{"appState":{"pageLoadApiCallsStatus":true},"categoryState":{"relatedCategories":{"headers":{"timestamp":"2022-10-18T16:01:25+00:00"},"categoryId":33634,"data":{"title":"Design Software","slug":"design-software","image":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634}],"parentCategory":{"categoryId":33618,"title":"Software","slug":"software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"}},"childCategories":[{"categoryId":33635,"title":"AutoCAD","slug":"autocad","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33635"},"image":{"src":"/img/background-image-2.fabfbd5c.png","width":0,"height":0},"hasArticle":true,"hasBook":true,"articleCount":41,"bookCount":9},{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"image":{"src":"/img/background-image-1.daf74cf0.png","width":0,"height":0},"hasArticle":true,"hasBook":true,"articleCount":25,"bookCount":1}],"description":"There are a ton of options for design professionals in the software space. And whether you're looking for AutoCAD tips or SketchUp ideas, you'll find what you need in these articles.","relatedArticles":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles?category=33634&offset=0&size=5"},"hasArticle":true,"hasBook":true,"articleCount":66,"bookCount":10},"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"}},"relatedCategoriesLoadedStatus":"success"},"listState":{"list":{"count":10,"total":67,"items":[{"headers":{"creationTime":"2020-09-30T18:28:21+00:00","modifiedTime":"2022-08-10T16:29:52+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:19:52+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"SketchUp","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"slug":"sketchup","categoryId":33636}],"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","strippedTitle":"10 sketchup issues and their workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"Like any software, SketchUp is bound to have its problems. Use this guide to discover ten common problems and their solutions.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"The bad news is that every new SketchUp user encounters certain problems, usually in the first couple hours of using the software. You can call these problems growing pains. The good news is that, because these SketchUp problems are common, you can anticipate a lot of the bad stuff you’ll go through. This article offers you SketchUp tips and tricks to help you work around those issues.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >SketchUp won’t create a face where you want it to</h2>\r\nYou’ve dutifully traced all around where you want <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-paint-faces-in-sketchup-with-color-and-texture/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp to create a face</a>, but nothing’s happening. If you follow along in the image below, which was inspired by a visit to the M.C. Escher museum in Amsterdam, you see the top-left image seems to show a cube beside a rectangle, but the rectangle didn’t produce a face. In the top-right image, a diagonal line was drawn between diagonally opposite corners of the rectangle, producing two triangular faces, but something still doesn’t look right.\r\n\r\nChanging the camera position to standard front (lower-left image) and right side (lower-right image) reveals the source of the problem. It turns out that the upper-right corner of the rectangle doesn’t lie on the red-blue plane but is actually to the right of the blue-green plane, and to the right of the blue-red plane. The upper-left image isn’t really an optical illusion; it just looks like one.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273641\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"509\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273641 size-large\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-problems-509x586.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp problems \" width=\"509\" height=\"586\" /> Just because it looks right doesn’t mean that it is.[/caption]\r\n\r\nNinety percent of the time, when SketchUp doesn’t create a face where you think it should, an edge isn’t on the plane you think it’s on. To check whether your edges are coplanar, draw an edge that cuts diagonally across the area where you want a face to appear. If a face appears now, your edges aren’t all on the same plane. To fix the problem, you have to figure out which edge is the culprit, and the Color By Axis option may help you see this information at a glance. Here’s how Color By Axis works:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>In the Styles panel, change your edge color from All Same to By Axis.SketchUp draws the edges in your model using the color of the axis to which they’re parallel; edges parallel to the red axis are red, and so on.</li>\r\n \t<li>Look carefully at the edges that you wanted to define your desired face.Are all the edges the color they’re supposed to be? If they’re not all supposed to be parallel to the drawing axes, this technique doesn’t do much good. But if they are, and one (or more) of them is black (instead of red or green or blue), that edge (or those edges) is your problem child. Fix it and switch back to All Same when you’re done.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nIf the plane isn’t the problem with your edges, then check whether one edge is part of a separate group or component. To check whether you have a component problem, try hiding groups or components and checking the edges to make sure that they’re all in the group or component you think they’re in.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">A common source of this problem is <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchups-inferences/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp’s inferences</a>. As you slide the mouse over a face you may unwittingly be latching on to an unintended inference, such as the edge of a surface that is part of a cylinder. Watch those inference prompts, and use Undo when you complete a face but no face appears.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Your SketchUp faces are two different colors</h2>\r\nIn SketchUp, faces have two sides: a front and a back. By default, these two sides are different colors.\r\n\r\nWhen you use certain tools, such as Push/Pull or Follow Me, on a face, sometimes the faces on the resulting geometry are “inside out.” For some people, the issue is just bothersome. If you want to 3D-print your model, you need to fix the issue so that your model will print correctly.\r\n\r\nTo fix this issue, right-click the faces you want to flip and choose Reverse Faces from the context menu. If you have lots of faces to flip, you can select them all and then choose Reverse Faces to flip them all at once.\r\n\r\nIn 3D printing, this process is called checking your model’s normals.\r\n\r\nThe plan for the structure you see below was for all the outside walls to be wood siding and the interior walls to be painted yellow. But the top two images show that somehow the left wall got reversed. The bottom two images show that the problem has been solved by selecting the yellow face and reversing it.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273642\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273642 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-face.jpg\" alt=\"reverse SketchUp faces\" width=\"556\" height=\"476\" /> Reversing the faces in SketchUp.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Edges on a face won’t sink in</h2>\r\nEdges on a face tend not to sink in when you’re trying to draw a rectangle (or another geometric figure) on a face with one of SketchUp’s shape-drawing tools. Ordinarily, the Rectangle tool creates a new face on top of any face you use it on; after that, you can use Push/Pull to create a hole, if you want.\r\n\r\nWhen the edges you just drew don’t seem to cut through the face you drew them on, try these approaches:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Retrace one of the edges.</strong> Sometimes that works — you’d be surprised how often.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select Hidden Geometry from the View menu.</strong> You’re checking to make sure that the face you just drew isn’t crossing any hidden or smoothed edges; if it is, the face you thought was flat may not be.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make sure that the face you drew on isn’t part of a group or component.</strong> If it is, undo a few steps and then redraw your shape while you edit the group or component.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select the face + edges, right-click, and choose Intersect Faces→With Selection. </strong>This approach is often needed when you are working with one or more curved surfaces.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >SketchUp crashed, and you lost your model</h2>\r\nUnfortunately, SketchUp crashes happen sometimes. The good news is that SketchUp automatically saves a copy of your file every five minutes.\r\n\r\nIn the web version, these autosaves are captured in Trimble Connect as revisions. You can always view the revision history for a file by navigating to it in the Trimble Connect tab (by clicking Open in the menu at the top of the screen to access Trimble Connect). For any file, you can choose to view or restore an older version.\r\n\r\nIn desktop versions, the file that SketchUp autosaves is actually a <em>separate</em> file, <em>AutoSave_yourfilename.skp</em>. If your file ever gets corrupted in a crash, an intact file is ready for you.\r\n\r\nThe problem is that most people don’t even know that the autosaved file is there. Where do you find it? If you’ve ever saved your file, the autosaved file is in the same folder as the original; therefore, it’s very important that you save your file almost immediately after starting it.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">Simple, right? Not so fast. On a Mac, you may need to change your Library folder from hidden to visible. In the Finder app, hold down the Option key while you choose Go→Library. If you don’t hold down the Option key, Library may not appear on the menu.</p>\r\nWhen you close your model, SketchUp typically assumes nothing untoward has happened and usually cleans up after itself by deleting the autosaved file.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">The really good news is that every time you save a file, SketchUp proactively saves two identical files, one with the normal file extension .SKP and the other with the file extension .SKB. You continue working on the .SKP file. If something goes really wrong with your model, you can always go back to how it was an instant before the last time you saved it. But you can’t find it in the Open File dialog box. Here’s the secret: In the Open File dialog box, go to the end of the File Name window, click the down arrow beside Sketchup Models (.SKP), and click All Files. Now the .SKB files show, and you can open them. (web: The same basic principles apply, but read more details on <a href=\"https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup-web/saving-opening-and-downloading-models\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp's website</a>.)