Rebecca Huehls

Article / Updated 07-15-2022

SketchUp offers keyboard shortcuts for the tools you use most often as you create models. To select the tool you want, simply press the letter that's indicated in the following table. Tool Shortcut Key Line L Eraser E Select Spacebar Move M Circle C Arc A Rectangle R Push/Pull P Offset O Rotate Q Scale S Zoom Extents Shift+Z Paint Bucket B

Article / Updated 06-27-2017

Combining section views with scenes to create an animation is both a useful and impressive way to show off your SketchUp model. The basic idea is that you can use scenes to create animations where your section planes move inside your model. Here are a few reasons you may want to use this technique: If you have a building with several levels, you can create an animated presentation that shows a cutaway plan view of each level. Using an animated section plane to “get inside” your model is a much classier transition than simply hiding certain parts of it. When you need to show the relationship between the plan and section views for a project, using an animated section plane helps to explain the concept of different architectural views to 3D beginners. Follow these steps to create a basic section animation: Add a section plane to your model. Add a scene to your model. Add another section plane to your model. You can add another section plane in one of two ways: Use the Section Plane tool to create a brand-new one. This is probably the easiest option, which makes it ideal for beginners. Use the Move tool to copy an existing section plane. Make sure that your new section plane is active; if it is, it cuts through your model. If it’s not active, context-click the section plane and choose Active Cut from the context menu. Add another scene to your model. This new scene remembers which is the active section plane. Click through the scenes you added to view your animation. You see an animated section cut as SketchUp transitions from one scene to the next. If you don’t, make sure that you have scene transitions enabled: Choose Window→ Model Info and then choose the Animation panel in the Model Info dialog box. Make sure the Scene Transitions check box is selected. If you don’t like seeing the section-plane objects (the boxy things with arrows on their corners) in your animation, switch them off by deselecting Section Planes on the View menu. Then you see the section cuts without any ugly rectangles flying around. The hardest thing to remember about using scenes and section planes to make section animations is this: You need a separate section plane for each scene that you create. That is to say, SketchUp animates the transition from one active section plane to another active section plane. If all you do is move the same section plane to another spot and add a scene, this animation technique won’t work.

Article / Updated 06-27-2017

A really great way to use scenes is to pretend you’re walking or flying through your SketchUp model. By setting up your scenes sequentially, you can give a seamless tour without messing around with the navigation tools. This setup is especially handy when you need to walk and talk at the same time. Here are some tips that can help you to simulate a person walking or flying through your model with scenes: Adjust your field of view. For interior animations, make your camera “see” a wider area by setting your field of view to 60 degrees. For exterior views, try a field of view that’s between 30 and 45 degrees. Make sure that your scenes aren’t too far apart. Instead of racing through a room like it’s on fire, don’t be afraid to add more scenes. Your audience will thank you by not throwing up on your conference table. Add scenes at equal distance intervals. Because SketchUp only lets you control the scene transition timing for all your scenes at once, it’s best to make sure that your scenes are set up about the same distance apart. If you don’t, your walk-through animations will be jerky and strange, like Aidan’s dancing. Don’t forget the animation settings in the Model Info dialog box. Set the scene delay to 0 seconds so that your animation doesn’t pause at every scene. For a normal walking speed, set your scene transitions so that you move about 5 feet per second. If your scenes are about 20 feet apart, set your scene transition time to 4 seconds. This gives your audience time to look around and notice things. For flying animations, pick a scene transition time that looks good. Slide around corners. When you set up a walking animation, you have an easy, reliable way to turn corners without seeming too robotic. Basically, the trick is to add a scene just short of where you want to turn — in this case, a few feet ahead of the doorway. The key is to angle your view into the turn slightly. Set up your next scene just past the turn, close to the inside and facing the new view. This technique makes it seem like you’re turning corners naturally.

Article / Updated 06-26-2017

Two tools from the SketchUp Extension Warehouse are essential for 3D printing: CleanUp3 and Solid Inspector2, both created by Thomas Thomassen. CleanUp3 checks and simplifies the geometry of your SketchUp model. It combines multiple faces, eliminates extraneous data, and erases any lines that don’t make a face. Two of the most useful CleanUp3 options are Erase Duplicate Faces and Repair Split Edges, which can be enabled in the CleanUp3 menu. Duplicate faces and split edges are errors that inevitably appear in your model as you work in SketchUp, and they drive 3D printers nuts. Both errors are hard to recognize and repair manually. CleanUp3 is also great at simplifying STL files (3D-printable files) you import into SketchUp. In this image, which shows the triangulated data you get from an imported STL file, the faces have been broken into hundreds of triangles. By removing that triangulation, CleanUp3 makes files downloaded from 3D printing communities (such as Thingiverse) easier to edit in SketchUp. Solid Inspector2 finds and highlights problems that are preventing your model from being a solid shell, and its usefulness can’t be overemphasized. It highlights problem areas and helps you automatically move from one error to next, making repairs much faster. It’s a tool that everyone using SketchUp for 3D printing should have. As you work on your model, get in the habit of running CleanUp3 periodically. Run Solid Inspector2 before you export from SketchUp to 3D print. It will catch any errors that would cause the print to fail.

Article / Updated 06-26-2017

If you’re wondering how to get rid of all the ugly lines that appear when you use SketchUp’s Follow Me, the answer is pretty simple: You can smooth edges, just like you can hide them. The difference between hiding and smoothing is illustrated by the images of the cylinders in the image below: When you hide an edge between two faces, SketchUp treats those faces as though your edge is still there — it just doesn’t show the edge. Materials you’ve applied to each face stay separate, and each face is lit separately by SketchUp’s sun. The latter fact is the reason why simply hiding the edges between faces that are supposed to represent a smooth curve doesn’t make things look smooth — you still end up with a faceted look, as you can see in the second cylinder. When you smooth an edge between two faces, you’re telling SketchUp to treat them as a single face — with a single material and smooth-looking shading. The difference is pretty huge, as you can see in the third cylinder below. You can smooth edges in two ways: Use the Eraser. To smooth edges with the Eraser tool, hold down the Ctrl key (Option on the Mac) while you click or drag over the edges you want to smooth. Use the Soften Edges panel. Located on the Window menu, this panel lets you smooth a bunch of selected edges all at once, according to the angle of their adjacent faces. To get started: Select the edges you want to smooth and then move the slider to the right until you like the way your model looks. To unsmooth edges, follow these steps: Choose View → Hidden Geometry so that the Hidden Geometry menu option is selected. This makes hidden edges visible. Select the edges you want to unsmooth. In the Soften Edges panel, move the slider all the way to the left.