SketchUp For Dummies

Chapter 5

Falling in Love with Components

IN THIS CHAPTER

Organizing geometry into groups

Discovering the wonder and majesty of components

Getting familiar with Dynamic Components

Using components to make symmetrical models

Building stairs with component instances

If we had our way, this chapter would begin with the word COMPONENTS printed 4 inches high and colored neon green. Components are that important.

Making a component or a group is like gluing together geometry in your model. Edges and faces that are grouped together act like mini-models inside your main model. You use components and groups to more easily select, move, hide, and otherwise work with parts of your model that need to be kept separate. For example, if the roof of a house model is a component or group, you can easily hide or move the roof so that you can peer inside the house from above.

Now that you know how components and groups are alike, here’s how they’re different:

• Groups are simple conglomerations of edges ...