</p>\r\nTo minimize the amount of work you lose when software (or hardware) goes south, always do two things:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Save often — compulsively, even.</li>\r\n \t<li>Use the Save a Copy As command on the File menu.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWhen you’re working on a big project, the following steps can help ensure you don’t lose any work:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Save the original version of your file as <em>yourfilename_Master.skp</em>.That’s the file you’ll always be working on.</li>\r\n \t<li>Create a folder that lives in the same place as your Master file; call the folder something like <em>Your file’s name</em> Archive<strong>.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li>Every half-hour or so, choose File→Save a Copy As, and save a sequentially numbered version of your file to the Archive folder.When you’re building a big model, it’s not uncommon for your Archive folder to contain 40 or 50 saved versions of the model dating back to when the project first started.</li>\r\n \t<li>Back up regularly.At least at the end of every work session, such as when you head to a coffee or lunch break, back up your files to a low-cost, high-capacity, high-speed portable USB drive, then remove it and keep it separate from your computer. At the end of your shift, take it to a different location. You don’t need to keep it in a bank vault, just in a separate building. Take it home at night, for example.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">You can always buy new hardware and software, but you can’t buy your personal files.</p>\r\n</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab5\" >SketchUp is sooooo slooooooooow</h2>\r\nThe bigger your SketchUp model, the worse your computer’s performance. What makes a model big? In a nutshell, faces.\r\n\r\nDo everything in your power to keep your model as small as you can. Here are some tips for doing that:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Reduce the number of sides on your extruded circles and arcs.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use 2D people and trees instead of 3D ones.</strong> 3D plants and people have hundreds of faces each. Consider using 2D ones instead, especially if your model won’t be seen much from overhead.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use search filters in 3D Warehouse.</strong> When you’re searching for models in <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">3D Warehouse</a>, you can restrict your search result to show only models of a certain file size or polygon (face) complexity. Especially if your model is more than 10 MB, it makes sense to keep your 3D Warehouse downloads small!</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nSome models are just big, and you can’t do much about it. Here are some tricks for working with very large SketchUp models:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make liberal use of the Outliner and tags.</strong> These SketchUp features were specifically designed to let you organize your model into manageable chunks. Hide everything you’re not working on at the moment; doing so gives your computer a fighting chance.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Substitute simple forms for large numbers of complex components.</strong> For example, insert sticks as placeholders for big sets of 3D trees, cars, and other big components.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Turn off shadows and switch to a simple style, such as Shaded in the Default Styles collection.</strong> It takes a lot of computer horsepower to display shadows, edge effects, and textures in real time on your monitor. When you’re working, turn off all that stuff.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use scenes to navigate between views.</strong> Scenes aren’t just for presenting your model; they’re also great for working with it. If you create scenes for the different views you commonly use and with different combinations of hidden geometry, then you don’t have to orbit, pan, and zoom around your gigantic model. To speed up things even more, deselect Enable Scene Transitions in the Animation panel of the Model Info dialog box. (web: Animation settings are in the Scenes panel.)</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab6\" >You can’t get a good view of the inside of your SketchUp model</h2>\r\nIt’s not always easy to work on the inside of something in SketchUp. You can do these things to make it easier, though:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Cut into your model with section</strong> SketchUp’s Sections feature lets you cut away parts of your model — temporarily, of course — so that you can get a better view of what’s inside.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Widen your field of view. </strong><em>Field of view</em> is the part of your model you can see onscreen at one time. A wider FOV is like having better peripheral vision.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">You can change the field of view only when in Perspective view mode, but the setting will be remembered if you then switch to Parallel view mode.</p>\r\nThe image below shows the plan view of a room. If you zoom or walk in through the door — oops, tunnel vision. Increase peripheral vision by changing your <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-set-your-field-of-view-in-google-sketchup-8/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">field of view</a>. Ah, that’s better! Now you can see that the picture hanging on the wall is the floor plan of this room.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273643\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273643 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-field-of-view.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp field of view\" width=\"556\" height=\"316\" /> Changing SketchUp's field of view makes a world of difference.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab7\" >A face flashes when you orbit in SketchUp</h2>\r\nIf you have two faces in the same spot — maybe one is in a separate group or component — you see a <em>Z-fighting</em> effect. SketchUp is deciding which face to display by switching back and forth between them; it’s not a good solution, but certainly a logical one — at least for a piece of software. The image below attempts to portray this effect in a single image. The only way to get rid of Z-fighting is to delete or hide one of the faces.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273644\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273644 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-faces.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp face flashing\" width=\"556\" height=\"308\" /> Two faces fighting for the same 3D real estate.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab8\" >You can’t move your SketchUp component the way you want</h2>\r\nWhen you insert some components into your model, the components by default glue to faces. A glued component instance isn’t actually glued in one place. Instead, it’s glued to the plane of the face you originally placed (or created) it on. For example, if you place a sofa component on the floor of your living room, you can move it around only on that plane — not up and down.\r\n\r\nThis gluing behavior comes in handy when you deal with things like furniture; it allows you to rearrange things with the Move tool without accidentally picking them up.\r\n\r\nIf you can’t move your component the way you want to, right-click it to see whether Unglue is an option; if it is, choose it. Now you can move your component around however you want.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab9\" >Bad stuff happens almost every time you use SketchUp’s Eraser</h2>\r\nWhen you use the Eraser tool, it’s pretty easy to delete stuff accidentally. Worse, you usually don’t notice what’s missing until it’s too late. Here are some tips for erasing more accurately:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Orbit around.</strong> Try to make sure that nothing is behind whatever you’re erasing; use SketchUp’s navigation tools to get a view of your model that puts you out of danger.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Switch on Back Edges.</strong> When you’re doing a lot of erasing, choose View→Edge Style→Back Edges. That way, you can see every edge in your model, and you’re less likely to erase the wrong ones.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Undo modifier of the eraser. </strong>Follow along starting in the upper-left image you see below. The intent is to erase the four edges in the center to create a single face. While erasing, you can select multiple objects by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the eraser over them. Oh, great googly moogly (or words to that effect) — you selected some things you didn’t want to erase. No problem: <em>Don’t</em> release the mouse button, but press and hold down the keyboard Alt key (Mac: <strong>⌘</strong>). Now anything you drag the eraser over will be unselected. You can switch back and forth as desired, but nothing actually gets erased until you release the mouse button.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Double-check.</strong> After you do a lot of erasing, give your model a quick once-over with the Orbit tool, just to make sure that you didn’t get rid of anything important. Put a sticky note on your computer monitor that says something like <em>Check after Erase!</em> just to remind you.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273645\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"442\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273645 size-large\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-uneraser-442x586.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp uneraser\" width=\"442\" height=\"586\" /> The uneraser in action.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab10\" >All your edges and faces have different tags</h2>\r\nUsing Tags in SketchUp can be a dangerous business. Here’s the short version of some good advice: Always build everything on Untagged, and assign whole groups or components to other tags only if you really need to.\r\n\r\nIf you used tags in SketchUp and now things are messed up, here’s what you can do to recover:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Make sure that everything is visible.Select Hidden Geometry on the View menu; then (in the Tags panel) make all your tags visible. Just make sure that you can see everything in your model.