Importing and editing strokes drawn on paper
Here are the steps for importing and editing the strokes drawn on a piece of paper. You need a graphics editing program to handle these chores that lets you organize your work in separate layers. The steps below explain by using Photoshop as an example, but you could use Adobe Fireworks, Corel Paint Shop Pro, or a free program like the GIMP www.gimp.org or Paint.NET http paint.net . If you used a graphics tablet to draw strokes, you need to do only the editing part of these steps 1. Scan the...
Changing Scenes
Why do I see a warning box when I create a new scene Occasionally when you create a scene, an ominous warning pops up, demanding attention before you can go on Figure 12-3 . Here's what's going on SketchUp keeps track of the Styles you're using. When you choose a style and then make changes to the style, SketchUp takes note. The change could be something like turning on shadows or hiding guides. When you create a scene, SketchUp remembers the style used in the scene. However, if you made...
Modifying Styles Using the Mix Tab
The Mix tab gives you another way to make changes to your styles. The way it works is unique and kind of clever. When you click the Mix tab, you see the settings shown in Figure 6-37. You're forgiven if you haven't got a clue about what you should do next. At the top of the Mix tab you see five sections labeled Edge Settings, Face Settings, Background Settings, Watermark Settings, and Modeling Settings. SketchUp calls these sections wells. In the bottom of the window, you see a selection pane...
Printing from Windows
After you have your view arranged properly, follow these steps to print from Windows The Print Setup window Figure 13-11 appears. 2. Adjust the Print settings to match your job. Then click OK. Windows remembers your printer's usual settings, so you usually don't need to change the choice of printer and paper size. However, you may want to double-check the Orientation options, since SketchUp images usually use Landscape orientation, and most other documents use Portrait. When you click OK, the...
Playing the Scenes Animation
When you're working in SketchUp, it's great to be able to click a scene to jump from one predesigned view to another. When you're making a presentation, you may prefer to have SketchUp automatically show one view and then move to the next. That's a cinch just choose View Animation Play. An even quicker way to play the animation is to right-click any of the scene tabs and then to choose Play from the shortcut menu. You can choose which scenes are included or excluded from the animation, as...
Working in the Styles Window
With colors and textures applied to your model, you can begin to see the differences between the face styles. The top image shows the Shaded face style. You see the base colors but no textures. The bottom image is the Shaded With Textures view. With colors and textures applied to your model, you can begin to see the differences between the face styles. The top image shows the Shaded face style. You see the base colors but no textures. The bottom image is the Shaded With Textures view. ft O O...
Creating a Dynamic Component SketchUp Pro Only
In Chapter 5 you saw how components give you a great way to create multiple instances of a single object like windows for a building or fence boards. If that's not enough SketchUp magic for you, you can use dynamic components, which let anyone using SketchUp change their properties. For example, you can change the dimensions of the window or change the color of those fence boards. In this section you'll learn how to create your own dynamic components. The only caveat is, you have to have...
Speeding Up Construction with Arrays
Once you create a component, it's easy to add a copy of it to your model. Open the Components window Window Components , and then click the In Model button it looks like a house . In Model shows the components that are in your document. In the Outliner window, two things distinguish components from groups. The name of a component appears in brackets, and the icon for a component consists of four small squares. In the Outliner window, two things distinguish components from groups. The name of a...
Walking the Camera
Like other SketchUp tools, the Walk tool helps you do a very specific task. You use the Walk tool to move around your SketchUp model in a way that mimics a person walking from one place to another 1. In modern_house_scenes_begin.skp, move to a camera view where you can see the front stairs. For this exercise, you can use a fresh copy of the file, or you can use the version you modified during the previous exercises in this chapter. After you choose Camera Field of View, type a value in degrees...
Tape Measure
Activates the Tape Measure tool, which is used both for measuring distances and for setting guides in your modeling window page 281 . To measure, click a point, move the cursor, and then click a second point. The distance appears in the Measurements toolbar. To create a guide, click an edge or face in the modeling window, move the cursor to a new location, and click again. A guide appears as a dashed line in the modeling window. Use Ctrl Option to toggle Guide mode on and off. Erase individual...
