Many thanks, TIG! I had completely forgotten how axes placement affects cutting and punching. I am thinking that as a general rule, it might be best to start out with punching components reduced to the perimeter only, and when they're placed to my satisfaction, open one to edit all and then insert the subcomponents. (My reason for wanting to keep them unexploded is so I can get an easy count of how many to put in my BoQ.)

The amount and quality of effort you and others like you (Gaeius, for example) put into helping us struggling beginners is probably the best thing about SketchUp. Thanks again!

David

Hi, TIG,

I'm using SU8 free, on a MacBook Pro Core Duo 1.83 GHz, 1.5 GB Ram, OS 10.6.8. with latest Java patch. The #HolePunchTool.rb is located at
/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins along with deBabelizer.rb, and the various .lingvo files are in plugins/TIGtools.

In the past I've sometimes been able to use the Hole Punching Tool to great advantage, but not now. No matter what I do, I get the message "No Suitable Punching Component(s) Selected. Exiting."

This happens both with the actual window I'm trying to use, and with a test component that's just a rectangular prism. Both are set to glue and cut hole. I've tried pasting the window/prism inside the editing context of the walls, exploding the wall component before trying to punch, and just positioning the window component on the wall without opening either. Tried selecting both punching component and target, or only component. Nothing helps.

I know I'm missing some really simple point here, and it's embarrassing to ask you, but I can't seem to figure it out on my own, and the advantages of your tool are irresistible. Thanks for saving countless people countless hours of intersecting and erasing, and for your help with this.

David

This is the whole problem, in a file reduced to the relevant elements only.

Once again, that's tremendously helpful. Thanks! Just two more questions:

Is there any way you can update all instances of a component in different .skp files the way, for example, HTML automatically uses the latest version of an image file, since a web page really only contains a reference to the file?

Will something bad happen if I save a component as a component in a file I want to import? I already noticed what happens when you cut and paste the contents of a component file created by Save As--you get the elements, but they're not grouped into a component.

How do you get any archaeological work done answering so many questions here? Whatever the answer is, a lot of us owe you a lot of thanks. Cheers!

David

This is really helpful, Gaeius! But so far, I can't see how to add the solo component to a new model except by adding it to a collection, or opening the component file and using cut and paste. Either way is easy enough, but I have the feeling there's some more stuff about manipulating components that I haven't picked up...

I have been having intermittent trouble using TIG's hole punching plug-in: for reasons I can't fathom, I get the above message with a component that

• is glueable to vertical surfaces
• has "cut opening" set
• has its green axis perpendicular to the target wall
• has one simple bounding rectangular edge

Sometimes a previously punch-capable component will stop working; sometimes in a new file I just won't be able to create one that punches, as in the attached example punchtest.skp

Thanks in advance for any help identifying what I've done wrong.

David

The "puncher" component doesn't live up to its name.

Hi, TIG,

and first of all, thanks for your innumerable helpful posts and great plug-ins. They make SU a whole lot easider.

In this case, I'm using the super-precise dimensions in a (not too often successful) effort to make sure I'm getting my geometry the way I mean to. My tooltip inference flags keep disappearing--I have to reinstall SU about three times a month--and as a result, a lot of endpoints don't go just where I want them. I was hoping to be able to confirm by doing a really precise check of dimensions, which I realize won't be exact at all in real life. If I can ever finish the design.

David

@tig said:

Frankly why are you dimensioning to anything more than 1mm ?
You are designing a building.
If it's build from muck, dust, mud, baked-clay, hewn-wood, slopped-concrete and warped-steel then you'll be lucky if it's within 10mm of your designed values anyway...
Years ago when you designed with hand-drawn drawings you would write '9" brick wall' - and everyone knew it wasn't actually going to be '9"' as bricks are not really that size - BUT they knew that it would be a one-brick thick wall approx 9" wide, and put it in the appropriate location.
Now with CAD, designers worry to the nth degree - but mainly for dimensional accuracy that can't be achieved in reality... Most building components are not made to those accuracies and few builders can't achieve 'perfection' - so start worrying about the detail and quality of your designs... and don't get hung up on fractions of a mm [or inch] when they don't matter one jot to what gets built...

Thanks, Jim! That seems to be at least part of the problem--though as far as I can see, the gap is way smaller than the difference in dimensions indicates. See my response to TIG, below, if you like.
@jim said:

Hi David,
You have a small gap at the wall - too small to distinguish visually from any distance. Get the camera in real close to see it.

[attachment=0:2txpcjov]<!-- ia0 -->0107.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2txpcjov]

I've been using SU for five months or so, but only a few hours a week, so I'm still a real a neophyte. With an increasing number of problems, the latest being that segments of a dimension add up to more than the Dimension tool shows for the whole length of an edge. If the segments were not colinear, that could be a correct result, but a lot of very close looking shows they are.

I'm using SU 8.0.4810 / OS X 10.6.8 on a MacBook Pro, Intel Core Duo

dimensions along the nearest edge of this building fragment don't add up

@unknownuser said:

have him try resetting the workspace.
(sketchup->preferences->workspace->reset workspace)

that should bring the panels back.

Thank you, Jeff! I've been having a recurring problem of the Entity Info box shrinking so you can't see more than the layer name, and even reinstalling SU only fixed it for a few operations. Reset Workspace was the cure.