Hello Everyone,

I believe I’ve been progressing with the use of sketchup and the timber frame rubies (made my first tenons and then I created shop drawings!), but I’ve got an issue I can’t quite figure out. I was toying with (this is where I made my mistake) different beam locations on my bent, so I thought “Hot dog, I’ll be a smart guy and use the outliner menu, hide the current location of the beams, create a new beam, make the new beam into a component and put them in the new locations on the bent.” This way I could also toggle between the two different configurations, hiding one set while looking at the other.

Well, now I cant unhide the old “hidden” beam. The beam name is still in the outliner, but it is not italicized (like it is supposed to be?) When I click to on the beam name on the outliner to edit it, all I have is the black dashed box with the red/green/blue axis. I think what I did is when I originally “hid” the component I actually hit the “erase” button (duhh), but I would like someone’s opinion before screwing something else up.

Thanks for all the help, it is greatly appreciated. It's nice to see what a piece of software can do, and actually begin to apply it to my own use!

Steve

On the View menu, select "hidden geometry". Your hidden item should now appear. Right click it to unhide it, then unselect "hidden geometry" again. BTW, never run tf ruby scripts with the outliner window open. It's a pig, and your machine will slow to a crawl. CB.

Also, you can right click on the name within the outliner to hide / unhide
(and you can delete, etc. - right from the outliner window...).

Clark's advice is good though - it will show you EVERYTHING!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks again for the guidance. Thanks for the "view" idea Clark. I need to arrange things more efficiently in my outliner. I had made four "groups" out of my four bents, even though they are all identical, so I had to remove each timber I wanted to hide from each group and put it in the top of the outliner in order to hide it. How do I consolidate my four identical bents into one? sounds a bit Borg-like but...

My general advice is to try to keep things "flat". In fact, the TF rubies won't work if your timber components are inside of groups or other components - they need to be at the top level. I will soemtimes group a bent or some other collection temporarily, but in general, I don't use groups much. CB.

You should be able to hide individual components within other groups or components...

I'm a fan of grouping / components for general modeling, as I'm often modeling frame / walls / interiors / etc. Really allows you to isolate things and be able to control views.

The few times I've used Rubies in a production situation I've moved the frame to a new file, deleted everything else, and then I make sure each timber is at the top level so the Rubies work...

To consolidate - you can drag and drop within the outliner - or you can explode your groups and make a new one.

You can also have nested groups and components. Drawers inside of drawers inside of drawers.