Making and Placing Stair Treads
Your landing and stair stringers are in place, just waiting for the last element the stair treads. Measure your stringer to determine the run, the distance each step covers horizontally. For the model in the figures, the distance is 10 inches. The treads are going to be an inch wider, and their exposed edge will be rounded over. Because you need 11 identical treads, it makes sense to create a single component. 1. With the Rectangle R tool, begin to draw a rectangle on the ground next to the...
Organizing Styles
If you've already used the Components window, the Styles window probably feels a little familiar. At the top, the Styles window shows a preview and two text boxes Name and Description. You're free to change the name or description just by typing in the boxes. You use the three buttons to the right of the preview area to manage your style collections At the top, the Display the secondary selection pane button opens a new pane at the bottom of the Styles window that displays and lets you select...
Moving Entities to a New Layer
The main reason for creating a layer is to show and hide several entities at the same time. For example, you may have a house model with lots of furniture components inside. The furniture looks great in your house, but it really slows things down when you work on your model. Even with today's fast computers, it takes quite a bit of graphics horsepower to render all those detailed components. So if you put all your furniture components on a layer named Furniture, you can hide all your furniture
Editing Strokes
No matter how you draw the sample strokes, you need to edit them in a graphics program before they're ready for Style Builder. If you draw strokes using a graphics tablet, they may need only a little editing. If you use the draw-on-paper method, you need a couple of extra steps, as described in this section. First of all, you need to scan the page with strokes into your computer. Once you have your strokes open in your graphics program, you need to open the strokes template and transfer your...
Starting Off in Two Dimensions
Every SketchUp model begins with drawing lines and shapes in two dimensions and that's the focus of this chapter. After you create 2-D shapes, you use the Push Pull tool to turn them into 3-D objects, as you'll see in the next chapter. The better you understand all the nuances of drawing lines and creating surfaces in two dimensions, the more success you'll have creating 3-D models. If you've used other 2-D graphics programs like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, you may be tempted to skip this...
Turning Shadows On and Off for Individual Entities
If you really want to fine-tune the way your SketchUp model displays shadows, you can decide whether individual entities cast shadows or display shadows. Since an entity in SketchUp can be a single edge or face, or a complex group or component, you have tremendous power over the shadow casting and receiving in your model. Initially all faces and edges are set to cast and receive shadows however, edges only cast shadows if you turn on the From Edges option page 393 . Here are the steps to change...
Building a Bench Your First SketchUp Model
At first glance SketchUp doesn't look much different from other programs you use to work with photographs, drawings, or even words. You have menus, toolbars, and a large work area. The difference, of course, is that SketchUp's work area is a window into a three-dimensional world where you can build just about anything. It can be as big as the Empire State building or as small as an iPod. By using SketchUp you can design your new beach house inside and out, and build all the furniture for each...
Google SketchUp Help Group
The Google SketchUp Help Group is an online forum where you can post questions and get answers from other experienced SketchUp users. To visit the group, go to After you join the group, you'll find answers to frequently asked questions and find forums devoted to SketchUp issues and techniques Figure A-5 . The SketchUp Help Group is the official community for SketchUp and SketchUp Pro. You can join the group for free, and participate in the online discussions.
Choosing Face Settings for a Style
Earlier in this chapter, you saw how much face styles change the look of your model. When you edit or create a new style, you specify which face style is used. Click the Face Settings button shown in Figure 6-30 , and you see the face settings Figure 6-32 . You have a choice of all the face styles described on page 193. They include Wireframe, Hidden Line, Shaded, Shaded With Textures, Monochrome, and X-ray. X-ray is a toggle and can be used in combination with the other face styles. In...
Moving Objects
It's highly unlikely that you'll draw everything exactly where you want it. Instead, you'll probably move objects around all the time. The Move tool looks like a cross with arrowheads on each tip. You use the click-move-click method to move SketchUp objects, and more often than not, you want to move them with precision. For example, suppose you want to place a door at a specific location in a wall. First you click the corner of the door then you move the mouse to the wall and find exactly where...