</li>\r\n \t<li>Choose Edit→Select All.</li>\r\n \t<li>In the Entity Info panel, move everything to Layer0.</li>\r\n \t<li>In the Tags panel, delete your other tags.</li>\r\n \t<li>When you’re prompted, tell SketchUp to move anything remaining on them to Untagged.</li>\r\n \t<li>Create new tags and follow best practices to avoid problems.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">If you’ve downloaded 3D Warehouse models, you’ll probably find that they have some tags that you don’t understand and might want to get rid of. They may have had significance to the original creator, but they can become clutter in your file, so they should be removed.</p>\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","description":"The bad news is that every new SketchUp user encounters certain problems, usually in the first couple hours of using the software. You can call these problems growing pains. The good news is that, because these SketchUp problems are common, you can anticipate a lot of the bad stuff you’ll go through. This article offers you SketchUp tips and tricks to help you work around those issues.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >SketchUp won’t create a face where you want it to</h2>\r\nYou’ve dutifully traced all around where you want <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-paint-faces-in-sketchup-with-color-and-texture/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp to create a face</a>, but nothing’s happening. If you follow along in the image below, which was inspired by a visit to the M.C. Escher museum in Amsterdam, you see the top-left image seems to show a cube beside a rectangle, but the rectangle didn’t produce a face. In the top-right image, a diagonal line was drawn between diagonally opposite corners of the rectangle, producing two triangular faces, but something still doesn’t look right.\r\n\r\nChanging the camera position to standard front (lower-left image) and right side (lower-right image) reveals the source of the problem. It turns out that the upper-right corner of the rectangle doesn’t lie on the red-blue plane but is actually to the right of the blue-green plane, and to the right of the blue-red plane. The upper-left image isn’t really an optical illusion; it just looks like one.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273641\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"509\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273641 size-large\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-problems-509x586.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp problems \" width=\"509\" height=\"586\" /> Just because it looks right doesn’t mean that it is.[/caption]\r\n\r\nNinety percent of the time, when SketchUp doesn’t create a face where you think it should, an edge isn’t on the plane you think it’s on. To check whether your edges are coplanar, draw an edge that cuts diagonally across the area where you want a face to appear. If a face appears now, your edges aren’t all on the same plane. To fix the problem, you have to figure out which edge is the culprit, and the Color By Axis option may help you see this information at a glance. Here’s how Color By Axis works:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>In the Styles panel, change your edge color from All Same to By Axis.SketchUp draws the edges in your model using the color of the axis to which they’re parallel; edges parallel to the red axis are red, and so on.</li>\r\n \t<li>Look carefully at the edges that you wanted to define your desired face.Are all the edges the color they’re supposed to be? If they’re not all supposed to be parallel to the drawing axes, this technique doesn’t do much good. But if they are, and one (or more) of them is black (instead of red or green or blue), that edge (or those edges) is your problem child. Fix it and switch back to All Same when you’re done.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nIf the plane isn’t the problem with your edges, then check whether one edge is part of a separate group or component. To check whether you have a component problem, try hiding groups or components and checking the edges to make sure that they’re all in the group or component you think they’re in.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">A common source of this problem is <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchups-inferences/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp’s inferences</a>. As you slide the mouse over a face you may unwittingly be latching on to an unintended inference, such as the edge of a surface that is part of a cylinder. Watch those inference prompts, and use Undo when you complete a face but no face appears.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Your SketchUp faces are two different colors</h2>\r\nIn SketchUp, faces have two sides: a front and a back. By default, these two sides are different colors.\r\n\r\nWhen you use certain tools, such as Push/Pull or Follow Me, on a face, sometimes the faces on the resulting geometry are “inside out.” For some people, the issue is just bothersome. If you want to 3D-print your model, you need to fix the issue so that your model will print correctly.\r\n\r\nTo fix this issue, right-click the faces you want to flip and choose Reverse Faces from the context menu. If you have lots of faces to flip, you can select them all and then choose Reverse Faces to flip them all at once.\r\n\r\nIn 3D printing, this process is called checking your model’s normals.\r\n\r\nThe plan for the structure you see below was for all the outside walls to be wood siding and the interior walls to be painted yellow. But the top two images show that somehow the left wall got reversed. The bottom two images show that the problem has been solved by selecting the yellow face and reversing it.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273642\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273642 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-face.jpg\" alt=\"reverse SketchUp faces\" width=\"556\" height=\"476\" /> Reversing the faces in SketchUp.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Edges on a face won’t sink in</h2>\r\nEdges on a face tend not to sink in when you’re trying to draw a rectangle (or another geometric figure) on a face with one of SketchUp’s shape-drawing tools. Ordinarily, the Rectangle tool creates a new face on top of any face you use it on; after that, you can use Push/Pull to create a hole, if you want.\r\n\r\nWhen the edges you just drew don’t seem to cut through the face you drew them on, try these approaches:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Retrace one of the edges.</strong> Sometimes that works — you’d be surprised how often.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select Hidden Geometry from the View menu.</strong> You’re checking to make sure that the face you just drew isn’t crossing any hidden or smoothed edges; if it is, the face you thought was flat may not be.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make sure that the face you drew on isn’t part of a group or component.</strong> If it is, undo a few steps and then redraw your shape while you edit the group or component.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select the face + edges, right-click, and choose Intersect Faces→With Selection. </strong>This approach is often needed when you are working with one or more curved surfaces.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >SketchUp crashed, and you lost your model</h2>\r\nUnfortunately, SketchUp crashes happen sometimes. The good news is that SketchUp automatically saves a copy of your file every five minutes.\r\n\r\nIn the web version, these autosaves are captured in Trimble Connect as revisions. You can always view the revision history for a file by navigating to it in the Trimble Connect tab (by clicking Open in the menu at the top of the screen to access Trimble Connect). For any file, you can choose to view or restore an older version.\r\n\r\nIn desktop versions, the file that SketchUp autosaves is actually a <em>separate</em> file, <em>AutoSave_yourfilename.skp</em>. If your file ever gets corrupted in a crash, an intact file is ready for you.\r\n\r\nThe problem is that most people don’t even know that the autosaved file is there. Where do you find it? If you’ve ever saved your file, the autosaved file is in the same folder as the original; therefore, it’s very important that you save your file almost immediately after starting it.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">Simple, right? Not so fast. On a Mac, you may need to change your Library folder from hidden to visible. In the Finder app, hold down the Option key while you choose Go→Library. If you don’t hold down the Option key, Library may not appear on the menu.</p>\r\nWhen you close your model, SketchUp typically assumes nothing untoward has happened and usually cleans up after itself by deleting the autosaved file.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">The really good news is that every time you save a file, SketchUp proactively saves two identical files, one with the normal file extension .SKP and the other with the file extension .SKB. You continue working on the .SKP file. If something goes really wrong with your model, you can always go back to how it was an instant before the last time you saved it. But you can’t find it in the Open File dialog box. Here’s the secret: In the Open File dialog box, go to the end of the File Name window, click the down arrow beside Sketchup Models (.SKP), and click All Files. Now the .SKB files show, and you can open them. (web: The same basic principles apply, but read more details on <a href=\"https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup-web/saving-opening-and-downloading-models\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp's website</a>.)</p>\r\nTo minimize the amount of work you lose when software (or hardware) goes south, always do two things:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Save often — compulsively, even.</li>\r\n \t<li>Use the Save a Copy As command on the File menu.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWhen you’re working on a big project, the following steps can help ensure you don’t lose any work:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Save the original version of your file as <em>yourfilename_Master.skp</em>.That’s the file you’ll always be working on.</li>\r\n \t<li>Create a folder that lives in the same place as your Master file; call the folder something like <em>Your file’s name</em> Archive<strong>.