Understanding the Difference Between Groups and Components
Now you’ve seen groups and components. What’s the difference?The difference is that components are instanced. That’s a SketchUp term meaning that all copies of a component act as instances of—or are tied to—the original. Thus, if you make a copy of a component and edit it, both the copy and the original will be affected, which is not true for groups.
When you make a copy of a group, the copy is totally independent of the original. That means that if you edit a group, no copies of the group will be affected.
Let’s take a look at how components work when you edit one of a set of the same component:
1. Start SketchUp.
2. Click the Start Using SketchUp button. This will open SketchUp.
3. Select the Select tool in the toolbar.
4. Click the Cube and Cylinder component that we have created in this lesson. This selects the component, surrounding it with a blue box.
Now we’ll make a copy of the component.
5. Select the Edit menu’s Copy item.
6. Select the Edit menu’s Paste item.
7. Move the mouse to the location at which you want to place the copy of the component.
8. Click the mouse to create a copy of the component. Now you have an original and a copy of the component on the screen.
9. Right-click one of the Cube and Cylinder components.
10. Select the Edit Component menu item. This will surround the component with a dotted box, as shown in Figure 6.10.
FIGURE 6.10 A component ready for editing.
11. Select the Push/Pull tool in the toolbar.
12. Pull the cylinder up to a greater height. As you pull the cylinder in one component, the cylinder in the other component changes to match, as shown in Figure 6.11.
FIGURE 6.11 Editing a component, which also edits copies of the component.
13. Select the Select tool in the toolbar.
14. Click any blank, nonselected region of the screen to stop editing the component. The dotted box around the component disappears.
There you have it—when you edit one object in a component, that same change is made to the corresponding object in all copies of the component (which doesn’t happen when you make copies of groups).
Thanks :
Steven Holzner,
SamsTeachYourself Google SketchUp 8 in 10 Minutes
