One thing to note is that geometry that’s on a layer that’s turned off will not show up in the outliner until the layer is turned back on.įinally, you can also move and change groupings of objects within the outliner. To unhide geometry, simply right click on the hidden geometry and select the option for “unhide.” For example, say I wanted to hide all the boxes in this model, I could simply select both of them by doing a shift click, then right click and select the option for “hide.” This would hide your geometry so that it’s not visible, bit it would still be grayed out in the outliner, indicating that it’s hidden. You can also adjust and see different visibilities inside the outliner. One of the features that was added to SketchUp 2018 was the fact that section cuts now show up in the outliner, so you can use the outliner to organize your section cuts as well, which is really important because the only way you can have multiple section cuts active at once is to have them inside different groups. However, in addition to the definition, each one of these individual components can have its own unique “instance name,” which is the name of the individual object. For example, no matter how many copies of my “Me and Bonnie” component I make, they’ll all have a definition of Me and Bonnie #1. This is the name all copies of this component will share. What we’ll do is name the individual shapes, then group them by shape type, then group all of them into a group called “Shapes.” You can rename all of these groups so that you know what’s contained in them, and get to them really quickly without having to do a ton of clicking.Ĭomponents will show up just a bit differently – they’ll have brackets around the component definition. This makes it really easy to get to nested objects, and also allows you to keep a really compact view.įor this example, lets create a couple more types of shapes – some cones and cylinders. In addition to showing individual objects, the outliner will also show nested objects, meaning groups inside of groups – if I create a copy of this box, then right click and group it, you’ll notice that you get a new group within the outliner that can be expanded and minimized. Note that you can use the outliner to quickly select different shapes in your model – when you click on an object in the outliner, it also shows up in the entity info, where you can then edit it. You can rename an object in the outliner by right clicking on it and selecting “rename,” or by going up into the entity info for your object and renaming it there. If you create a component, it contains a set of brackets and may have an instance name associated with it, but we can talk about this more in a bit. Note that a group will show up with a single box next to it and no brackets. As you can see, my default model, which is a component, shows up with its name in the outliner.Īnother example – if I create a box in SketchUp, then select it and make it a group, you’ll notice that it now shows up in the outliner. The way it works is simple – whenever you create a group or component within your SketchUp model, it shows up in the outliner. Product Links in the description are typically affiliate links that let you help support the channel at no extra cost. MY CURRENT FAVORITE SKETCHUP PLUGINS AND EXTENSIONSĭisclaimers: all opinions are my own, sponsors are acknowledged. This SketchUp tip WILL save you time when working in SketchUp! In this video, we talk about the benefits of using the outliner tool in SketchUp to save time and stay organized.