Troubleshooting a Model

Tim Killen, contributor

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Almost everyday I receive a SketchUp model from somewhere in the world. It is usually an attachment to an email describing a problem performing an action described in one of the many steps outlined in my eBook. The email may say something along the lines of, "I'm a bit confused by the procedure to ……".

I look forward to receiving these notes, especially when they attach a model. I can often guess the problem by the description of the problem alone, but having the model makes a big difference in my ability to troubleshoot.

I have to say that the most frequent problem for new SketchUp users, continues to be failing to open the component for editing. The reader tries a Push/Pull for a tenon, mortise, groove or rabbet and it doesn't work. It is frustrating, I know, and it is usually caused by not opening the component for editing before marking out a joint of some type.

I find that using an Exploded View is a key to troubleshooting these problems. You may find that this can help you get over a frustrating experience.

I'll use an example of the Magazine Rack model. Here is how I received the model.

By the way, I have approval from the SketchUp user to use this as an example in this blog.

Step 1: I'll spend a few minutes arranging the model for ease of inspection. This is a back view and upside down, so I'll orbit and pan to get a standard front view, and get an idea of how the axes are oriented. If materials and grain colors are used, I will delete them, as they make it hard for me to see issues.

I find guidelines very distracting, and a fist step will be to delete them. There is a quick command to delete guides as shown below.

Step 2: I'll do a quick inspection on the assembled model to identify some of the most apparent issues.

Step 3: With the Select Tool, draw a select box around the complete model. This selects all the graphics in the model.

Step 4: With the Move/Copy Tool, tap the Ctrl Key to make a copy of the model. Move it down the red access to a clear space.

Step 5: I'll open the Scenes Dialog Box, and make a Scene called Exploded View. Then I can always get back to this view with a click of the mouse.

Step 6: With the Move/Copy Tool, pull the model apart. This is when issues usually show up.

Step 7: Orbit around for a rear view of the Exploded model. This helps identify issues not exposed in the front view.

The Exploded View helps find problems. It does not necessarily identify the cause. In this case, the user was having trouble making the rabbet in the back edge of the Top. The Exploded view tells the problem; that the rabbet was drawn outside the definition of the Top component. The dangling rectangle is evidence of not opening the component prior to drawing the joint lines.

Tim
http://killenwood.com

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Comments (2)

Killenwood writes: Dave, thanks for the note.

This link shows various blog items covering specific procedures in the book. In this list, you will see reference to difficulty working the tongue and groove joints.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/35752/an-index-ebook-references-to-dcb-blogs

If in trying to delete a line, the entire component disappears, then it could be that those lines exist within the definition of the component. Use your Select Tool to select the line. If the line lights up in blue, without the component also selected, then you can use your Delete key to get rid of the line.

If you click your Select Tool on the line and the whole component lights up, then you will need to open the component for editing, then delete the problem lines.

Tim
Posted: 6:13 pm on January 9th

djirak writes: Hi Tim:

Thanks so much for this explanation. I'm working through your book and have just started Chapter 7, step 4, and found that I had some extra lines that I couldn't erase without erasing the entire top, or side, for example. I also had some trouble pushing out the the tongue and groove. So I decided to look through this blog to see if I could get some help. I applied this technique of exploding the model and was able to see the extraneous lines that I could then clean up. So I now have an exploded copy of the model off to the side that I will keep there so that I can see exactly what happens as I continue to work through this tutorial.

By the way, thanks for writing this book. I've had several false starts with trying to learn Sketchup in the past but am now learning a lot with this tutorial approach.

Dave
Posted: 6:32 pm on January 7th

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