Clearing Up Circular Endpoint Confusion
The endpoints on circles and cylinders can be a little confusing because circles have two types of endpoints. SketchUp makes circles by creating 24 line segments. Endpoints are everywhere these segments meet. Four of these endpoints are special, because when you move them, you change the radius of the circle. You could call them controlling endpoints. Unfortunately SketchUp tooltips simply call them endpoints, so it can be tough to distinguish one endpoint from the other. One easy way to see if...
Using the Position Camera Tool
If you're a photographer, the ideas behind the Position Camera tool are pretty easy to grasp. Imagine you've got a camera on a tripod. First you click to place the tripod at a certain position in your model. If you don't make any changes to the camera height, your view is 5 feet, 6 inches above the surface you clicked. That's a pretty good height to get a person's eye view. If you want a bird's eye view of the scene, you may want to type in 24' and press Enter. You need to enter the new height...
Turning a Triangle into a Rectangle
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, you can use the Line tool pencil to modify existing shapes. For example, with the help of inference lines, you can use the Line tool to turn your triangle into a perfect rectangle. 1. With the Line tool pencil , click your triangle's upper-left endpoint. A green dot appears on the endpoint, signaling that it's an endpoint for the new line you're drawing. 2. Move the cursor along the green axis vertically until you see the red inference line coming from the...
Editing and Modifying a Group
So groups are great for organizing the edges and faces of an object. Once they're grouped, you can select and move them easily. But what if you want to make changes or additions to a group You already did a little group editing in the previous exercise, when you double-clicked on the Planter group and pulled the rectangle up into a 3-D box. However, you're not limited to modifying what's already in a group you can add a new planter to the Planter group as shown in these steps 1. With the Select...
Using Dynamic Components
When you were browsing around in the Components window, you may have noticed lots of components. One of the great things about SketchUp components is that you don't have to create them all yourself. Need a sofa, a Doric column, or a 1972 Ferrari You can find just about anything under the sun using the Components window's Search box Figure 5-29 . SketchUp searches Google's 3D Warehouse, which is filled with components developed by artists like you and shared under the terms listed at With...
What You Can Do with SketchUp
As the name implies, SketchUp lets you create 3-D artwork quickly. SketchUp does a few things, and it does them very well. Here's a short list of the jobs SketchUp does well Create models of buildings, furniture, and other everyday objects. Design models with interior and exterior details, like houses with individual rooms. Quickly design special architectural elements, like pitched or complex roofs. Create reusable parts that you can use in other models. Easily add colors and textures. Create...
Exporting D Images 1
Think of the 2-D images that SketchUp exports as snapshots of your model, using the modeling window as the camera. Accordingly arrange everything in the image just as you want it, before you take the shot. If you want shadows, make sure you've got Display Shadows turned on in the Shadows window Windows Shadows . If you don't want the reference guides you used to build the model to appear in the image, make sure you turn them off by choosing View Guides to remove the checkmark . Once your model...
Printing from a Mac
The Page Setup panel drops down from the top of the window. 2. On the Page Setup panel, choose the options you want to use. Then click OK. Choose your paper size and your page orientation, as shown in Figure 13-13. Usually it's fine to leave the Format for box set to Any Printer. If you're using a special plotter, you can choose that as an option in the drop-down menu. O Use the basic setup option that you want to A panel appears where you can size the image and set the scale Figure 13-14 ....
Walk On
The modern house model is a good place to experiment with the Walkthrough tools and creating animations. If the rooms are too barren and indistinguishable from each other, go to the 3D Warehouse, and hunt down some furniture and appliances. Practice moving from room to room and creating animations with smooth transitions. In this Walkthrough exercise, you start off by walking up the stairs, then through the door and into the house. It takes a little practice to get used to the Walk and Look...
Preselecting the Path for the Follow Me Tool
You can use a faster way to create the perfect, hipped roof. When you move the Follow Me cursor over the edge of the building, you're showing SketchUp the path you want to follow. What if you show SketchUp the path before you apply the Follow Me tool Here's how it works 1. Press Ctrl Z or C-Z until you're back to the point before you used Follow Me. Your model should look like Figure 8-7. 2. With the Select space bar tool, Ctrl-click Option-click the edges all the way around the top of the...
