of business that i have to attend to. in the mean time, i'll research Sketchup layers to see if that's one possible solution to displaying various doorstyles at will. i'll let you know how that works out when i get a chance...

ok, so i finally came up with a solution that works. i can now change the number of evenly spaced vertical partitions such that individual shelves (or sets of shelves) span the exact distance between them, making the lines that define ends of the shelves visible as they would be in reality:

the explanation of how i got here and the hurdles i had to overcome would be quite verbose, so i'm just going to upload the component for you to download and play with. if anyone has questions about how or why i might have done something a certain way, feel free to ask. also, if anyone has suggestions on how to make this cabinet component less complex geometry/rendering-wise, i'm all ears. i know there's probably more geometry present than is necessary in order to make this cabinet work as i intend, but i'm a beginner, so that's to be expected...i don't know all of the ins and outs of SketchUp yet.

thanks,
Eric

PS - how difficult would it be to add a 2nd predefined "Copies" attribute (not my own custom attribute) to the component attributes dialog box?...or is it even possible? this would make my model simpler with respect to the amount of geometry present with the component in its most basic form (0 shelves, 0 vertical partitions), if not in the amount of overall geometry rendered when many shelves and/or vertical partitions are present.

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W2D_shelf_width_solved.skp

i still don't know if we're limited to just the one predefined "Copies" attribute in the component attributes menu, or if a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. can be added somehow...if it were possible, it would solve this issue straight away. so if anyone knows definitively whether this is possible or not, please let me know.

@krisidious said:

Perhaps each of you vertical partitions should have the options within them of how many shelves?

i'll have to ponder this some more and see where it takes me...i'll let you know if this direction takes me anywhere...

@tig said:

I would rethink how this DC works.

Each vertical can be positioned and sized as you desire, using a single definition that is 1"x1"x1" that you 'scale' in lengths of XYZ.
The exact same for each of the shelves... so one shelf 'box' does all...
You just need to do some convoluted calculating in the functions to locate each shelf appropriately - say offset 0.5mm from its start-vertical's right-hand-most face, and its total 'LenX' then 'scaled' to say the ('gap' - 1mm). Leaving small gaps between the shelf's ends and the verticals will mean these ends always show properly, and then all of the objects are also much more like the 'real world', where the shelves would be cut slightly smaller that the gap into which they will be fitted...

looks that bad to you, eh? i thought it was a pretty good way to start out...nevertheless, being that you are advanced user, i'm definitely interested in your opinion and i am looking to learn.

as regards the small "real life" gap between the ends of the shelves and the partitions, i don't think its necessary in order to guarantee that the ends of the shelves will show properly. as long as the shelves actually terminate at or on the faces of the partitions (and don't actually run the full interior width of the cabinet and through the partitions), the lines that define those shelf-partition intersections (the borders of the rectangles that form the ends of the shelves) will always be visible. and if i ever need to add that small gap, i know its just a simple matter of adding or subtracting a small integer value to or from the size definition.

also, if you could elaborate on scaling in terms of lengths of XYZ? i'm assuming you're not talking about using the predefined "Scale Tool" attribute, right?

TIA,
Eric

@krisidious said:

you'll want to be inside of the group of component and use "intersect with model".

sketchup is not letting me intersect a group in a component to another group in another component. in other words, i can't seem to intersect the right face (a group) of the vertical partition (a component) with the top face (another group) of the shelf (another component). it only allows me to select whole components and intersect them with other components. and anyways, the "intersect to model" seems to do the same thing as the "intersect with selection" in that it generates lines that don't go away after i change the shelf or partition quantity. in addition to that strange behavior, this time if i move/relocate the whole cabinet, the previously generated, out of place lines don't travel with the cabinet, but rather remain stationary on the grid so to speak.

@krisidious said:

or preferably for less geometry and a cleaner model you'd cut each of those pieces as they would be in real life.