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li>Every half-hour or so, choose File→Save a Copy As, and save a sequentially numbered version of your file to the Archive folder.When you’re building a big model, it’s not uncommon for your Archive folder to contain 40 or 50 saved versions of the model dating back to when the project first started.</li>\r\n \t<li>Back up regularly.At least at the end of every work session, such as when you head to a coffee or lunch break, back up your files to a low-cost, high-capacity, high-speed portable USB drive, then remove it and keep it separate from your computer. At the end of your shift, take it to a different location. You don’t need to keep it in a bank vault, just in a separate building. Take it home at night, for example.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">You can always buy new hardware and software, but you can’t buy your personal files.</p>\r\n</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab5\" >SketchUp is sooooo slooooooooow</h2>\r\nThe bigger your SketchUp model, the worse your computer’s performance. What makes a model big? In a nutshell, faces.\r\n\r\nDo everything in your power to keep your model as small as you can. Here are some tips for doing that:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Reduce the number of sides on your extruded circles and arcs.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use 2D people and trees instead of 3D ones.</strong> 3D plants and people have hundreds of faces each. Consider using 2D ones instead, especially if your model won’t be seen much from overhead.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use search filters in 3D Warehouse.</strong> When you’re searching for models in <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">3D Warehouse</a>, you can restrict your search result to show only models of a certain file size or polygon (face) complexity. Especially if your model is more than 10 MB, it makes sense to keep your 3D Warehouse downloads small!</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nSome models are just big, and you can’t do much about it. Here are some tricks for working with very large SketchUp models:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make liberal use of the Outliner and tags.</strong> These SketchUp features were specifically designed to let you organize your model into manageable chunks. Hide everything you’re not working on at the moment; doing so gives your computer a fighting chance.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Substitute simple forms for large numbers of complex components.</strong> For example, insert sticks as placeholders for big sets of 3D trees, cars, and other big components.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Turn off shadows and switch to a simple style, such as Shaded in the Default Styles collection.</strong> It takes a lot of computer horsepower to display shadows, edge effects, and textures in real time on your monitor. When you’re working, turn off all that stuff.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use scenes to navigate between views.</strong> Scenes aren’t just for presenting your model; they’re also great for working with it. If you create scenes for the different views you commonly use and with different combinations of hidden geometry, then you don’t have to orbit, pan, and zoom around your gigantic model. To speed up things even more, deselect Enable Scene Transitions in the Animation panel of the Model Info dialog box. (web: Animation settings are in the Scenes panel.)</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab6\" >You can’t get a good view of the inside of your SketchUp model</h2>\r\nIt’s not always easy to work on the inside of something in SketchUp. You can do these things to make it easier, though:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Cut into your model with section</strong> SketchUp’s Sections feature lets you cut away parts of your model — temporarily, of course — so that you can get a better view of what’s inside.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Widen your field of view. </strong><em>Field of view</em> is the part of your model you can see onscreen at one time. A wider FOV is like having better peripheral vision.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">You can change the field of view only when in Perspective view mode, but the setting will be remembered if you then switch to Parallel view mode.</p>\r\nThe image below shows the plan view of a room. If you zoom or walk in through the door — oops, tunnel vision. Increase peripheral vision by changing your <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-set-your-field-of-view-in-google-sketchup-8/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">field of view</a>. Ah, that’s better! Now you can see that the picture hanging on the wall is the floor plan of this room.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273643\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273643 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-field-of-view.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp field of view\" width=\"556\" height=\"316\" /> Changing SketchUp's field of view makes a world of difference.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab7\" >A face flashes when you orbit in SketchUp</h2>\r\nIf you have two faces in the same spot — maybe one is in a separate group or component — you see a <em>Z-fighting</em> effect. SketchUp is deciding which face to display by switching back and forth between them; it’s not a good solution, but certainly a logical one — at least for a piece of software. The image below attempts to portray this effect in a single image. The only way to get rid of Z-fighting is to delete or hide one of the faces.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273644\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273644 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-faces.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp face flashing\" width=\"556\" height=\"308\" /> Two faces fighting for the same 3D real estate.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab8\" >You can’t move your SketchUp component the way you want</h2>\r\nWhen you insert some components into your model, the components by default glue to faces. A glued component instance isn’t actually glued in one place. Instead, it’s glued to the plane of the face you originally placed (or created) it on. For example, if you place a sofa component on the floor of your living room, you can move it around only on that plane — not up and down.\r\n\r\nThis gluing behavior comes in handy when you deal with things like furniture; it allows you to rearrange things with the Move tool without accidentally picking them up.\r\n\r\nIf you can’t move your component the way you want to, right-click it to see whether Unglue is an option; if it is, choose it. Now you can move your component around however you want.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab9\" >Bad stuff happens almost every time you use SketchUp’s Eraser</h2>\r\nWhen you use the Eraser tool, it’s pretty easy to delete stuff accidentally. Worse, you usually don’t notice what’s missing until it’s too late. Here are some tips for erasing more accurately:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Orbit around.</strong> Try to make sure that nothing is behind whatever you’re erasing; use SketchUp’s navigation tools to get a view of your model that puts you out of danger.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Switch on Back Edges.</strong> When you’re doing a lot of erasing, choose View→Edge Style→Back Edges. That way, you can see every edge in your model, and you’re less likely to erase the wrong ones.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Undo modifier of the eraser. </strong>Follow along starting in the upper-left image you see below. The intent is to erase the four edges in the center to create a single face. While erasing, you can select multiple objects by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the eraser over them. Oh, great googly moogly (or words to that effect) — you selected some things you didn’t want to erase. No problem: <em>Don’t</em> release the mouse button, but press and hold down the keyboard Alt key (Mac: <strong>⌘</strong>). Now anything you drag the eraser over will be unselected. You can switch back and forth as desired, but nothing actually gets erased until you release the mouse button.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Double-check.</strong> After you do a lot of erasing, give your model a quick once-over with the Orbit tool, just to make sure that you didn’t get rid of anything important. Put a sticky note on your computer monitor that says something like <em>Check after Erase!</em> just to remind you.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273645\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"442\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273645 size-large\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-uneraser-442x586.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp uneraser\" width=\"442\" height=\"586\" /> The uneraser in action.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab10\" >All your edges and faces have different tags</h2>\r\nUsing Tags in SketchUp can be a dangerous business. Here’s the short version of some good advice: Always build everything on Untagged, and assign whole groups or components to other tags only if you really need to.\r\n\r\nIf you used tags in SketchUp and now things are messed up, here’s what you can do to recover:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Make sure that everything is visible.Select Hidden Geometry on the View menu; then (in the Tags panel) make all your tags visible. Just make sure that you can see everything in your model.</li>\r\n \t<li>Choose Edit→Select All.</li>\r\n \t<li>In the Entity Info panel, move everything to Layer0.</li>\r\n \t<li>In the Tags panel, delete your other tags.</li>\r\n \t<li>When you’re prompted, tell SketchUp to move anything remaining on them to Untagged.</li>\r\n \t<li>Create new tags and follow best practices to avoid problems.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">If you’ve downloaded 3D Warehouse models, you’ll probably find that they have some tags that you don’t understand and might want to get rid of. They may have had significance to the original creator, but they can become clutter in your file, so they should be removed.