Example Simple Dormer
The first example is a simple review of the basics of locking a direction. You will create a dormer from a rectangle drawn in a roof. With the help of direction locking, you'll position the dormer and place a copy in relation to other model elements existing windows . 1. Start with a model like the one in Figure 5-14. You can create your model from scratch, or download my Simple Dormer model from the 3D Warehouse. 2. Draw a rectangle in the roof. For the side of the dormer, start a line at the...
Other Uses Ipl
When you vary the Follow Me face, adjust the location of the Follow Me circle, or even change the Follow Me circle itself, you can make some wonderful models. Here are a few examples. When the face made of tangent arcs in Figure 2-58 is extruded around a circle, the result is the smooth vase in Figure 2-59. This vase is painted with translucent glass. The face with arcs sticking out shown in Figure 2-60 which has to be a single face produces the bumpy vase shown in Figure 2-61 when extruded...
Method Create a New Material
When you create a new texture, you bring a material into the Materials window without automatically using it in your model. This is a good method if you are loading a group of materials you plan to paint with later or plan to save as a collection. In Windows, click the Create Material icon shown in Figure 8-3 to create a new material. If a material is already active in the Materials window, the new material will be based on the active one, which is helpful for making a copy of a material Recipe...
Discussion Ufi
Say you have designed a building with 50 identical window components, and your client decides that another window would work better. The Reload option enables you to replace all of the original windows with new ones. Reloading is particularly useful for landscaping components, for example, when you want to switch one type of shrub for another. This technique is also helpful for solving a common problem in SketchUp Models with numerous, heavy components may run slowly when you orbit, pan, and so...
Discussion Shf
The Materials window called Colors on the Mac houses the folders of materials currently on your system. To access it, choose Tools Paint Bucket, or click the Paint Bucket icon, or choose Window Materials. Within the Materials window, you can find all colors and materials used in a particular model in the In Model folder the Colors In Model folder on the Mac . To open this folder, you can use the drop-down menu or click the house icon Figure 8-1 . Windows permits you to edit materials found in...
Jewelry Box Sketchup
In this example, you will round the top edge of a box that has rounded vertical corners. 1. Start with a box with rounded corners like the box in Figure 4-3. You can create your model from scratch, or download my Jewelry Box model from the 3D Warehouse. There are two ways to create a box like this. One method is to draw the basic rectangle in Top view, and draw arcs in each corner. When the arc preview is magenta, you know it is equidistant from the corner along both edges. Trim the corners to...
Example Truck with Photo Match
In this example, you will open the truck model used in Recipe 9.5's Example 2 Truck with Free-Pin Positioning, and save its image to your hard drive. That image will be used to model the truck in a new file. 1. Download my Truck model from the 3D Warehouse. It contains one image in the In Model folder of the Materials window. 2. Save the image to your hard drive as you did in step 2 of Example 1. 3. Import the truck image as a matched photo, and set the axes and origin see steps 3 and 4 of...
Example Hexagonal Table
This example uses the same Follow Me technique to make rounded corners. To prevent the rounded corner objects from breaking the rest of the table, you will use the grouping technique within Follow Me, which is described in Recipe 2.3. 1. Start with a hexagon-shaped box and place a point at the center right-click on the top hexagon edge and choose Point at Center . This point makes it easier to copy objects later. 2. Draw a rounding face on one vertical face Figure 4-24 . 3. Copy the rounding...
Example Coplanar Dormer
The dormer in this example is cut into an overhanging roof. The front face of the dormer will lie in the same plane as the side wall of the house. For this design, you need a constraint that locks two faces. 1. Start with a model like the one shown in Figure 5-23. You can reuse your model from Recipe 5.1, or you can download my Coplanar Dormer model from the 3D Warehouse. 2. The front face of the dormer will lie in the same plane as the side of the house. Activate Line don't click yet and hover...
Discussion Sod
SketchUp components can cut only one face. This is fine for the model shown in Figure 7-40, which consists of 2D, flat walls. When you import a window into a flat wall, the wall is automatically cut. The trouble starts when the walls have thickness, as in Figure 7-41. When you insert a window into the front face of a wall, it cuts only that face. The back face of the wall remains uncut. So all you can see through this window is the back face of the wall you cannot see inside the building. There...
