Thanks for the ideas. This was just an example of something I've run into a few times. This is surely an easy one but there have been other instances where I wish I could just project the geometry from one face to another.

I come from other solid modeling software so I sometimes get frustrated trying to use Sketchup like other programs.
Thanks again.

@rich o brien said:

If you make it a component and copy the component. All 'like' components will inherit changes

The two ends (sides) of the box are different, unique, pieces. In this case I decided to add the hand holds after adding a shelf and a dado to the right side.

SU2022, PC

Is there a way to project geometry from one component or face to another?
My example here is a box and I added a hand carry opening on one side and want to do the same to the other without taking the time to re-draw it. The sides of the box are not the same so they cannot be the same component.
Can geometry be projected like this in Sketchup?

Of course the time it has taken me to search for a solution and write this negates the time it would take to re-draw and extrude it but...you know...for future knowledge.

I have a shape that is extruded 4" for a stone top cap. I want the top cap to have a 1" overhang over the pillar below. To make the pillar I offset the top cap 1" and extrude down. When I go to apply textures the textures show as if there are multiple faces.
The Entity Info for the offset arc shows it as a curve now.

Why?
How do I solve this?

@dave r said:

I moved your thread to the LayOut category.

Oops, Thanks.

@unknownuser said:

Is there a way to delete the leader from a label after it's been placed?

You can explode the label and delete the leader. If the label is using any auto text you'll lose that link.

@unknownuser said:

Is there way to link Text to a component and use the entity Auto-text options?

No.

When I want to do what you are proposing, I change the opacity for the leader to transparent in Shape Style. Then the leader doesn't show but the label is attached.
[attachment=0:3dqdtuse]<!-- ia0 -->label.gif<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3dqdtuse]

That works! I was trying to turn off the stroke and didn't even think to make it transparent.
Thanks again!

Is there a way to delete the leader from a label after it's been placed?
or
Is there way to link Text to a component and use the entity Auto-text options?
This is in Layout.
I want to take advantage of the auto text options in labels without the leader. I have several components that I want to label but not use a leader and thought it would be great to not have to re-type the information that's already part of the component entity description.

Cheers!

Thanks Box. Good solutions that I did not realize.

@box said:

You can do continuous guides or guidepoints with tail by using the new double tap ctrl feature.

[attachment=0:whd9vxcu]<!-- ia0 -->Guides02.gif<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:whd9vxcu]

@box said:

Two of these are a texture made by exporting a 2d image png with transparent background.
Can you tell which is the real one? It's all a bit furry in the screengrab.
[attachment=0:j019fl3y]<!-- ia0 -->Screenshot 2022-01-11 093640.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:j019fl3y]
Up close you can see the difference, but it all depends what you want to do with the model and how much real detail you need.

Thanks Box. I think I see what you're getting at. Expectation is to build a quality visual model for client and then going into layout and creating fabrication prints of the panel(s) for the laser shop.

Nic

Working on an enclosure screen as part of a larger project and these panels attach to a steel structure. I'm trying to reduce my file size a bit.

4 Components in total. Created using Compo Spray extension and then extruded to thickness.

I've been learning a lot about file size control with Sketchup lately and curious if these panels could be done differently or reduced in file size anymore than they are now? This is assembly is one of the larger file size entities in the assembly. These panels alone were 4 mb and I've reduced them to 2 mb already.

Thanks.

Hole Panels.skp

@dave r said:

That's fine. So as I wrote, if the edge of the hole is identified as a circle. Right click on it and choose Find Center to get a guidepoint there.

Still not what I'm after. I know that placing the bolts was my main example but it's not the only one.
See attached. If I have holes in the bottom plate and I need them to match holes in the upper plates I can easily place holes with the Hole Tool using the guide axis through the components.

Also, How did you get the bolt to snap to the center of the hole? It did not look like the center point was selected.

Typically, I have the washer and bolt assembly as a component so I don't have to place individual pieces and the washer will hide the center point most times. I've tried xray but with all the other stuff in the model it's hard to grab the center point most times.