Using dynamic components you may be able to get the results you want with dynamic shelving and dividers. I am not one to ask on how to go about it though.

i had actually thought of that already and tried to implement individual shelves "between" the vertical partitions (so that their ends, which would terminate on the faces of the partitions, had visible lines). i was partially successful in that i was able to get a shelf (or shelves) to to adjust in width according to the number of partitions. but i couldn't figure out how to make copies to fill in the spaces between other partitions. i figured it couldn't be much harder than creating evenly spaced full-width shelves or full-height partitions (as i've already done successfully). but the even spacing of those shelves and vertical partitions are centered on the height and width of the cabinet respectively. component-wise, my shelves are not "centered" on the cabinet, and therefore do not extend to each side from the center. rather they start from the left inside face and extend to either the right inside face, or the closest vertical partition. i've uploaded the model for you to download so you can see how the shelves are positioned to start on the left inside face. in the mean time, here are a few pictures of how the shelf functions as i change the number of vertical partitions:

---

W2D_shelf_width_001.skp

@kaas said:

I think you could use intersect (with selection) to create those lines or use a boolean (pro) and add them together.

thanks for the quick response. i tried the former (intersect with selection):

...and it worked - initially...

...but once i change either the shelf quantity or the vertical partition quantity (or both), this happens:

you can see in the above picture that even though i switched to a "1 shelf, 1 vertical partition" configuration following the use of the intersect (with selection) function, several lines generated by the intersect function remain from the "2 shelves, 2 vertical partitions" configuration. also, note that its not just the lines of intersection that remain, but also the long edges of the vertical partitions...why would those lines be generated by the intersection function when they're not lines of intersection? and is it weird that the previous vertical partition edges are left over, but the previous shelf edges are not? should not just the intersection lines be left over?

at any rate, is there a way to get the lines generated by the intersection function to "relocate" along with the shelves and vertical partitions whenever their quantities are changed? or perhaps there's a way to get the previously generated lines to delete and have new ones regenerated any time i choose to change the shelf and/or vertical partition quantity? when i'm sitting with a client and showing him/her different shelf and partition configurations, i can't be highlighting specific sub-components and performing the intersection function on them every time i change the configuration. i need the new intersection lines to just "be there" when i change the configuration.

Hi,

I work for a custom cabinetry retailer, and i'm currently using SketchUp to create a parts library for a line of cabinetry we carry. i already have most of the necessary features incorporated into the component cabinet (doors hinged left and right, adjustable width, depth, and height, adjustable # of shelves, adjustable # of vertical partitions, etc). but the features i want to focus on are the adjustable # of shelves and the adjustable # of vertical partitions, for these are the features that present the problem of not producing lines where they intersect. in the picture below, you can see that lines are visible where the shelves terminate on the inside face of the left and right cabinet sides. likewise, you can see visible lines where the vertical partitions terminate on the inside faces of the upper and lower decks. but if you look at the intersections of the shelves and the vertical partitions, you can see that there are no lines physically drawn there:

now these intersections aren't too hard to spot so long as the cabinet is viewed from a specific range of angles...but due to the shading method used on the interior vertical and horizontal faces, certain viewing angles cause these intersections to disappear altogether (see picture below, and compare it to picture above):

now i understand that these "lines" are not visible because none of the shelves nor any of the vertical partitions actually terminate at any of those intersections, and SketchUp therefore does not recognize those intersections as actual physical lines...rather the shelves start on the inside face of one of the cabinet sides, then go through the vertical partition(s), and terminate on the inside face of the other cabinet side. likewise, the vertical partitions start on the inside face of one of the cabinet decks, go through the shelf (or shelves), and terminate on the inside face of the other cabinet deck. i was hoping that someone might know about a SketchUp function that can add visible lines to the intersections of planes, and that i simply haven't found it yet. but the more i look, the more i get the feeling that there is no such function.

