Dynamic, SketchUp

Lesson 05: How to make Dynamic Resizable Rotatable Doors in Sketchup

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Dynamic Resizable Rotatable Door With Handle
19
Aug

Doors appear constantly in interior architecture, so building a Dynamic Component door pays off fast: you change its size, swing it open, and punch the opening into the wall in a few clicks. This lesson walks you through a door with these more advanced behaviors. Note for 2026: Dynamic Components are still fully supported (SketchUp Desktop 2026 even shipped a security fix for them in 2026.1.3), but authoring/editing a Dynamic Component now requires a SketchUp Pro/Studio subscription — the free web tier can interact with a DC but cannot build the formulas shown below.

Dynamic Resizable Rotatable Door With Handle
Dynamic Resizable Rotatable Door With Handle

Video Lesson:

Download Example Models:

Dynamic-Resizable-Rotatable-Door.skp

Lesson objectives:

  • Create the go of Dynamic Sketchup
  • The door is open.
  • The door changes quickly to size.
  • Perforated doors available to the wall
  • Replaced the door model, the handle pattern.

Steps to take.

  • Create dynamic window frames
  • Create Dynamic Door
  • Create Component Parent Include frame and door.
  • Put the handle in.

Tips:

  • Handles usually do not have a standard size, so insert them last to avoid affecting the overall size; that also lets you swap the handle easily (Component Options > “Replace Selection with Component” / the Swap attribute).
  • For the swing-open behavior, use RotZ on the door leaf — but rotation always pivots around that subcomponent’s own axis origin, not its center. If the door spins around its middle instead of the hinge, the fix is to move the door’s component axes onto the hinge edge (Context menu > Change Axes), then re-make the DC. This single step is what trips up almost every door DC.
  • Native Cut Opening only cuts ONE face / a single gluing plane. It works on a single wall face but will not punch through a thick or double-faced (cavity) wall — no matter how many cutting sub-components you nest. For those walls use a wall-cutting extension (FlexTools WallCutter or Double-Cut) instead of expecting the DC to do it.
  • Enable Cut Opening on the same component whose face sits flat against the wall, and keep the parent’s size driven by LenX/LenZ so resizing the door also resizes the cut.
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