Groups and components
A large frame is easier to handle in pieces. In Fitting you can put members in groups, and turn an assembly you use more than once into a component.
Groups
Section titled “Groups”- Select the members, in the model or in the outliner.
- Press ⌘ G, or right-click and choose Group selection.
A click on any member of a group now selects the whole group, and a drag moves it as one. The outliner shows the group as a folder with its members inside, and a dot for the worst problem among them.
To work inside a group, double-click it, or select it and press Enter. The rest of the model fades and cannot be clicked. What you draw or paste now belongs to the group. Press Esc with nothing selected, or click empty space twice, to close it again. Groups can hold other groups.
| Do this | How |
|---|---|
| Rename a group | Double-click its name in the outliner, or type in the panel on the right. |
| Hide a group on this device | The eye in its outliner row. Show all brings everything back. |
| Stop clicks in the model reaching it | The lock in its outliner row. |
| Dissolve a group | ⌘ Shift G. Its members stay where they are. |
The Item on parts
Section titled “The Item on parts”A group can set the Item of every part in it: the name the cutting list, the labels and the machine files use for the assembly. Switch Item on parts on in the group’s panel and type the label, for example Wall A. When you group members that already share an Item, the group keeps that Item, so grouping never renames a part by itself.
Change the Item on one part afterwards and that part keeps it, until you change the group’s Item again.
Work on part of the model
Section titled “Work on part of the model”| Do this | How |
|---|---|
| Show only the selection | Press /. Press it again to show everything. |
| Hide the selection | Right-click, Hide selection. |
| Look at a group straight on | Select it and choose View straight. The pane turns to face the group’s own plane, so a leaning truss is seen flat and square. New members are drawn in that plane, and the grid, the X, Y and Z locks and typed lengths follow the group: Y runs up the truss, not straight up. Pick another view to go back to the world’s axes. |
Hiding and isolating only change what you see. The joints are still worked out with the whole model.
Components
Section titled “Components”A component is an assembly you place more than once, such as a truss or a window frame. Every copy is the same design: change one and the others change with it.
- Select the members, or a group.
- Press ⌘ ⌥ K, or right-click and choose Make component.
- Choose Place another in the panel on the right to add a copy beside it. ⌘ C and ⌘ V, ⌘ D and Alt-drag make copies too.
To change the design, double-click any copy and edit it. Every other copy follows as you go, and one undo takes the whole change back. The outliner lists your components at the bottom, with how many copies each has.
Components can sit inside components. Select a whole copy together with other members, a pair of posts with the beam over them, and choose Make component: the posts stay a component of their own inside the new one, and every copy of the new component carries them. Open a copy of the posts and edit them, and every set of posts follows, also the ones inside other copies. A copy inside another is placed by that one, so you move, mirror or explode the outer copy, not the inner one.
Mirror in the panel turns a copy into its mirror image where it stands: a left and a right truss from one design. A mirrored copy has mirror-image parts, so its parts are listed apart from the others. Machining that came in with an imported model is mirrored too. Anything that cannot be mirrored exactly is left off the mirrored part and named on it, so you can add it by hand.
Joints at the edges
Section titled “Joints at the edges”Where a copy meets something that is not part of it, you choose what happens to its ends:
- Fit to what they meet cuts those ends against the rest of the model, like any other member. The copy’s parts can then differ from the component’s. The panel says how many do.
- Keep as designed leaves those ends as the component cuts them, so the parts are the same in every copy. A member of the rest of the model that crosses the copy is not lapped into it either: the two stay whole, and the overlap is named on both parts so you can see it.
Each end that meets the model can also be set on its own, in the list under Ends that meet the model.
When a copy was changed some other way
Section titled “When a copy was changed some other way”A copy edited without opening it, for example in an older version of the app or by an assistant, is marked Changed here, not in the component. Nothing is overwritten. Choose Apply to component to make the change part of the design, Reset to component to undo it, or Make unique to give this copy a design of its own. Explode into a group turns a copy back into a plain group.
Disconnect members
Section titled “Disconnect members”To take members out of their joints, select them and choose Disconnect from the rest, in the right-click menu or in the Connections section of the panel. The joints among the selected members stay; their joints with everything else go, and stay gone when you move them. Disconnect each from each other cuts the joints among them too. Reconnect puts the joints back.
Cut and paste
Section titled “Cut and paste”⌘ X cuts the selection, and ⌘ V pastes it where it was cut from. Groups and component copies come along, into another project too.
Identical parts in the cutting list
Section titled “Identical parts in the cutting list”Every part has its own row by default. Tick Combine identical parts above the parts list, or on the Export page, to list identical parts on one row with their numbers and the total quantity. This applies to the cutting list, the CSV and the specification. Machine files and labels keep one entry per part.