Always Untag Geometry - Skill Builder

In this Skill Builder, we talk about why you should always leave raw geometry untagged. This might sound like a basic skill, but listen in to understand the 'why' behind the rule, and you might learn something new!
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[@tonym2540]

I notice many commenters (like me) have discovered through this video that they were (at least partially) crazy. Thank you for this contribution to keeping SketchUp users sane. Although here you say here to remain sane by tagging objects at the group level, for coloring objects you say the opposite: to color at the raw geometry level ("Paint What and Why"). So who's crazy?

[@plssmellmycheese]

great vid as always. can i add 2 points: 1. as routine while modelling, just go into groups and components, at all nesting levels, select all, put all geometry back on untagged or layer 0...u will pick up the odd stray bit of geometry b4 its a problem. 2. another weird consequence of tagging geometry itself is if the geometry tags conflict with the group or component tag housing that geometry...then all sorts of confusing weirdness happens! the solution is point 1 above. 🎉great success!

[@CJJelinek]

Thanks Aaron. In addition to hide/unhide and delete/undo in order to see inside something, i picked up a tip a while back (perhaps from you) to delete/paste in place. Very quick and handy.

[@carsten.unverzagt]

A common case of how raw geometry with tag assignment is created is by exploding objects with tags. This makes the raw geometry "inherit" the tag of the object.

[@mattpulice]

🤬

[@jimbostrom8354]

Thanks, I have made those errors, modeling construction projects, and cleaning it up was a nightmare.

[@Woojo01]

I just did the same thing recently! I tagged raw geometry and then ran into the problems you showed here. Thanks for clarifying why I ended up with so many inconsistencies when hiding tags.

[@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt]

Hey Aaron, if you've not done so already, how about a Square One covering best practices regarding Group and Component naming, Tags and Outliner, as well as Scenes?

[@kenhaley4]

Great video about a topic that I think most people don't think about. I remember making a similar mess with a fairly complex model. The problems were all over the place before I realized what a mess it was. Trying to fix things piecemeal seemed to be a never-ending loop. The way I fixed it was to delete all the tags (without deleting any objects or geometry), and then going back through and creating tags and reassigning groups & components. That actually turned out to be much easier than I expected.

[@3888Orbost]

Ken, you touched on my question - how to deal with it *after* it’s happened. I too have got in a loop trying what feels logical to resolve it to no avail. Your fix - did you *reset* by manually delete each and every tag and assign *everything* to Untagged and start again? Or did you use an extension to do this?

[@paulbywater3576]

Thanks - that explains so many issues that I have!

[@keith4154]

Yep I was one of those with the geometry crazies Very frustrating a badly organised model. It’s taken some effort to break a bad habit but I totally agree it’s worth taking time to organise your geometry well early in a model project your working on. These posts are great my sketch up skills have improved thanks to posts like these.

[@themrtimmyboy]

Aaron, what do think about Michael Brightmans "always off" tag for hiding lines where groups connect on a face such as first and second story walls. He seems to think this exception can be better than using hide command to "permanently" hide such lines. Can I keep doing this? Your videos are an invaluable source of info. and insights. Glad you are there!

[@joeosborne3516]

Now I understand why I get strange lines left on curves. Thanks Aaron.

[@gordon_lake]

I can't believe I just started using tags this past year. And yes - I've committed this cardinal sin. Thank you once again!

[@daver425]

TIG's plugin: Default Layer Geometry.

[@markperrah186]

Working on a large pipe layout I made a tag called pipes and tagged individual section pieces then grouped the loop of pipes s made a tag for loop name. This way I can hide or show each loop, or hide all pipes at once

[@keggyification]

Thanks Aaron, Makes total sense when you think about it but when I first started I was adding everything to Layers as it was then and suffered many of the issues highlighted in this video. I'm glad to say I've learnt my lesson well enough that I don't make these mistakes any more. I make many other mistakes but not these ones 😜

[@Alastair_Freebird]

Hey Aaron, thanks for clarifying this. Here’s my question: I want to make a components library (for example books or vases that I can drop onto a bookcase I’m designing), and I want those items to land on a specific layer in my model when I import them from the components browser, But it seems like the tag on the group level gets stripped off when a component was saved out to a library. What is best practice? Should I always have group within a group (or component) so that the inner group retains the tag?

[@Hapsard]

Wow. First I've heard of this. Can't remember any issues arising, apart from seeing the merged with hidden object notice occasionally, but not something I worried about. I'll have to change my templates to make untagged my default drawing position.

[@carolynfiorelli2016]

If a tagged component is exploded, the resulting raw geometry inherits the component’s tag. It would be nice if SketchUp had a popup warning that allows us to ‘untag’ the loose geometry on the spot. Also, if tagging loose geometry is bad practice (the online user manual also admonishes us not to tag loose geometry) why does SketchUp do this to us in the first place? I’m curious.

[@Gougligou]

Not an answer, simply a kudo for your very good question... There's nothing worse, in computing, than a piece of software doing exactly what the programmer says should not be done !