I mostly understand how to get this done but I guess I'm just looking for ways to make some of this workflow faster and more of a 'click and go' process as I learn the intricacies of sketchup. Placing a guide is not hard but if I have 30+ holes and I can drop a mouse click and movement to drag the guide and then a pause on the hole to infer the center for each one it saves time.

@dave r said:

If the edge of the hole is identified as a circle, right click on it (with the component open for editing) and choose Find Center.

When I create things like washer and screw components I place their origin at the center so I don't have to have the guides to place them where I want.

I understand this. I want a guide though so that I can also have this guide as I stack more components on top of the base and then easily place holes from the top down. I'm using Profile Builder 3 Hole Tool to place holes so it's easy to find the center where I need it on the face of the new component since the guide is protruding through.
I don't always know what I want or where the holes will finally end up so the guide also helps to visualize while I design.

Is there a simple way to place a guide in the center of a hole? In my case the hole is round and in a component(s) that is part of a group assembly.
I have multiple components stacked (for example, sheets of steel or 2x4's, etc.) and the holes are aligned and now I want to place a bolt/washer/nut assy in the holes. Making a center point doesn't help much because the bolt or nut hides it making it hard to place.
The best and quickest way I've found to place the bolt assy is to make a guide through the center of the hole, an axis, and then a guide thru the center of the bolt assy and then move the bolt to the hole via matching the guides.
But placing the guide in hole(s) is time consuming because right now I have to grab a guide from a vertical and drag it to the center of the hole, each hole.
My holes are not equidistant so I cannot use the copy with 'xA' command to place multiple bolt assy on a line or array.

Is there an extension or something native to SU that I'm missing to make this way easier?

@box said:

@njsanna said:

VisuHole is okay but wonky and not really enjoyable to use and not really how I would expect to make holes in a product.

This suggests to me you need to learn how to use the tool. As with all of Fredo's extensions there is a learning curve, ignoring the learning leaves you missing out.

Fair comment. I took time to work through it. I had to find several youtube videos to understand it and burn a lot of time and it seems like a powerful tool for certain uses probably. I don't believe something like hole creation should be that complicated. I don't think I should need to draw a template stencil for every hole. The Fredo tool crashed my assembly model a couple times as well while trying it out.
The EP Tools and Profile Builder hole creator did not crash my files and generally produced the results I wanted just with too many steps.

@rich o brien said:

@unknownuser said:

...with a brain that wants Catia and SWorks style function

Those apps use true curves to generate 3d forms. Cutting these are much easier because of the 'absence' of polygons.

Understood. It's one reason why I've picked up and put down Sketchup several times over the past ten years as I was so frustrated with the way Sketchup worked and how I felt it was a backwards and useless program for anything other than the most basic blocks, assemblies, and artistic modeling. The sketchup software would never do what I wanted and it was frustrating after having worked with other solid modeling software for 20yrs.

Now, I need to use Sketchup so I'm trying to learn by looking at it through a different lens and understanding its limitations but some things that seem so simple, such as a hole tool, that are absent drive me silly.

@unknownuser said:

In polygon based modelling the hole cutting results in face normal issues and other artifacts. Pre-planning can make hole cutting more fluid but you will encounter shading issues at some point.

Parametric hole cutting is a big undertaking. Did you try using Dynamic Components?

I'm so used to just starting with blocks and shapes and designing in the workspace but with Sketchup it's like you have to have the design figured out before you draw in Sketchup otherwise changing dimensions or moving holes require a lot of work to go back and adjust pieces of the design...especially when working with assemblies that rely on constraints of individual pieces.

I'm not familiar with Dynamic Components but will look into it.
Thanks for the reply and allowing me to vent!

Hey there-
Running Pro 2021 onPC
I see many posts asking for this option throughout the forum but see mixed results and options.
I'm looking for a way to make 'simple' holes in solids. I want to be able to set what hole parameters I want and then just point the mouse and the holes are made in the material. Seems simple but I'm not seeing this available.

Assumptions and Opinions on existing extensions...set me straight if I'm missing an option in one of these.
The extension from K2WS_Tools is nice for holes but overly complicated and doesn't allow for dropping a hole wherever I want.

