I agree wholeheartedly with your observations Dave. Bomb all explodes all but you can then "undo bomb all" and things are back to components. I have tried this out on a "Save as Copy" file. I see it as more of a quick edit tool. My myopic view of SU may catch me out with this tool; I can see the potential for trouble.

I am in no position to make grand statements given my newb status but I also like to develop the exploded view as you do, with an original off to the side. Caution is good.

When I'm done, I'll see if I can post my humble built-in drawing. It is not complex, it is a simple painted unit that I'm bulding as my part of a barter agreement. I now remember why I haven't bartered in years...

I saw this yesterday when I was looking for an exploded view plugin but being a total newb I didn't understand how to download this gem. Dave R re-directed me to this thread and with my new found plug in chops (thanks to my wife's tutorial) I have tried out Eclate_Deplace and it's what I'm after. Thank you for your generosity in sharing this plugin.

I don't doubt that going manual for this task allows you to fine tune your drawings as you see fit. I guess that my shop drawings end up in the shop getting checked off with pencil and soaking up coffee rings so I think (don't know) that an "off the rack" treatment would be okay for me. If I was sharing drawings as you do I don't doubt that I would fall in line with your sentiments.

I did try out the Bomb plugin at SMustard and while I think that it may be useful for quick touch ups I felt pretty exposed having the entire drawing exploded. I got a bit panicky when I went to unBomb the drawing and there was no unBomb! Undo Bomb - phew.

I'll look into your link and also quit my whining and just do it manually for this built in. Perhaps this mountain is in fact a mole hill.

Thanks again Dave.

Thanks for your help Dave.

Okay, one, I'm not very clever! I was trying to use it on components. I tried a group and voila as you suggested. I was fixated on my problem, components not groups. I don't want to use groups in SU so this plugin won't get me very far.

I've just started using SU to design furniture. I have a built-in which as you can imagine consists of quite a few components which are made up of even more pieces. I was hoping that there was a program that would take my drawing and with the click of a button give me an exploded view of the drawing (with attendant dimensions to boot - dreamer!). It would seem that this is not possible and I have to do this manually which seems like a ton of work.

In the end I want to do the least amount of work to turn my drawing into a useful shop drawing. I looked at the Smustard site and I see that they have a $20 plugin that may do this.

Any further thoughts regarding my "issue" would be appreciated. Thanks for your help thus far.

Can't get "Explode2Groups.rb" to work in SketchUp 8 Pro.

I'm no computer expert but I've searched this topic. I now have the plugins menu showing and I've gone to the view/preferences area and selected ruby scripts. I've restarted SU but no Explode2Groups shows up, just "Cost".

I've made a component and right clicked on it but no Explode2Groups there either.

Any help you can offer would be appreciated.

Chris