OpenStudio Selecting Multiple Surfaces in SketchUp

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The SketchUp interface doesn't allow users to select objects from more than one group at the same time; it is only possible through using a SketchUp plugin. The surface search would for example allow you to select all east facing exterior walls, or all exterior roof surfaces. You could then use the move tool to move them.

The surface search tool was made primarily as a tool to find specific surfaces, and also create a multi-surface selection for use in user scripts. It is fine to use that selection for manual manipulation, but you do need to be careful. If some parent groups for selected surfaces have different origins, rotations, or scales you will have unexpected results. The movement is relative to the local origin vs. the global origin. As an example if one group is rotated 90 degrees from another, then a movement in one direction for other groups will be in a different direction for the rotated group.

If you didn't want to make your own plugin to do this, and but had specific OpenStudio surfaces you wanted selected, you could name them in such a way that they have a common string not found in other surfaces. But if you can use attributes such as rotation, construction, boundary condition, etc. then you can just use Surface search as intended.