VisuHole is okay but wonky and not really enjoyable to use and not really how I would expect to make holes in a product.

The Hole Tool in Profile Builder 3 is really close to what I'm looking for in function but seems a little limited in it's use outside of created profiles. Would like more options for hole creation.

EP Fasteners is really close as I like it's options but I can't get it to work correctly in any thing that is grouped or a component. It works in ungrouped solids but in a group it only cuts the top surface and not all the way through. And then the extension closes every time and you have to re open the dialog and start all over. I'd like to learn how to program and make this one a couple notches better and I think it would be a winner.

If EP Fasteners and the Hole Tool in profile got married this is about what I'm looking for. A dialog box with pre set options or user entered criteria and then the ability to point and click wherever you want the hole to be placed.

Added to that would be great if the holes were able to be modified simply after creation...for example, you made a 1/2 hole in a plate but then a week later the design changes and you need 5/8 or 3/8 holes in your plates.

Also, I'm newer to Sketchup full time with a brain that wants Catia and SWorks style function.

Nic

@dave r said:

@njsanna said:

My goal is a radius of 0.24". It seems that any radius 0.27" and greater trims the corner lines just fine.

Any thoughts?

Reduce the number of segments from the default 18 to 12.

Alternatively, use the native 2-Point Arc tool instead. Double click in the corners for the arcs after the first one.

Please update your profile. It says you're still using SketchUp 2013.

Thanks Dave. I did not know you could do that with the native arc tool. That's a very specific point that you have to be in to input the radius. I was always building guides at the correct distance from the corner and snapping it.

hi-
Downloaded this for the fillet tool but found some issues to share.
PC, SU2021 Pro
When I try to fillet the corners of a rectangle created using the SU native rectangle command the corners do not trim if the radius is under .26" and when I go to delete the lines from the corners it will crash SU after i delete about 4 or 5 of the lines. If I delete the lines after each trim before doing the next corner it does not crash. But If i create all the fillets and then delete the lines it crashes. This happens every time.
My goal is a radius of 0.24". It seems that any radius 0.27" and greater trims the corner lines just fine.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, I'll check this one out. Does it actually slice it and remove or just hide it below the section plane?

@box said:

If you just want to chop the hinge off like you would in real life with a hacksaw, the Plugin Zorro adds a slice tool to the section plane.

Dave, could you suggest plugins that will do this? I did some quick searching when I was getting these files but did come up with one.

Thanks for the massaged file as well.

@dave r said:

In addition to the comments made by Rich I would suggest looking at the hidden geometry. Your imported hinge component has a lot of unneeded geometry that could be eliminated.
[attachment=2:umzymitb]<!-- ia2 -->Screenshot - 11_16_2021 , 4_30_09 AM.png<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment:umzymitb]

That hinge is so simple I just redrew it starting with a cleaned up copy of the top edge component but there are extensions that could be used to do the cleaning after exploding all those unneeded sub-components. I also drew it as a continuous hinge instead of a couple of short sections. This reduced the entity count in the hinge by 64%.
[attachment=1:umzymitb]<!-- ia1 -->Screenshot - 11_16_2021 , 4_44_53 AM.png<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:umzymitb]

The hasp on the other side of the door could use similar treatment. In this model that isn't a huge deal but in more complex models that sort of cleanup would have a huge impact. After cleaning up the hasp the total file size is reduced by more than 46%.
[attachment=0:umzymitb]<!-- ia0 -->DOOR-COMPLETE 1 - OPEN reworked hinge.skp<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:umzymitb]

I need to learn the Outliner. Thanks for the comments.

@rich o brien said:

I would look at the export options in your file conversion tool.

Your object is a collection of grouped objects. Grouped geometry in SketchUp separate/isolate geometry so it does not merge.

Use outliner to get an overview of your objects structure.

Also STP files are NURBS based geometry and SketchUp is not NURBS based so there's that to deal with too.

I wouldn't say the problem is SketchUp it is more the original file format.

It is likely quicker to model the hinge in SketchUp than to try and untangle that imported file.