Make a barely visible frame that matches my 3D print frame?

[lordnimon]

I use Sketchup Make 2017 for 3D printing, and I would like to create a rectangular frame that represents the print volume (or at least the base) of my printer.

The problem is that I want this frame to be barely visible, and not something that interacts with my model. I tried putting the frame into its own layer:

But that didn't actually change anything. I can hide the layer, but that doesn't do me much good.

So I was wondering if there's some other way to do what I want. I tried creating guides, but I could figure out how to make sure that the guides are only line segments rather than infinitely-long lines. And even then, my model would interact with the guide.

[Dave R]

The problem is that I want this frame to be barely visible ...

You can edit the style and set the Edge color to By Material and set Layers to display by color. Edit the color of the layer you give to the group to light gray or some other light color.

... and not something that interacts with my model.

In order to prevent the frame geometry interacting with your model you have to make a group or component to contain that geometry. Then give the layer to the group or component.

I tried putting the frame into its own layer But that didn't actually change anything.

You don't put anything "into" a layer in SketchUp. The layer is given to the object. All Edges and faces in your model should have Layer 0 assigned to them. Only groups and components should begive layers.

[jim4366]

If you want to try going with guides route, one easy way of making a fixed length guide is to start on the origin, then pull out on green and make it the length of your build plate. Now you easily see the cpoint but the tail is hard to see when it's on axis, so just move the guide off axis a bit for visibility. Now array 3 more copies. But since you can't inference to the tails, easier to array in a 2 x 2 grid that is sized to your build plate. Anyway, get the cpoints in place first any way you can, then rotate the tails in place later, just my opinion, there would be 50 ways of doing this. Then make them a group and move the corner back to the origin. Just a thought.