</p>\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[{"label":"SketchUp won’t create a face where you want it to","target":"#tab1"},{"label":"Your SketchUp faces are two different colors","target":"#tab2"},{"label":"Edges on a face won’t sink in","target":"#tab3"},{"label":"SketchUp crashed, and you lost your model","target":"#tab4"},{"label":"SketchUp is sooooo slooooooooow","target":"#tab5"},{"label":"You can’t get a good view of the inside of your SketchUp model","target":"#tab6"},{"label":"A face flashes when you orbit in SketchUp","target":"#tab7"},{"label":"You can’t move your SketchUp component the way you want","target":"#tab8"},{"label":"Bad stuff happens almost every time you use SketchUp’s Eraser","target":"#tab9"},{"label":"All your edges and faces have different tags","target":"#tab10"}],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":207678,"title":"SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet","slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/207678"}},{"articleId":188813,"title":"How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web","slug":"how-to-print-to-scale-in-sketchup-for-web","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/188813"}},{"articleId":152331,"title":"13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools","slug":"13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152331"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":241390,"title":"How to Animate Sections with Scenes in SketchUp","slug":"animate-sections-scenes-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241390"}},{"articleId":241380,"title":"How to Make Walkthroughs in SketchUp","slug":"make-walkthroughs-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241380"}},{"articleId":241348,"title":"How to Use SketchUp’s CleanUp3 and Solid Inspector2 Tools for 3D Printing","slug":"use-sketchups-cleanup3-solid-inspector2-tools-3d-printing","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241348"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281864,"slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition","isbn":"9781119617938","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119617936-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition-cover-9781119617938-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"SketchUp For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":true,"authorsInfo":"<p><p><b><b data-author-id=\"9621\">Bill Fane</b></b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48b2993\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48b33fa\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Articles","articleList":null,"content":null,"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"One year","lifeExpectancySetFrom":"2022-08-10T00:00:00+00:00","dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":273640},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2016-03-26T11:08:53+00:00","modifiedTime":"2022-08-10T16:27:01+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:19:52+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"SketchUp","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"slug":"sketchup","categoryId":33636}],"title":"The Ten-Minute SketchUp Tour","strippedTitle":"the ten-minute sketchup tour","slug":"the-ten-minute-sketchup-tour","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"Want a brief tour of what you can expect from SketchUp? Review this quick overview to see what you'll get with SketchUp, from Dummies.com.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"Need to take a brief 10-minute <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-set-up-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp</a> tour: a rundown of the layout, tools, and utilities you’ll interact with on a regular basis? Check out this brief walkthrough to see what you can expect from SketchUp and SketchUp for Web.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273628\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273628 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-tour.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp tour\" width=\"556\" height=\"273\" /> ©Shutterstock/kittipong kongwatmai[/caption]\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Modeling window: </strong>See the big area in the middle of your computer screen? That’s your modeling window. You build your model here, and your modeling window <em>always </em>shows a 3D view of your model, even if you’re looking at it from the top or side. Key features of the modeling window are the model axes: three green, red, and blue lines that help define the directional space of your model.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Menu bar (Desktop only): </strong>If you’ve used a computer in the past 30 years, the menu bar is nothing new. Each menu contains a long list of options, commands, tools, settings, and other goodies that pertain to just about <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/5-free-sketchup-online-resources/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">everything you do in SketchUp</a>. You should generally refrain from using the menu bar to find things, because that requires that you remember the name of a tool, the menu it lives on, and where on the menu it is.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Menu (web only): </strong>In SketchUp for Web, you will be using the menu a lot less to find tools but just as much to open files, save copies using Save As, and change settings.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Search (web only): </strong>A recent addition to the SketchUp interface is this quick way to find and activate tools and look up shortcuts. If you’re using the web version (it’s not available in SketchUp Pro yet), you’ll find this really handy when you start learning tools and utility settings that you don’t use that often or have a hard time remembering.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Toolbar: </strong>Click a toolbar button to activate a tool or command. You’ll start to use tool icons naturally while using SketchUp. In desktop versions, you can customize your SketchUp toolbar setup to show tools you use most often, or to not show those tools whose shortcuts you’ve remembered. In the web version, similar tools are nested together in the toolbar. So when you click the Rectangle tool icon, you’ll switch to the Rectangle tool but also see the other shape-drawing tools available to you. Similarly, the Tape Measure tool contains other tools for measuring and labeling things.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Large toolset (desktop only): </strong>Usually, it’s better to turn off the Large Toolset and attempt to use core commands by shortcuts. But if you prefer a visual reference for tool icons, you may prefer leaving the Large Toolset on to have all the tools handy all the time. You can can control its visibility by choosing View→Toolbars (Mac: View→Tool Palettes).</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Status bar: </strong>Consider this your SketchUp dashboard. The status bar provides helpful information about the SketchUp tool you are currently using. It’s important to check the status bar for reminders about <em>modifier keys: </em>keystrokes that you use in combination with certain tools to perform additional functions. Soon enough, you’ll know how to copy by using the Move tool with a modifier key. You’ll definitely forget this key, and when you do, the place to look is the status bar. The status bar also relays step-by-step instructions for the tool’s operation, but you may be better off using the Instructor.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Utility panels desktop only): </strong>Before long you’ll start to interact with utilities — things like colors and display settings — that are generally organized on the right side of your SketchUp window. In desktop versions, you control which utility settings are visible via the Window menu. In more recent PC versions of SketchUp Pro, you can manage the default tray of utilities: Choose Window→Manage Trays, and use the Manage Trays dialog box to reconfigure what you do (or don’t) see here. On a Mac, utilities look like dialogs except that they’re neatly collapsible, and you can stack them aside in tidy trays when you are not using them.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Utility panels (web only): </strong>In the web version, all utility panels — for stuff like saving model views or libraries of model textures — are organized on the right side of the screen, accessible by their icons. Opening a utility panel slides open a larger interface where you can access one or multiple panels. Use the X next to a panel name to close it, or use the arrow icon at the top right of the panel to hide the utilities you are currently using.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Measurements box: </strong>You use this box all the time as you <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-model-in-sketchup-a-youtube-video-guide/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">model in SketchUp</a>, but you’ll never need to touch it. Depending on what you’re doing, this box displays information about what you’re modeling or enables you to specify a precise length, angle, or other measurement while modeling.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Context (right-click) menus: </strong>Whenever you have something selected in SketchUp, you can right-click your selection to reveal a shortcut menu of commands and options. These are always relevant to whatever you right-clicked, so the contents of each menu are different. If you decided to proceed without a mouse, you can still right-click a trackpad, usually by using two separated fingers.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","description":"Need to take a brief 10-minute <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-set-up-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp</a> tour: a rundown of the layout, tools, and utilities you’ll interact with on a regular basis? Check out this brief walkthrough to see what you can expect from SketchUp and SketchUp for Web.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273628\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273628 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-tour.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp tour\" width=\"556\" height=\"273\" /> ©Shutterstock/kittipong kongwatmai[/caption]\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Modeling window: </strong>See the big area in the middle of your computer screen? That’s your modeling window. You build your model here, and your modeling window <em>always </em>shows a 3D view of your model, even if you’re looking at it from the top or side. Key features of the modeling window are the model axes: three green, red, and blue lines that help define the directional space of your model.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Menu bar (Desktop only): </strong>If you’ve used a computer in the past 30 years, the menu bar is nothing new. Each menu contains a long list of options, commands, tools, settings, and other goodies that pertain to just about <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/5-free-sketchup-online-resources/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">everything you do in SketchUp</a>. You should generally refrain from using the menu bar to find things, because that requires that you remember the name of a tool, the menu it lives on, and where on the menu it is.