![surpac block model display elevations surpac block model display elevations](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3km5FrWuZgA/Wqt3frt0ZJI/AAAAAAAACdY/H1ErsLUHFLIyLGqLNhN1wqnaebGiJ0jTACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/bm2.jpg)
Probably easiest just to try it to get the gist. And if you directly open other nested geometry under another top-level ancestor while the option is active (e.g. If you back out to the top level without unhiding (by clicking, Esc key, etc.), it will unhide all top level containers for you. It leaves everything on hidden layers alone. If you run it deep inside a hierarchy, it will hide every container at the top level that is not a direct ancestor of the current group or component. I personally assign it to Control-Shift-H. You’ll see a new menu item in Extensions.
![surpac block model display elevations surpac block model display elevations](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OZp48BgbxE4/maxresdefault.jpg)
Just drop it in your Sketchup’s plugin folder. So I wrote the attached plugin which does just this. If I was say actively editing Group 5, I could toggle Component 1, Group 6, and Group 7 to hidden, leaving Component 3 visible. not just leaving parents visible, but grandparents and so on up to the root of the tree. What I really wanted was similar to what you ask for: the ability to hide the rest of the model except everything up to the top level of this opened and active group or component. I don’t really think about layers for handling this, since I use them more to group conceptual entities independent of their nesting (e.g. I would often rely on x-ray vision to “peer through” the unrelated junk to find reference geometry, but that can be challenging. But sometimes there is just too much other junk in the way in the complete model. I use Shift-H as a shortcut for Hide Rest of Model, which is usually very convenient (even in the midst of drawing geometry).