Five Issues Pushing Windows Through Walls - Skill Builder 

Hi Aaron, I am a new user and I watch this video every few weeks. Push/pull is one of the things that makes Sketchup magical so I'm not surprised that it can get tricky every now and then. Thanks for your videos, I love them.

I remember another one you mentioned in a video that happens when you push pull a face but it also doesn’t creat a hole and you need to press the option key to create a new face and solve it. That saved me a lot of times. Thanks a lot by the way

Thanks Aaron, probably have hit everyone of the five at one point or another in my career. Thanks for the refresh.

Thanks Arron, I should have looked at this years ago. I was forcing the non planar surface to accept the window opening by nudging non planar surfaces (N +Return then using directional arrow keys. Wowsa, its a real headache removed..

I'm so glad to have this help. I've been frustrated many MANY times with not being able to create an opening in a wall for a door or window. Aaron, where have you been all my life?! 🙃

Aaron must have heard the dull thumping that inspired him to do this video about punching holes in walls for windows, doors, etc. The thumping yesterday was no doubt caused by the banging of my head against my office wall as I tried one thing after another to solve this very problem. Thank you Aaron!

Thank you so much; this video helped me solve my issues and taught me a few new tricks. I love your videos, thanks a lot!

Now I'm finding wireframe useful for all sorts of operations in situations that are hard to view, such as scaling, moving, rotating, quick checking a bunch of measurements without changing camera position... I've been using Sketchup for 10 years. i don't know how I've managed to overlook this gem for so long.

Gee, I think all of those have happened to me. Luckily I’ve been able to sort them out as you showed. But this was a great lesson for those caught in what I call “SketchUp phenomenon “! Thanks Aaron, always a great demo!

Thank you. I have spent hours on this and ended up restarting my walls. Really useful

Wow - I've spent hours trying to figure out why I can't use this tool. Thank you so much for this youtube video - brilliant!

Very well explained & illustrated. Thanks!

So I just realized the reason why I can't create a whole out of the rectangle is because it is in group. Ghadd. THANK YOU!

Wow, I've had each and every one of these issues! Thank you, very informative.

OMG ! YOU JUST SAVED HOURS OF RESEARCH !! I'M CRYING ! IT WAS THE FIRST ISSUE THANK YOU THANK YOU !!

Legend of the SketchUp 👍👍💪.

Thank you! Plagued by failing skylight attempts. I now have diagnostic tools.

I've had most of these issues also. Thanks for explaining the fixes.

Thank you Aaron! Here in Italy all the walls have different depths 😅 I couldn’t understand what was I doing wrong! Your video saved me!

I loved to learn how the lines change color when you create a face! Very useful!!!

Nice - these tips are so helpful. Thanks.

Hi. How are you ? Thank you for all the efforts that you did in all your videos. They are so useful for beginners. You are a good generous teacher, you go slowly in order to help us to learn. Keep going.

thanks so much for the help! i’ve faced most of these issues before, i wish i came across to this earlier.

Thank you my man, my issue was the last solution you gave. So easy now thanks to you

Very helpful, had several of these in the past.

once again, you've saved the day showing me a simple stupid mistake I'm making and how to fix it!

I do have one more case I faced couple of months ago. Everything is perfect as wall dimensions is concerned height, width & thickness but some of the face edges are not exactly on axes. Sometimes even a fraction of millimeter could cause this issue to happen. I figured it out by setting the edges style to be by axes color. Then, I observed some edges are having a black color not any of the axes colors (red, green& blue) . To correct it, I redraw the deviated edge to match its relative axes.

Thank you!!!!!! These videos are so helpful.

you are a godsend!! thank you so so much for explaining it so clearly

thanks a lot, I encountered 3 of these 5 issues.

i knew this, however, I love to watch ur video.

Thank you so much I had a hard time with this but now got it 😭😭

Thx... number 5 was an issue in the past... now it is solved.

Great video! Thanks

Another one : If you have any line in the back surface it also wont cut through. So u have to make sure that ur back surface is also clean.

Aaron shows a box pushed out the back of the wall 2x in this video, but I was never able to get that to happen on my (non-square) wall. Then @Box on the forum helped me realize I could get that to happen by tapping the option key, at least on my Mac Air. According to the hint below when the push/pull tool is activated this toggles create new starting face

Wow. Sooooo helpful. Thank you.

Thanks, this will help me a lot

So helpful thank you!!

Great Videos, I've been clunking around with Sketchup for about six weeks now. I created a new way for you... I found one of my issues was the bottom did not have a surface, and some walls did not have either a top or bottom. I drawing my footprint using interior and exterior dimensions, some rooms as interior squares, then drawing wall thickness and adding the next room as a square. So I had a few walls that did not have six surfaces. It seems once I put the sixth surface on I was able to punch through. I was having a big issue with the group selection, I think I have a handle on that. The other was needing to redraw the lines to make certain they connected. Though they were connected. So probably a group related issue? I will keep practicing. I have so much to learn, I keep practicing hopefully in the not so distant future I can make a decent rendering... It's not like using a T-Square..........

Thanks Aaron!

Awesome. I had this issue last night, I bet this will solve it for me.

Thank you. very useful

Thank you! Rich

I get number five often enough. I haven't quite figured out why, but it has a lot to do with my camera position and the point I click to push/pull. Certain combinations make it hard to get a good click on the rear surface or edge, or move the face in the right direction. I've found the easiest way to complete the move is entering the distance in the measurements box. Failing that it's easiest to cancel/undo and get a better camera position, then start over.

this is a good one takes out the mystery

If the front or rear face of the wall is split by a smoothed line, it looks OK but push-pull does some strange stuff. It is relatively easy to correct as long as the split faces are still co-planar. You find this a lot if you have used Intersect with Model or Selection, as this process can add a LOT of hidden geometry. In this case CleanUp is very handy.

