I am working on a simple model and am having trouble creating holes that penetrate through the floor and ceiling slabs that are 5' thick. I recently had someone helping me and know that this has something to do with being "inside the group" that I'm trying to penetrate through. If you are not in the group, the shape made that should penetrate through ends up being a solid instead of making the hole. I'm missing a step here.....can someone help me?

Thanks!

I've built a staircase that is two stories high. I'm now working on the second story, and am trying to create a hole in the floor ( a 5' slab/rectangle that I drew under my plan and push pulled) so that you can see that there is an opening where you'd come up from the 1st floor up to the second floor. I can't seem to puncture that hole in the floor so you can see that. I've drawn a rectangle, push pulled it through both the top and bottom face of the floor and it won't puncture though. I've tried using intersect and deleting the rectangle I extruded, but nothing seems to create a hole in this slab for descending stairs. Is there any advice you can give me to make a hole?

Much appreciated,

Kim

All I can say is wow and thank you both for your detailed replies. I think I get some of it, but by no means am as advanced (I have used 3d faces before briefly, but am not proficient with that command.) I did manage to figure out GE yesterday and while I still need to figure out how to toggle it into position better than I did, I think I have an idea of what I'm doing with that, but was still having trouble aligning my model with the axis in SU to get it square and I'm not sure why the axis and rotate tools were giving me trouble. Thanks for the suggestions to remove the interior for the model in GE so it won't run slow....that did not occur to me. Since my exterior is not complete, I just used a dummy model yesterday to teach myself, and I'll probably build a exterior only model for the final.

Here is what I'm thinking of doing next....This is a 100k sq ft building that is 3 floors. There is a central atrium that dominates the center core that is also 3 stories and is enclosed with a glass surround (like a glass cube supported with metal framework on 3 sides and the ceiling.) There is a ramp that wraps from the 1st-3rd floors around inside that was made with the LOFT command in Autocad. I'm thinking of removing everything except walls, the ramp, and atrium glass walls, so I just have a structural elementa, and then importing one floor at a time into SU so I can finish the interiors in SU, and then assemle the 3 floors in SU. With the exception of doors and trees, I don't really have any elements that repeat, however, my model is symmetrical, so all rooms on the left side of the atrium are the same as the rooms on the right side of the atrium. I can post a pic if that will help determine if my plan makes any sense. Once my model is imported, I'll build simple cabinets and add plumbing fixtures, and build my stairs, landscape the atrium, and render, using sketchup. What instances would I use the group command? Is there anything in my plan above that sounds like a pc disaster waiting to happen? Does anyone know anyone in Chicago that I can pay to tutor me for a day? Thanks again for all your help....I'm going to read it over again as I continue to work, and I'm hopeful it will make more sense as I continue to work and watch more tutorials.

Thanks again,

Kim

The first challenge I'm dealing with is how to import a 3 floor Autocad model into sketchup and then manage it properly, so that I can continue to edit it and then ultimately render it. I've managed to upload the model, but I'm not sure if I should make it a component, or explode it, or what....see what watching to many tutorials does. I just want to be able to continue to edit the walls, and then build things in SU that I didn't want to build in Cad, such as stairs. It's also running very slowly, and I have a very fast pc, so I'm wondering if I allowed to much to be imported, and I shouldn't start all over with just the major walls. Any advice of videos that deal specifically with using cad models in sketchup would be helpful.

The second thing I'm having trouble finding information on is how to import this final model into google earth so it looks like it's positioned on the city block as part of the architecture.

I'm an interior design student, working on my thesis, and while our school is highly reccommending that we use SU, they are not offering the resources to help us. I think SU is an amazing program, and really would like to use it, but need to gain enough working knowledge to pull this off in the next 8 weeks.

I thank you in advance for your assistance.