Dear Walt and all,
I have always found the gluing and cutting option for a component, and the management of the axes remarkably unclear. 😉
Here is the SketchUp Guide reference text.
Fortunately the SketchUp sages had come 😄
Here is a reminder (avoiding doubling informations):
->
@dave r said:
->The red/green plane is the gluing plane.
When you create the component you need to adjust the axes so the red/green plane is in the right plane and the right location.
->when you set the axes for the component, make sure the origin is in a location that makes it easy to insert them into the model.
->
@tig said:
->A gluing/cutting component has a special axis arrangement - the blue axis is always perpendicular to the face it's placed onto.
->When you make a gluing / cutting component create it on a face so that its axes are automatically set correctly on creation
->You can always change a component's axes after creation using the right-click context-menu 'change-axes'
->
@gaieus said:
->Whenever it's possible, I start my gluing/cutting components on an existing face. Draw a rectangle, and make it a component. This component is automatically set to glue and to cut opening in this case.
-> Since it is still 2D, setting the gluing plane (grey area) is still easy.
->The component origin will also be the default insertion point when you drag it from the component browser later.
-> Also notice the special axis system of the component.
Its gluing/cutting plane is always its red/green plane and the blue axis is "X'ed out".
->(When you right click on a component like this and save it "as" and open the new file, therefore the parts of the component are lying on its "back").
-> Once you created the component as a starting rectangle, you can go on editing and add details to it and it will retain its gluing and cutting properties as long as there is a closed, co-planar loop of loose/raw edges on that gluing plane inside the component.
Here is my cent:
->the gluing option (vertical, horizontal,..) refers to the faces of the model on which we are going to glue our component.
-> whatever the axes you choose, they are glued to the faces invariably the same. This represents a good basis to predict how to place the axes..
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/Spendauballet/SketchUp/thComponentGlueTo_005.jpg
-> My solution(also described by Gaieus) constits in positioning the geometry (this is simpler if it is set as a group) around the existing axes.
See the video:
[flash=690,400:11xbb94w]http://www.youtube.com/v/xYPAg1S1kVw[/flash:11xbb94w]
++simon