Oh man, those are really annoying, and I think that's one of the worst problems with Sketchup, firstly because when we are modeling we don't know if what we're building is wrong until we have to do something like that, and secondly because the snap doesn't work properly all the time, and you always have to get really close to be sure where you're snapping the point while you're building. Funny thing is that in 3D softwares like Maya, Cinema 4D, that doesn't happen, and it's being a while Sketchup has those issues. We spend more time trying to solve bugs than actually modeling.

Awesome wish i had seen this two days ago--

thank god for this!

Hi Aaron, hope you had a great Christmas. One that I would like to see fixed is creating a standalone window as a Component and defining it as "Cut hole" trying you place it into a wall, but it won't cut through a solid wall (2 faces) , , will only cut through the front face. From your video description, I thought you/Trimble had finally a fix for this issue 😟😞

Hello again. I've been playing around with push pull problems. It occurred to me to use wire frame view to get a better view. This is one for you, Aaron. I'll attempt to explain what I did. Play with it and see if it's useful, but I have managed to punch holes in things that I could not see in shaded view. My model is a building. I want a door in an interior wall. Camera position is outside the building. I switch to wireframe view. I see the wall clearly since there are no surfaces, and because there are no surfaces I can only select the wall by clicking on an edge. When I triple click on an edge the dotted surfaces appear. I draw my door opening on the wall face. I click P for Push/Pull and push the rectangle through the wall. I have been using x-ray view for this type of thing with so-so results. Wire frame makes it much easier.

I have one situation that happens to me fairly often. I paste an outline onto a surface and it doesn't recognize that it's on the plane. I have to fix it by using the line tool and re-drawing a tiny previously drawn section (no gap as your example) of the shape. It's like it forces a re-calculation that allows push-pull.

Ive had all of these problems!! Thanks for the tips. I use the intersect faces solution a lot but find that it generates hidden geometry which then screws up the surfaces onto which I want to place materials?

finally ! Thanks a lot 😊

Thank youuuuuuuuu❣❣

Thanks a lot for your help Aaron! Q: how is the best way to rotate objects and superimpose them on top of each other without much problem?

Your the BEST!

Gracias!

thank YOU OMG

All of these answers are interesting to read ... any chance of Seeing a short example when people post? I for one learn better by "Visual" instead of "Reading" Much appreciated.

Sixth issue I have been encountering is that when Soften Edges / soften coplanar is checked it can get difficult to push/pull the opening. Aaron, it would be my preference to have my drawing template NOT default to have soften edges/ smooth normals to 20.0 degrees, but for the life of me I can not see where I can set that so I can forget it.

спасибо!

I have hit all of them. I often use explode but never know if you should group again after.

Aaron, how about a bit more exploration of the "Intersect faces..." function (6:38)? Thank you!

Could you refresh the issue of when Push/Pull results in the message "P/P is limited to x dimension ..." or something to that effect? You have explained in the past that by holding down Ctrl or Option and creating a new face you can work around this situation, but I think a refresher on this "6th" condition might be helpful. PS: I and probably ALL of us have experienced EVERY one of these situations.

i wonder if is there an easier way to do multiple holes for windows, like creating a window component and when you put it on the wall it creates the hole by itself (?

I often get a situation where the rear face doesn’t get deleted i.e. the push/pull works, but leaves a face at the far side of the ope. Not a huge deal as you can just select the face and delete the faces afterwards, but a bit annoying when you have a lot of opes to cut... Any thoughts on why this happens?

I've created a skirting around a wall using a profile and follow me.(wall grouped and skirting grouped). I wanted to remove a section of the skirt to create a fireplace. I've followed the steps to push a rectangle through the wall(your video) but the shaped moulding at the top of the skirting remains. I have successfully pushed through the lower flat part of the skirt but if I try and push a larger rectangle the full height of the skirt it just doesn't work. I have smoothed the edges if this relevant. Any pointers? Thanks

I've had this problem so many times, I don't try to snap, I just click the P tool and start it moving in, then I type the thickness of the wall, hit enter, done.

thx

My major issue has got to be ensuring I'm on the correct face when I'm cutting space for a window - ie, I've downloaded and inserted my actual "window" (glass, frame, fiddly bits) and now I'm trying to put the hole in the wall... Half the time I end up making the hole bigger all around and then push/pulling it to snap to the edge of the window insert. Is there an easier way? Would that be a case to use the intersect geometry function?

Sometimes walls need to be non-rectangular or not straight. For #4 just create a punch block and subtract it from the wall.

Could they make a function that lights up the location of a gap in the broken geometry and so you don’t have to zoom in to look for it? Ie Re arch window example

Thanks very much new to sketchup could you help with a cavity wall Pushing through two walls Thanks

Hou about a wall with different layers (stucko, gispenboard, lumber, som internal finish...), all al are groups on them self. You draw the complete wall setup and then wanted to add windows?

nice

I tried all the solutions you recommended, but it did not work. Help!

How to install plugin for smooth surface push/pull

mashallah good

I love u

How are none of these working 😤😤

Hey I found your video while looking for a solution to my window issue. I can't tell if it's one of the ones you described but I tried all the solutions you mentioned as best I could. I recorded my screen while replicating the issue: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SpGc21U1vzU.html Any ideas?