[@mattpulice]

I can't stand this. There should be a preference I can change so that this doesn't happen.

[@roberthoople]

No offense, but this actually feels like a bug, because the ability to control visibility on specific geometry would be greatly beneficial, especially when modeling inside complex models. It's currently quite annoying to have to exit the current component/group, enter another to hide the surface that's always in your way, go back to the current one to finish editing it, and then having to go back into that other component/group to unhide the surface(s) again. Especially when there's already a built in system to make managing visibility easy (hence why I used to try to use it the way described).

[@garyspeed8961]

Why does Sketchup by default tag geometry when you explode a tagged component ?????

[@f.h.6997]

Hi. I worked long with SU 2018, have changed now to 2021. When I tag a group, and explode it afterwards, the geometry goes the to the tag and is not on untaged anymore. Is this a bug?

[@joopterwijn]

The “D 🤬” word,… I should has seen this while ago… apparently I did it wrong… and this explains a lot of floating stuff (and deleting and recreating…) from the start. I will redeem myself! Untagged it is going to be my guide 🤓 and only groups and components added to tags!

[@michalkalinowski213]

Hi Aaron, your video made me think, as for many years I’ve been assigning raw geometry to tags, never heard I shouldn’t. But I never had any problems. The way I do it is I switch the tab to „Walls” and model all the walls, swich to „Furniture” and model all the furniture etc.. This way all my raw geometry AND all my components are on the same tag. There is no example like this in your video. Do you see any risks behind this approach?

[@rossgebert9422]

Thank-you Aaron; now I know what I've been doing wrong; occasionally.

[@DidierScheurer]

What do you think about the workflow from Curic Hidden ? This extension give a tag to edges we want to hide. I have this extension but I don't know if I will use it because I'm scared to broke my Model. Need an advise about this

[@ilgiztamindarov952]

The most unpleasant thing was when I was forced to make changes to the project (frame house) - the customer asked to add a terrace. And the project has already been split into scenes and uploaded to the layout. After adding the terrace (I had to add a new layer and scene), I re-linked the model to the document in the layout, but I forgot to hide the terrace layer in each scene. The result is predictable - in the uploaded pdf-file in all scenes (drawings) a terrace sticking out very ugly😆

[@highgatehandyman6479]

Sorrybwhat wasvthat around 2.30 U double clicked and all the other partsvdiapeared.? Then clicked out and they cane back?

[@SketchUp]

Aaron has "Hide Rest of Model" turned on. This means when he enters a Group or Component, the rest of the model disappears. A lot of modelers set it to a keyboard shortcut to quickly switch back and forth between the two view modes. You can toggle it under View / Component Edit / Hide Rest of Model.

[@russterman1]

Nice Video as always Aarron. On an (Almost) Totally unrelated subject, what are your tips on creating tangent lines, like the ones obviously used to create the belts in this example. ?

[@CalvinJ82]

I believe the "hanging rope on a wall" video might help with the tecnique he uses for belts. I was thinking the same thing. Good looking belt on those pulleys. Started thinking of how he would have built it. Assuming the hanging rope technique, hope that helps. A great technique for many applications even if it's not the answer you were looking for.

[@mikestaggs9611]

i have a silly question: how is everything else in drawing hiding when you double click / edit(?) the group? is that a preference setting?

[@SketchUp]

Check out View - Component Edit - Hide Rest of Model... is a life changer!

[@mikestaggs9611]

@@SketchUp WHAAAT? Thanks so much!

[@bardlindqvist3741]

Great explanation, thanks! I'm wondering, though, why does SketchUp allow geometry to be placed in other tags than "Untagged"? Couldn't all geometry by default be assigned and locked to a separate "Geometry" tag, while groups and components could be tagged as before?

[@3888Orbost]

This behaviour of Sketchup beats me. It seems possible to inadvertently change the active layer without doing anything intentional - I’m using SU Pro 2022 (trial) and seeing every so often that the active layer has changed and I don’t know how that’s happened.

[@sandymcdaniel4107]

My horror story happens when I accidentally draw a group when the default tag is NOT "Untagged". When I go to set a scene and start turning tags on and off and I can't see what I'm looking for I have to waste a bunch of time playing detective :-(.

[@miikelis]

How you hide automatically the rest of model when go in to the group?

[@Paul-jp8zz]

Shift+R / View->Component Edit->Hide Rest of Model

[@rlerolle]

👍👍👍👍

[@nikouer]

I don't see a problem raw geometry and the component places in the same tag.

[@amylaffey-cregar1021]

Ugh, my whole model is a nightmare.

[@douglasmichel6361]

Should still be called layers. Never understood re-inventing the wheel. To be different? Please!

[@mariopenev]

*me after this video untagging all my geometry* 🙈

[@davids4610]

maybe go back to a more universal nomenclature like layer 0

[@SketchUp]

Alas, this functionality has nothing to do with the name of the default tag. Call it whatever you want, if you don't put your base geometry there, you may run into problems!