Moving a Point
Moving a single point is a special case. You can't preselect a point with the Select tool. If you try, you end up selecting an entire edge. You can select it only with the Move tool. Click the center of the Move tool on the point you want to select, move it, and then click again to set the new point. Because you can use just the Move tool to select a point, you can move only a single point at a time see Figure 2-21 . Moving a single point changes the shape of the adjacent edges and faces. You...
Using the Make Unique Command
With the help of components and arrays, the front yard's fence is beginning to take shape. The fence boards look like fence board, but they're kind of floating in midair, not attached to anything. In the real world, fences have posts. These thicker pieces of lumber support the rest of the structure. You can turn one of your pickets into a fence post, but before you do that, you need to let SketchUp know that you only want to make changes to one fence board. You do that by using the Make Unique...
Editing a Group
When you click a group, you select the entire group. If you want to make changes to the edges and faces inside of a grouped object, you have to open it in edit mode. As usual in SketchUp, you have more than one way to get to the same place Right-click Edit Group Control-click Edit Group . Use the Select space bar tool to select the group, and then right-click it in the modeling window. As an alternative, you can right-click the name of the group in the Outliner window. Double-click the group....
Adjusting the Grid
Measurements are important in SketchUp whether you create a model from scratch or from a photo. When you type 20' in the Measurements toolbar, you want SketchUp to respond accurately. So when you're creating a model from a photograph and Photo Match is setting up the camera view, how do you set the scale for measurement You do that by adjusting the grid that's superimposed over the photo to match something of known height. In addition to the thicker axis lines, you see lighter, dotted grid...
Esc vsUndo
Remember page 44 that the Esc key cancels a current You clicked to create your starting point for your line and action, so if you're in the midst of drawing a line with the now choose the Undo command. SketchUp deletes your rubber band on the tip of the Line tool, pressing Esc stops rectangle, because that was the last completed action. On that action. The Undo command Ctrl Z on a PC C-Zona the other hand, if you press Esc in the same situation, Mac undoes the last action that you completed. So...
Exporting from SketchUp Pro
One of the major differences between the 499 version of SketchUp Pro and the free standard version of SketchUp is the number of file formats that the Pro version exports. Table 13-3 shows the complete list. The most significant difference is that SketchUp Pro exports models that you can open in AutoCAD. You can also export models that can be used in programs such as 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, and other 3-D modeling tools. The steps for exporting 3-D models from SketchUp Pro are fairly simple 1....
Entering the Third Dimension
In most graphics programs like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop you move only in two dimensions up down and left right. It's like looking at a flat sheet of paper through a window. You move the window up down or left right to see other parts of the paper. Even if you zoom in or zoom out, the details on the paper merely get larger or smaller, while the relative positions of drawings on the paper remain the same. In 3-D programs like SketchUp, you have another dimension, which you can think of as...
Loading with the Eyedropper Windows
Sometimes when you're applying colors with the Paint Bucket B , you want to load the bucket with a new color or texture. Sure, you can go back to the Colors window and hunt down the color you need. However, if the color is already applied to one of the faces in the model, you have a quick way to fill the Bucket with that color. Press Alt, and the bucket cursor changes to an eyedropper, as shown in Figure 6-10. Click the eyedropper on the face with the color or material you want to copy. Release...
Creating D Details from a Texture Image
The photo creates a fine map of the top of the building when you look straight down from the sky that's the Google satellite view. It doesn't do much for the model when viewed from the ground level. So, this is another case where it makes sense to use the image as a guide to model three-dimensional elements. Using the pushpins, you identify the corners of the roof in the aerial image and then pin those corners to the corners of your model. Using the pushpins, you identify the corners of the...
Bench Starting Your First Model
If you're building a bench in the real world, you need to go to the lumberyard and buy some lumber. For this project, building a bench in SketchUp, you're going to mill up your own lumber. You'll create the four boards you need for your bench, making sure that their dimensions are just right. No sawdust or wasted short ends in SketchUp Then you'll fit the pieces together. Note The exercises in the remainder of this chapter focus on building a simple bench. If you'd like to jump ahead to see the...