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Menu (web only): </strong>In SketchUp for Web, you will be using the menu a lot less to find tools but just as much to open files, save copies using Save As, and change settings.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Search (web only): </strong>A recent addition to the SketchUp interface is this quick way to find and activate tools and look up shortcuts. If you’re using the web version (it’s not available in SketchUp Pro yet), you’ll find this really handy when you start learning tools and utility settings that you don’t use that often or have a hard time remembering.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Toolbar: </strong>Click a toolbar button to activate a tool or command. You’ll start to use tool icons naturally while using SketchUp. In desktop versions, you can customize your SketchUp toolbar setup to show tools you use most often, or to not show those tools whose shortcuts you’ve remembered. In the web version, similar tools are nested together in the toolbar. So when you click the Rectangle tool icon, you’ll switch to the Rectangle tool but also see the other shape-drawing tools available to you. Similarly, the Tape Measure tool contains other tools for measuring and labeling things.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Large toolset (desktop only): </strong>Usually, it’s better to turn off the Large Toolset and attempt to use core commands by shortcuts. But if you prefer a visual reference for tool icons, you may prefer leaving the Large Toolset on to have all the tools handy all the time. You can can control its visibility by choosing View→Toolbars (Mac: View→Tool Palettes).</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Status bar: </strong>Consider this your SketchUp dashboard. The status bar provides helpful information about the SketchUp tool you are currently using. It’s important to check the status bar for reminders about <em>modifier keys: </em>keystrokes that you use in combination with certain tools to perform additional functions. Soon enough, you’ll know how to copy by using the Move tool with a modifier key. You’ll definitely forget this key, and when you do, the place to look is the status bar. The status bar also relays step-by-step instructions for the tool’s operation, but you may be better off using the Instructor.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Utility panels desktop only): </strong>Before long you’ll start to interact with utilities — things like colors and display settings — that are generally organized on the right side of your SketchUp window. In desktop versions, you control which utility settings are visible via the Window menu. In more recent PC versions of SketchUp Pro, you can manage the default tray of utilities: Choose Window→Manage Trays, and use the Manage Trays dialog box to reconfigure what you do (or don’t) see here. On a Mac, utilities look like dialogs except that they’re neatly collapsible, and you can stack them aside in tidy trays when you are not using them.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Utility panels (web only): </strong>In the web version, all utility panels — for stuff like saving model views or libraries of model textures — are organized on the right side of the screen, accessible by their icons. Opening a utility panel slides open a larger interface where you can access one or multiple panels. Use the X next to a panel name to close it, or use the arrow icon at the top right of the panel to hide the utilities you are currently using.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Measurements box: </strong>You use this box all the time as you <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-model-in-sketchup-a-youtube-video-guide/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">model in SketchUp</a>, but you’ll never need to touch it. Depending on what you’re doing, this box displays information about what you’re modeling or enables you to specify a precise length, angle, or other measurement while modeling.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Context (right-click) menus: </strong>Whenever you have something selected in SketchUp, you can right-click your selection to reveal a shortcut menu of commands and options. These are always relevant to whatever you right-clicked, so the contents of each menu are different. If you decided to proceed without a mouse, you can still right-click a trackpad, usually by using two separated fingers.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":207678,"title":"SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet","slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/207678"}},{"articleId":188813,"title":"How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web","slug":"how-to-print-to-scale-in-sketchup-for-web","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/188813"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":241390,"title":"How to Animate Sections with Scenes in SketchUp","slug":"animate-sections-scenes-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241390"}},{"articleId":241380,"title":"How to Make Walkthroughs in SketchUp","slug":"make-walkthroughs-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241380"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281864,"slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition","isbn":"9781119617938","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119617936-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition-cover-9781119617938-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"SketchUp For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":true,"authorsInfo":"<p><p><b><b data-author-id=\"9621\">Bill Fane</b></b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48a92cf\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48a9b89\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Articles","articleList":null,"content":null,"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"One year","lifeExpectancySetFrom":"2022-08-10T00:00:00+00:00","dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":150818},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2016-03-26T20:44:48+00:00","modifiedTime":"2022-08-10T16:24:44+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:19:52+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"SketchUp","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"slug":"sketchup","categoryId":33636}],"title":"How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web","strippedTitle":"how to print to scale in sketchup for web","slug":"how-to-print-to-scale-in-sketchup-for-web","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"SketchUp for Web allows you to print to scale, giving you even more options for visually representing your designs.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"In some cases, you may want your prints to reflect the scale of your SketchUp design. In SketchUp for Web, scaled printing is available with a paid subscription (or as part of SketchUp for Schools). Here’s how printing to scale works in SketchUp for Web:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Before entering the print preview, create orthographic views of your model and save them as a <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/web-design-development/making-a-scene-in-google-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp scene</a>.Scale is a notion that cannot be applied to model views in SketchUp’s perspective camera mode. To create an orthographic view, use the Search tool and type <strong>Ortho</strong> to activate the Parallel Projection camera mode. Then use view commands (and search queries) like Front, Top, or Align View to orient your camera as desired. When you have the orthographic view you want, create a new scene.</li>\r\n \t<li>Using Search, type Print to activate the print preview canvas.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click the Print Mode drop-down menu to the right of the canvas, select Scenes, and then choose the orthographic scene you just made.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click the Print Mode drop-down menu again, and choose Print to Scale.Notice that the view of your <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/18-great-scripts-for-modeling-in-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp model</a> changes slightly. When you switch into this scaled printing mode, SketchUp resizes your model slightly and derives an arbitrary scale just below your list of scenes (see below).</li>\r\n \t<li>Set your desired drawing scale, and choose whether to display that scale on your printed page.You can assign any scale you want, but you probably want to pick one that will aptly display your SketchUp model view on the page you’re printing. You can type any units you like in the In Drawing and In Model fields, but the scale displayed in the canvas respects the unit settings in your model. You can change these in the Model Info panel, near the bottom of the utility tray on the right. Last, you can click the Print Scale check box to display the scale of your drawing on the printed page.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273623\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273623 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-web.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp for Web\" width=\"556\" height=\"342\" /> You’ll need a paid subscription to print to scale in SketchUp for Web.[/caption]\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","description":"In some cases, you may want your prints to reflect the scale of your SketchUp design. In SketchUp for Web, scaled printing is available with a paid subscription (or as part of SketchUp for Schools). Here’s how printing to scale works in SketchUp for Web:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Before entering the print preview, create orthographic views of your model and save them as a <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/web-design-development/making-a-scene-in-google-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp scene</a>.Scale is a notion that cannot be applied to model views in SketchUp’s perspective camera mode. To create an orthographic view, use the Search tool and type <strong>Ortho</strong> to activate the Parallel Projection camera mode. Then use view commands (and search queries) like Front, Top, or Align View to orient your camera as desired. When you have the orthographic view you want, create a new scene.</li>\r\n \t<li>Using Search, type Print to activate the print preview canvas.