i've tried a few things so far, but to no avail. my first attempted solution was to create 2 vertical rectangles (rectangles in the y-z plane) of a height and depth matching the cross-section of one shelf, and separated horizontally by a distance matching the thickness of one vertical partition. i then made the two rectangles into a single sub-component of the overall cabinet component. once the sub-component is positioned properly in the cabinet, the rectangles themselves get hidden by the shelf (or shelves), while the lines that make up the edges of the rectangles are visible at the intersections of the shelves and vertical partitions. you can see this in the picture below - note that this sub-component, named <shelf_seams>, and its copies, are highlighted in the outliner window, and are also visible in the component cabinet itself as blue lines that stand out against the rest (which are black):

the above picture also makes it obvious that i was able to give the <shelf_seams> sub-component the same predefined "Copies" attribute that i gave to the <shelf> sub-component, whether you're looking at the outliner window or the cabinet itself. but then i started playing around w/ the number of center partitions, and i immediately noticed a problem:

when i switch to an even number of vertical partitions (which consequently eliminates the possibility of there being a "center" vertical partition, because the formula for partition quantity is designed to space them evenly), the <shelf_seams> sub-component does not mimic the change in vertical partition quantity and location. the intuitive solution would be to use the "Copies" attribute again, this time to make the <shelf_seams> sub-component mimic the quantity and distribution behavior of the vertical partition(s)...

...and this is the conundrum - as you've already seen, the <shelf_seams> sub-component is already using its "Copies" attribute to mimic the quantity and distribution behavior of the <shelf> sub-component! and so it can't also be used to mimic the quantity and distribution behavior of the <part_vert> sub-component (the vertical partition(s))...well actually it can, but then shelf quantity and vertical partition quantity would always have to be the same (which is out of the question, b/c i'll undoubtedly run into scenarios in which a cabinet will get more shelves than partitions or vice versa).

if only there were a way to have more than just one "Copies" attribute per component...that would solve the problem i believe. perhaps there is a way to incorporate more than just one "copies" attribute into a single component, and i just haven't figured it out yet? if anyone knows definitively whether or not i am truly limited to a single "Copies" attribute per component, please let me know...and if i'm not limited to a single "Copies" attribute per component, could you please show me how to "add" a 2nd "Copies" attribute to the component? and, of course, if none of this is possible, i'm open to alternative suggestions...

also, i've uploaded the full cabinet component just in case anyone wants to download it and play around with it...it might help you visualize better what i've done so far, or perhaps help you help me come up with a solution to my conundrum.

TIA,
Eric

---

W2D_shelf_seams.skp

by the way, here is an example of a cabinet that uses the above described method of changing doorstyles. i found it in the 3D Warehouse. if you load the component into Sketchup and open the "outliner" window, you can see that the "Door with Handle#2" sub-component is itself composed of other sub-components, two of which are doors (Door#2 and GLD#2). you can also see that when the selected door type is "Laminated chipboard," Door#2 is unhidden and GLD#2 is hidden. likewise, when the selected door type is "Glass," GLD#2 is unhidden and Door#2 is hidden.

---

Hanged Cupboard 1 Door.skp

Hi everyone...i'm new here and this is my first post.

i've downloaded/imported a handful of cabinet models from the 3D Warehouse, and the only method for changing cabinet doorstyles that i've seen so far is to use the predefined "hidden" attribute. more specifically, i see that folks are creating multiple door sub-components, each w/ a different style or look, and placing them all in the same physical location w/ respect to the main cabinet component so that they all occupy the same physical space. then the "hidden" attribute is being used to display the doorstyle that is currently selected and to hide the doorstyles that aren't currently selected.

that is fine w/ me so long as the number of doorstyles is minimal...unfortunately the line of cabinetry i'm drawing in Sketchup has a multitude of doorstyles, and i'm not sure that the same method is a feasible solution if for every one doorstyle i make visible at any given time, there are several others that i have to keep hidden. i would imagine that even if 24 out of 25 doorstyles are hidden (and therefore aren't being drawn/rendered by the video card) at any given time, having that many sub-components, (hidden or not) might make the main cabinet component file size unnecessarily large. and while navigating in and around one such cabinet component in Sketchup might work just fine, i'm worried that navigating in a room full of cabinets (a kitchen for instance) might slow to a crawl due to large file sizes. what do you think?

also, i'd like to be able to change the doorstyle on all the cabinets in a room at once, as opposed to having to go around and change the doorstyle on each individual cabinet...i suppose that's another reason why the above solution may not be feasible.

if anyone can tell me why this method is the best way to achieve what i'm looking to achieve, or perhaps suggest an alternative method, i'm all ears.

TIA,
Eric