Adding to Your Scene
If you've followed the steps up to this point, you have one snazzy-looking bench in your SketchUp world, but things around it look a little dull. You can fix that in a hurry by borrowing some components from the Components window Windows Components . Choose the Select tab, and then choose Landscape from the dropdown menu. Inside you find folders with names like Built Constructions or Exterior Furniture. Browse through the folders and drag out some additions to go along with your bench. You can...
Exporting D Images
The standard SketchUp program only exports one type of 3-D model the .kmz files used in Google Earth. For the formats exported by SketchUp Pro, see page 442. The process for exporting .kmz files is simple 1. Choose File Export. A window appears. 2. From the Export type drop-down menu, choose Google Earth .kmz . This option sets the file format for export. 3. Type a file name for the model in the File name box Save as for Macs . You can navigate to any folder where you want to save the file,...
Initial Landscaping Front Walk and Driveway
You'll do some more extensive landscaping in the next chapter, but for now you can give your house a plot of earth and a couple of basic paths for cars and people. These basic features are created using the Rectangle and Line tools. You want to draw these elements at the ground level, so it's best to change to the top view before you begin. Once you've drawn the outline of the yard at ground level, the other shapes and paths will align to that surface. This gives you a bird's eye view of your...
Downloading SketchUp Documents
SketchUp is delivered to your computer from Google's website, so it comes as no surprise that you don't get a nice printed book to go along with the program. Few software companies provide printed manuals nowadays no matter how they deliver the application. Like most other companies, SketchUp offers documentation in a PDF file. You can view PDF documents with Adobe Reader or Preview on the Mac . At this writing, the SketchUp documents are serviceable but certainly not great. They're organized...
Importing a Photo for Photo Match
After you've captured the perfect photo, according to the process described on page 351, you want to import the photo into SketchUp. In this example, you import a photo of the Villa Savoye, shown in Figure 10-1, so that it can be used with Photo Match. You can download a copy of the photo, named villa_savoye_ front.jpg, from http missingmanuals.com cds. 1. Open a new SketchUp document by using the Architectural Design - Feet and Inches template. You can hide or remove Sang, the SketchUp model,...
Presenting from LayOut
When you want to deliver a personal presentation, you can use LayOut pages as if they were PowerPoint slides. The features of LayOut's presentation mode are simple but impressive. Unlike with your standard 2-D PowerPoint presentation, you can show off your 3-D models in LayOut by panning and orbiting. You can even run SketchUp animations within LayOut pages. You'll find LayOut presentations work for many situations. 1. Click the Presentation button or choose View Start Presentation. All the...
Using the Offset Tool
The world is full of symmetry both natural and human made. This fact was not lost on SketchUp's software engineers they created the handy Offset tool so you can easily copy and use the existing shapes and edges in your drawing. The Offset tool is in the toolbar, near the Move and Push Pull tools, or you can choose Tools Offset. For some tips and details about using the Offset tool, see the box on the next page. In this next exercise, you'll trim out the window and doors of your house model....
Uploading a Model to the D Warehouse
Once your document file is all cleaned up and saved, you can upload it to the 3D Warehouse where other SketchUp artists can use and admire it. To upload, edit, or remove a component to the 3D Warehouse, you need to log in by clicking the G button in the lower-right corner. Here are the steps for uploading a model to the 3D Warehouse 1. With your model open in SketchUp, choose File 3D Warehouse Share Model. If you haven't purged your model completely of components, materials, and styles, you may...
Exporting Animations
After you've created a perfect animation using the techniques described in Chapter 12, you can export the result as a video file. If you're making an important presentation, you may find it easier to talk while a video is playing than while controlling a SketchUp walkthrough. Fortunately the steps for exporting SketchUp animation are simple. Windows computers create Video for Windows .avi files, and Macs create QuickTime .mov files. The biggest decision is figuring out the optimum video format...
Designing Edge Styles in Style Builder SketchUp Pro
As described in Chapter 6, a style tells SketchUp how to draw edges, how to shade faces, and how to display color in the imaginary ground and sky planes. In the free version of SketchUp, you can choose from dozens of predesigned styles that come with the program, and you can modify styles by mixing and matching these elements. You can even load styles created by other SketchUp designers. A style's edges especially when they look hand-sketched page 234 add some of the most distinctive effects....