Hierarchies in the Outliner
With the Outliner in SketchUp, you can view a model's groups, components, and section planes in a hierarchical tree. The Outliner panel makes it easy to:
Navigate around and identify objects in large models.
Name objects and section planes.
Find components or section planes.
Restructure the model hierarchy.
Control the visibility of all objects.
Using the Outliner Panel
To open the Outliner panel, select Window > Default Tray > Outliner.
Each object in the outliner represents an entity in your model. Selecting an entity in your model also selects that listing in the Outliner, and vice versa.
After selecting the listing of the entity you want to find, you can context-click the entry in the Outliner and select Zoom to Selection. SketchUp’s camera will go to that entity’s location. Selecting a non-visible object displays a hatched outline of that object in your model.
Searching and Organizing
If you need to find a specific entity, use the search filter. At the top of the Outliner, you can type a term to filter what entities appear in the Outliner. You can organize the entities listed in the Outliner using the following options:
If a model's object hierarchy needs to be adjusted, you can click and drag an item to a new position in the Outliner.
- When an entity in the Outliner contains nested elements, an arrow appears next to that entity. Clicking that arrow expands that entity’s entry to show its nested elements. To expand all entries with nested elements, click Details (
) > Expand All. You can click Details () > Collapse All to hide all nested elements in the hierarchy. To sort entries, use the Sort By field. You can sort by:
Tags – Organizes entries by how they are tagged in the model.
Hierarchy – The default sort method, organizing by name and when each object was created.
Renaming Entities
You can rename any object in a model’s hierarchy. Giving entities meaningful names can help you find, select, and edit those entities.
To rename a group, follow these steps:
Context-click or triple-click the group name in the Outliner.
Select Rename.
Type a name.
Press Enter.
To rename a component, you will need to edit that component’s definition. When you rename the component definition, you change the name of every component instance in your model. For more information, see Editing Components.
To rename a section plane or its associated symbol, follow these steps,
Context-click the section plane.
Select Rename Section Plane or Rename Symbol.
Type your desired name for the plane or symbol.
Press Enter.
For details about section planes, see Creating and Using Section Planes.
Controlling Visibility
The Outliner can be a helpful way to hide or show elements in your model as you work on it. To hide an entity in the Outliner, click the visibility icon (icon) next to an entity's listing. The entity and everything it contains becomes hidden. Click the icon again to unhide the entity.
Identifying Entity Status
The Outliner uses the following icons and text to identify objects or section planes and their status:
Status | Group | Component | Section Plane |
Closed |  |  |  |
Open |  |  |  |
Locked |  |  |  |
Hidden |  | | |
Visible |  | | |
Inactive | N/A | N/A | |