Intersection Edges Cutting and Trimming
When you want to use objects to trim or cut other objects, you use the Intersect tool. This tool calculates where two or more objects intersect or overlap one another, and draws edges along these intersections. These intersection edges define the area or volume to cut. Along with the Follow Me tool, the Intersect tool was introduced back in version 5 to much fanfare. Prior to Intersect, users had to manually trace intersection edges. For example, if you needed to cut a roof to accommodate a...
Create a Material Collection in Windows
In Windows, a collection is a group of materials. A collection is basically a folder you can open it as you would any of the folders in the Materials window. First, gather in your model the materials you want to save as a collection. Then click the arrow icon indicated in Figure 8-15 and choose Save collection as from the pop-up menu. Browse to and select an existing folder or create a new one. In Figure 8-16, Veneers is the name of the collection and is listed as the current folder. If you...
Example Rope Coil
This example shows how to make a spiral, which can then be rotate-copied to make a rope coil. 1. Start in Front view and use the Polygon tool Draw Polygon to make a 12-sided polygon. Place the center at the origin. If your axes are not displayed, you can turn them on by choosing View Axes. 2. Activate Push Pull and pull the polygon out by a long distance. Then press Ctrl Option and pull it out again by a short distance, as shown in Figure 2-92. One of the longer segments will be used to start...
Example Bike Handlebar
In this example, you will create a curvy, 3D path that will be used to extrude a hexagon, resulting in a bike handlebar. 1. The first step is to make the reference geometry. Start with a simple box. Use Push Pull with the Ctrl Option key to pull out another, smaller box from the side, as in Figure 2-81. 2. Using Push Pull with Ctrl Option again, doubleclick the other side of the box to pull out an identi cal box Figure 2-82 . 4. Make these three boxes into a group select them all, right-click...
Example Peaked Dormer
The last dormer is a bit more complicated, because its main shape is peaked rather than a straight rectangle. This dormer will start directly above one of the existing windows. This example also uses the arrow keys, which provide another way to both find and lock the red, green, and blue directions. In this phase, you'll use constraints to draw the front face of the peaked dormer. 1. Start with a house like the one in Figure 5-34. The windows have frames that protrude slightly from the side...
Example Casserole Dish
This example also relies on a temporary face for the Follow Me face. Because the main object is round, however, you need to take advantage of hidden geometry in order to create temporary objects. 1. Start with an oval and pull it up. You can create your model from scratch, or download my Casserole Dish model from the 3D Warehouse. 1. Draw a circle in the flat red-green plane. 2. Select the circle and activate Scale. 3. Drag one of the side handles to create an oval. 2. To be able to draw or...
Discussion Idv
Hiding all edges in your model is easy deselect Display Edges and Profiles in the Edge page of the Styles window but what if you want to remove the display of only certain edges in your model There are two ways to blank selected edges hiding and softening. Hiding edges simply removes them from the display, while softening smoothes the corner where the edge was, resulting in a single face. Consider a polygon pulled into a cylinder-like shape. To hide its vertical edges, you can use the Hide tool...
Following Paths with Follow Me
The Follow Me tool is used to extrude a 2D face along a 2D or 3D path. In other design applications, this is sometimes called sweeping or driving. Follow Me is an incredibly useful tool for making such architectural details as moldings, parapets, railings, and fences, as well as circular objects such as cups, vases, and spheres. It's also quite fun to watch Follow Me in action. The basics of Follow Me are pretty easy to understand, but there are some little-known tricks you can use to make your...
Discussion Txp
In the previous recipes, the copies have followed the red, green, or blue directions. When you want to move in another direction, first be sure that you have objects in your model that define the direction you want to use. In this example, the model has an edge that defines the move direction, and both move points will be clicked along this edge. 1. Start with a building like the one shown in Figure 1-35, with a sloped top and one window in the top-left corner of the front wall. You can create...
