This is a quick tutorial on groups and
components in SketchUp.
I've got a collection of parts here; I can select the individual bits and pieces
and if I
copy this over
here and, say, copy it again,
put them together like that, and then I go to move this one, the parts are stuck together. So that that doesn't
do me a lot of good unless I'm trying to create some strange-looking part like that.
So, I'll undo that.
If (get rid of this one, too) if I
triple-click on this to select the whole thing, or I could draw a
box around it, and I right-click on it and make it a group, now it is
its own group of parts, hence the name.
Notice when I try and click on the individual bits and pieces I can't select them.
So now if I do the same thing,
I copy it over here, and then I take another copy (notice I only have to click on it once to copy it, I don't have to triple click)
and I move it to there, I can now move it and
the parts aren't stuck together anymore. So that's really helpful to have these different items as groups.
Now what if I want to edit one of these groups?
Notice that I can't select on stuff. If I go to Push/Pull, it won't let me, so what I have to do is
a couple different things, either right-click and Edit Group (notice I've got this bit of
dashed box around it - that means now I can select the bits and pieces inside)
and the quicker way, I find, is just to double-click on it
and now I can
edit the various parts,
do whatever I want to it.
If, say, want to create a tenon on here, I
I can (oops...
there we go) I can create a tenon there easily.
Undo.
Okay, that works great
but the problem with groups is a
group doesn't really have any association with anything else. This group is different than this group, and if I just created a
project with a bunch of different groups in it, there's no relation to the various parts.
So what I'm gonna do, I'm going to delete this one and
this is a group;
I'm going to right click on it and Explode, which means it's not a group anymore now
notice I can select the individual parts now.
This time
I'm going to right-click on it and make it a component.
I'm just gonna leave the name there. I'll click Create; I'm making sure that box is selected and
notice in the Component window there is my
component I just created. If I highlight it here
it has the name up here; I can rename it. I'm gonna call it Apron,
notice it changes it there. I can bring another one in from there,
I can get rid of it.
Okay, so now I'm going to copy
this over here, and if I edit this (double-click on it) and
we'll do another offset here and
notice when I'm editing this, it edits both of them.
So this part, this apron, is
associated with another part, another apron, another instance of that part, so these are two instances of this part.
Now if I was to open up the Entity Info
box over here, and highlight one of these, it will tell me that it's a component,
there's two in the model, and it tells me the name. I can also change the name over here.
Now let's say I've got long aprons and short aprons in my model. I can
select one of these I'm gonna right-click on it, and I'm going to make it unique.
It is now different;
it's still a component, but it's different than this component. Notice it says Apron #1.
I can click it over here. I'll just say
Apron Long and
escape out of there, so I open this up. I can make
this one longer than the other one and now I have two different components.
They're both independent parts. If I create more of this one or more of this one those will be different instances of the same component;
very handy, very useful.
I tend not to use groups much - just for temporary use. In general, components are the way to go if I'm making a
project with lots of parts.