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click the Print Mode drop-down menu to the right of the canvas, select Scenes, and then choose the orthographic scene you just made.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click the Print Mode drop-down menu again, and choose Print to Scale.Notice that the view of your <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/18-great-scripts-for-modeling-in-sketchup/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp model</a> changes slightly. When you switch into this scaled printing mode, SketchUp resizes your model slightly and derives an arbitrary scale just below your list of scenes (see below).</li>\r\n \t<li>Set your desired drawing scale, and choose whether to display that scale on your printed page.You can assign any scale you want, but you probably want to pick one that will aptly display your SketchUp model view on the page you’re printing. You can type any units you like in the In Drawing and In Model fields, but the scale displayed in the canvas respects the unit settings in your model. You can change these in the Model Info panel, near the bottom of the utility tray on the right. Last, you can click the Print Scale check box to display the scale of your drawing on the printed page.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273623\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273623 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-web.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp for Web\" width=\"556\" height=\"342\" /> You’ll need a paid subscription to print to scale in SketchUp for Web.[/caption]\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":207678,"title":"SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet","slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/207678"}},{"articleId":152331,"title":"13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools","slug":"13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152331"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":241390,"title":"How to Animate Sections with Scenes in SketchUp","slug":"animate-sections-scenes-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241390"}},{"articleId":241380,"title":"How to Make Walkthroughs in SketchUp","slug":"make-walkthroughs-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241380"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281864,"slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition","isbn":"9781119617938","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119617936-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition-cover-9781119617938-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"SketchUp For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":true,"authorsInfo":"<p><p><b><b data-author-id=\"9621\">Bill Fane</b></b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48a1224\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b48a1cb6\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Articles","articleList":null,"content":null,"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"One year","lifeExpectancySetFrom":"2022-08-10T00:00:00+00:00","dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":188813},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2020-09-30T20:36:26+00:00","modifiedTime":"2022-08-04T20:22:28+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:19:51+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"SketchUp","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"slug":"sketchup","categoryId":33636}],"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","strippedTitle":"10 sketchup quick wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"Want to make your life easier when it comes to SketchUp? Discover these ten quick wins and be off to easier modeling, from Dummies.com.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"As you set off on your modeling adventure, you’re can be prepared with ten SketchUp quick wins — techniques or extended workflows that upgrade the 3D superpowers you’ve been reading about in this book.\r\n\r\nYou’ll find that these <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp tips and tricks</a> are pretty quick to pick up. Moreover, many of these techniques are designed to speed the core mechanics of your 3D modeling.\r\n\r\nIn fact, quick wins like these are available in every project you’ll do in SketchUp — hidden gems you’ll discover when you think “There’s got to be a quicker way to do this.” When you’re struggling, step back and realize that there is indeed a smarter way.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Set your click style in SketchUp to click-move-click</h2>\r\nIt’s tough to say out loud, but it’s possible that you’ve gotten pretty far in your SketchUp career while click-dragging your mouse for many SketchUp operations. If for some reason you just haven’t picked up the technique that lets you move your mouse freely between the beginning and end of most operations, you can force yourself to learn\r\n\r\nOn the Window menu, choose Preferences (Mac: the SketchUp menu; web: app settings). In the Drawing section of the resulting dialog box, change from Auto Detect to Click-Move-Click.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273652\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273652 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-click-move-click.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp click-move-click\" width=\"556\" height=\"361\" /> It’s click-move-click for your SketchUp tasks from now on.[/caption]\r\n\r\n<em>Click-move-click</em> is what SketchUp calls <em>click-release, click</em>. But you don’t even have to think about what it’s called, because after you change that preference, it’ll be the only way SketchUp works.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Customize your SketchUp shortcuts</h2>\r\nWhen you know the default <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/software/design-software/sketchup/13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools-152331/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp shortcuts</a>, you should customize and use another dozen helpful shortcuts. You can choose your own shortcuts, of course; our suggestions are based on personal preferences and thumb wars.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">In desktop versions of SketchUp, you create or edit shortcut customizations by choosing Window→Preferences (Mac: SketchUp→Preferences). To assign shortcuts, look up the name of the command you want to customize and then click the input field to type a custom shortcut key.</p>\r\nIn SketchUp for web, use Search to look up the commands. When you mouse over a command name, you see a little empty rectangle to the right of its description. Click that rectangle to assign or reassign a shortcut.\r\n\r\nHere are ten SketchUp shortcuts to customize right now:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>X-ray (X): </strong>The X-ray face style toggles the transparency of faces in a model. This shortcut is super-handy if you’re designing pieces that fit together and working with solid tools. X-ray is also great when you’re making complex selections; it helps you understand whether you’ve selected more than you want. If you use the shortcut, you can toggle X-ray on demand.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Hide Rest of Model (Shift+M): </strong>As your model becomes complex, you’ll want to get a better view of the groups and components that you need to edit. This display command turns off everything outside the context of a group and component so that you can orbit around and see what you need to see. SketchUp also operates considerably faster when you hide the rest of the model while editing a piece of it.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Color by Axis (Shift+X):</strong> It’s possible that you might slip an inference with the Line tool and create a mysterious missing face. This mistake happens often enough that it’s handy to have the Color by Axis style toggle at your fingertips to identify edges that have strayed off course. Like the X-ray shortcut, it a helps you spot important details.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>View Hidden Geometry (Shift+H):</strong> Whether you hide edges and faces yourself, SketchUp hides them all the time. Whenever you extrude arcs or circles, SketchUp creates hidden edges. As your modeling skills improve, you’ll often need to see this hidden geometry to grab better inferences, so this shortcut comes in handy.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Perspective or Parallel Projection (Shift+P):</strong> For some reason, these two camera settings do the same thing: toggle between a perspective and orthographic view of your model. If you’re setting up a model to create plans or elevations, you’ll find yourself using this shortcut (which you need to assign to only one of the commands) to switch your world view back and forth.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Create Scene (+):</strong>Scenes are really useful for saving a view or a design scenario. You can create them on the fly with this simple shortcut.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Previous & Next Scene (< and >):</strong> If you’re considering presenting from SketchUp, it’s a good idea to set up this simple pair of shortcuts to reverse or advance a scene-by-scene narrative. The people you’re presenting to will think you’re a wizard.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Shadows (Shift+S):</strong> Let’s face it: Shadows make your SketchUp model look cooler. But they can slow SketchUp as your project grows in size. Slip shadows on and off occasionally. Most users find that intermittent shadow feedback to be visceral and pleasing, like a free bottle of sparkling water.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make Group (G) and Make Component (Shift+G):</strong> Let’s go rogue here: you should overwrite the default shortcut for the important Make Component command and instead assign G to Make Group. You don’t always know what an object is when you start creating it, and making a component costs you a few extra clicks. So keep G on your trigger finger to create a group immediately, drawing objects in their own modeling context right away. Then, after you’ve made a group, press Shift+G if the group needs to be a component.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Paste in Place (Shift+V): </strong>You’re going to be using Paste in Place all the time — more often than normal pasty Paste but not so much that you can break your Ctrl+V muscle memory. Bring Shift+V into your 3D lexicon to move geometry in and out of groups or components (or across modeling files) efficiently.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Use SketchUp’s inference locking force</h2>\r\nInferencing is like the way of the Jedi. You must trust the inferencing force and know that it is always with you in SketchUp — and can be invoked with arrow keys.