Example Window in Walls of Unknown Thickness
This example consists of four main tasks creating a face to represent the cutting boundary, building a nested window component, placing the component in the wall, and exploding the component so that the hole in the wall can be made. 1. Download my Irregular Window model from the 3D Warehouse Figure 7-42 . If the window is not already a component if you downloaded it from the 3D Warehouse in your Internet browser and not via the Components window , make it a component now. The alignment and...
Discussion Ogd
You can control object visibility by creating layers and placing objects on them. When layers are made invisible, all objects on those layers are hidden. When you combine layers with scenes, you can create saved views with objects hidden or displayed, which can be a great way to present various elements of your model. To demonstrate, the main example shows how to use layers to produce various presentation views of a house. The Other Uses section shows how you can place text on different layers,...
Make the Lens Frame
The border around the front of the lens will be used as the 3D path, and this path will be used to create the frame. 1. On one side of the lens, draw a shape to use as the Follow Me face for the frame Figure 4-81 . My Follow Me face is a rectangle, but you could try a curved shape. 2. To prevent the Follow Me frame from breaking the lens, make the Follow Me face a group. 3. You know that when a face is 2D, you can select it to define its boundary as the Follow Me path. But when the path is 3D,...
Example Rectangular Table
In this example, you will create round corners on a rectangular table with sharp corners. 1. Start with a model of a table top. Along one edge, add a rounding face shown in Figure 4-14 in yellow that will be pulled around the table top. You can create your model from scratch, or download my Table Top model from the 3D Warehouse. 2. Use Push Pull to pull the rounding face along one edge Figure 4-16 . 3. For the next edge, you need to copy the rounding face so that is perpendicular to the edge....
Discussion Ldl
Sometimes after you resize a model, you still want to change its scale in a particular direction. The trouble is that the Tape Measure tool resizes the entire model by the same factor in all directions. For example, say you used the Tape Measure to resize the picnic table in Figure 10-59, but decided it was still too narrow. If you use Tape Measure to resize the table for the correct width, the height and depth will also increase. The solution is to use a construction line to set the limits for...
Discussion Ilj
The Section Plane tool Tools Section Plane enables you to slice through your model to see what's inside. This is great for architectural designs viewing floor plans , mechanical designs viewing the inside of a machine , cabinet designs, mold making, and more. Figure 11-9 shows a car with a section plane through the center. When the section plane is active, half of the car behind the plane is hidden, and you can see inside Figure 1110 . To place a section plane, align the plane either to an...
Discussion Dey
If you paint faces with a tiling material such as brick or stone, you may want to make the stones or bricks appear larger or smaller, stretched or squashed, or you might want to change the material's base color. To make these changes, find the material in the In Model folder, select the material, and edit it to have a new size or color. You can also save your edited material by right-clicking and choosing Save As. This recipe demonstrates how to make simple adjustments to a material's size and...
Method Import a Material As an Image
If you want to import the material on its own face rather than for painting an existing face , import it as an image. The material will not actually be a usable SketchUp material until you explode the image. Importing as an image is used mainly for digital photos, rather than for tiling materials. Using digital photos in your model is covered in Chapter 9. From the main menu, choose File Import, and make sure you are searching for image file types. Find the image you want to import and select...
Example Barn with FreePin Positioning
In this example, you start with an unpainted box. After painting and positioning the front face, you will complete the model geometry. Then you will paint the rest of the faces based on the material of the front face. 1. Download my Barn model from the 3D Warehouse. It is an unpainted box in the approximate shape of a barn. 2. Open the In Model folder of the Materials window. This folder contains the image with which the barn will be painted. The photo shows three faces the front, side, and...
Example Barn with Photo Match
In this example, you will open the barn model used in Recipe 9.5 s Example 1 Barn with Free-Pin Positioning, and save its barn image to your hard drive. That image will be used to model the barn in a new file. 1. Download my Barn model from the 3D Warehouse. It contains one image in the In Model folder of the Materials window. 2. In Windows, right-click on this image and choose Export Texture Image from the pop-up menu. Save the image to your hard drive. On the Mac, edit the texture and click...