Sketchup equal spacing

[chippy1970]

Ive been playing with sketchup this morning drawing a couple of bookcases. To do the adjustable shelves I selected front view then drew a rectangle 19 x 396.5 between two uprights on the front edge. Then I copy/moved 7 more after making the first a component. I then used the measure tool to measure the space between top and base. I then multiplied 19mm x 8 shelves and subtracted that from the internal height of the bookcase and divided by 9 spaces. I used the measure tool to mark a point 244 from the top and dragged a shelf to this point. I did this over and over until all 8 shelves were positioned. I then copy/moved each shelf 3 times to the left to fill all 4 compartments. Lastly I push/pulled the shelves all the way to the back.

Is there a quicker way of spacing things equally?

[daver]

Absolutely there's an easier way. Place the first shelf where you want it. Use Move/Copy to place a copy of the shelf component where the last shelf should be. Hit Enter and then '/n', Enter where n is the number of copies of the shelf not including the original. Done. You can use a guideline to determine the location of the shelf at the end of the run.

[chippy1970]

Cheers that's much quicker.

While I'm on here if you wanted to remove just one component from a drawing how do you do it. I made the end uprights as components and I just wanted to delete one of them but when I do all the others get deleted too. What am I doing wrong ?

[daver]

I'd like to see your model to see exactly what you've got going on. I can imagine two cases where what describe could happen.

1. You are opening the component for editing and deleting the entities inside. Since this is editing the component it would make sense that you would see the same thing happening in all of them.

2. If all your uprights are inside a component, deleting that will delete all of them.

Would you send me the SKP so I can see? I'll PM my e-mail address to you.

[chippy1970]

Ok cheers

You will see what I mean , I've drawn two 850 wide bookcases they butt together to form one 1700 bookcase. I've got 3 uprights that are the same and made as a component. I finished drawing then remembered that on the left side there's a s-ceiling so I need to cut a chunk off the bookcase at the pitch of the roof. This is where the trouble started , I drew the angled bit and pushed it to the rear ok but then you're still left with the corner of the bookcase.

[stevep]

Absolutely there's an easier way. Place the first shelf where you want it. Use Move/Copy to place a copy of the shelf component where the last shelf should be. Hit Enter and then '/n', Enter where n is the number of copies of the shelf not including the original. Done. You can use a guideline to determine the location of the shelf at the end of the run.

And if you have a brain like mine it's easy to get the number of copies wrong - I always make one too many - you just type in the correct number straight away. So if you accidently type /4 just retype /3 - no need to do any deleting or edit undos. It's the same for dimensions as well.