\r\n\r\nHere are two inferencing techniques that will significantly speed your work:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the arrow keys to lock orientation for the Move tool. </strong>When you want to raise or lower something in SketchUp, activate the Move tool, click your selection on its bottom corner, and press the up arrow key. Now your cursor is free to roam the screen, and you can to pick an exact finishing height for your move. Inference locking with the arrow keys is accurate as any other technique but requires less mental effort.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273653\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273653 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-inferences.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp inferences\" width=\"556\" height=\"348\" /> Inference locks help you move precisely and fluidly.[/caption]\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Get Down inference to operate off axis. </strong>This is the best inference name ever, right? Seriously, our new favorite inference technique is to hover over an over a face or an edge and then press the down-arrow key to lock a tool orientation (the magenta inference). The Get Down inference lets you treat the orientation of any edge or face as if it were a 4<sup>th</sup> axis, along with red, green, and blue. That’s why it’s so hip, man.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">To get off the down-arrow inference, first, click the down key again. The magenta inference will run perpendicular to your reference. Click the down key a third time and you’ll unlock the inference.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273654\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273654 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/scketchup-shortcuts.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp shortcuts\" width=\"556\" height=\"407\" /> Use the down key to lock tools to off-axis orientations.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >Transport yourself across space and time</h2>\r\nOkay, the title is a slight exaggeration, but some camera tools help you warp through a SketchUp model with much less effort than orbiting and zooming across a model. Integrate them, and your perceived effort of modeling goes down. That’s a big deal!\r\n\r\nTry these camera techniques in SketchUp to see whether any of them sticks for you:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Orbit tool to center your screen on an object.</strong> If you’re modeling an interior, this tool is a handy way to skip your view across a room. With Orbit activated, double-click any geometry on the screen. SketchUp jumps to center your screen on the focus of the double-click.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Zoom Window to jump to a nearby selection</strong>. With Zoom Window (choose Camera →Zoom Window), you can use a selection window to jump your view closer to a specific area. It’s recommended that you not use Zoom Window to jump to areas that are very far away.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Zoom Selection to jump right to a selection. </strong>If you wanted to remember one more keyboard shortcut, this one might be it. With the Select tool activated, you can right-click an object and choose Zoom Selection from the shortcut menu to warp right to it.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273655\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273655 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-zoom.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp zoom\" width=\"556\" height=\"408\" /> Use SketchUp's Zoom Window to jump your zooms to a desired spot.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab5\" >Round off edges with SketchUp’s Arc Tool</h2>\r\nThe following technique for rounding corners around a series of edges is just too cool to leave out of this book. This fillet — or rounding — method works on flat faces only.\r\n\r\nFollow these steps and reference the images below to round edges:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>With a flat face, activate the two-point Arc tool.</li>\r\n \t<li>Near one of the junctures between two edges, click to start drawing an arc.</li>\r\n \t<li>Hover your cursor over the adjacent edge to find the magenta tangent inference.</li>\r\n \t<li>Double-click to finish your arc.The face and edges on the outside of your arc disappear. But wait, there’s more.</li>\r\n \t<li>Move your cursor close to another corner or intersection, and double-click the face (not the edges).</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nThe round-off repeats and will keep repeating if you continue to another intersection of edges. Without changing from the Arc tool, you can continue to apply the same rounding to as many edge intersections as you want as long they’re on a flat, nonextruded face.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">This method of rounding edges is also configurable. When you’re done rounding, use the Select tool to select an arc, then open the Entity Info panel to redefine the arc’s radius or segments. Pretty smooth — or at least as smooth as you want it.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273656\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273656 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-fillet.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp fillet\" width=\"556\" height=\"410\" /> Double-click to fillet.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab6\" >Use SketchUp’s Scale Tool to set length for simple objects</h2>\r\nHere’s a quick alternative for simple extrusion when you know exactly how long a simple, uniform object (such as a 2×4) needs to be:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Select the object you want to scale.</li>\r\n \t<li>Make the object a group, if it’s not one already.</li>\r\n \t<li>Using the Scale tool, click one of the middle grips that define the length of the object.</li>\r\n \t<li>Scale the object in one direction.If you chose the right grips, the object extrudes as though you ‘re push/pulling it. If you grabbed the wrong grip, press the Esc key and try again.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click to finish your scaling.Click anywhere at all.</li>\r\n \t<li>Type how long you want that object to be and press Enter to set the length.Just like telling SketchUp, the length of an extrusion after using the Push/Pull tool, you can define the dimensions of a Scale operation by typing an input right after finishing the operation.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nRemember, this technique works only with simple, uniform objects — such as dimensional lumber — but it’s very useful when you need to redefine the length of a piece without a few extra clicks of the Tape Measure tool.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273657\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273657 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-scaling.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp scaling\" width=\"556\" height=\"230\" /> Type a measurement in SketchUp while scaling a uniform object to define its length.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab7\" >10 extensions for Dummies</h2>\r\nTruth be told, there is soooo much to be said about SketchUp extensions — the add-on apps that you can install to access more modeling tools. Think of extensions as being like gems you find in a dungeon, unlocking new powers in SketchUp.\r\n\r\nBut SketchUp extensions can give you superpowers — and they’re incredibly fun — so they’re worth exploring.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">Extensions are available only in desktop versions of SketchUp. You have to have a Pro subscription to use them.</p>\r\nThe quickest way to find and install extensions is to use Extension Warehouse(choose Window→Extension Warehouse). Extension Warehouse works just like an app store on your smartphone: You search for extensions, browse them by category, and install them in SketchUp. You can install many extensions for free; others cost a little bit of money.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273658\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273658 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-extension-warehouse.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Extension Warehouse \" width=\"556\" height=\"360\" /> Extension Warehouse: an app store in SketchUp.[/caption]\r\n\r\nAfter you’ve installed an extension, use Extension Manager to check its status or deactivate it. Choose Window→Extension Manager to find a few extensions that come installed in SketchUp Pro.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Deactivating extensions that you don’t use is a good idea, especially as you start collecting them. Fewer enabled extensions usually means faster and more stable modeling.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273659\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273659 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-extension-manager.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Extension Manager\" width=\"556\" height=\"334\" /> Use Extension Manager to turn off the SketchUp tools you’re not using.[/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen will you need extensions? That’s the question! To help you start thinking more three-dimensionally about your modeling, in the table below you discover ten add-ons that are worth checking out — and teaching yourself — as you get into the wild world of SketchUp extensions.\r\n<table width=\"630\"><caption>Ten SketchUp Extensions</caption>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension</td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">What to Use It For</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Get It From</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Weld\r\n\r\n<em>By Smustard</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Singe edges together. Ideal for welding tangent arcs for smooth extrusions. Weld is free, and it’s almost essential for a good Follow Me.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Bézier Curve\r\n\r\n<em>By SketchUp</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">You can use this extension to get 3D curves. This extension is also very useful for tracing over hand sketches or imported images.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Soap Skin Bubble\r\n\r\n<em>By Josef L.</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Create complex mesh faces between noncoplanar edges (like a loop of whacky Bézier curves).</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Joint PushPull\r\n\r\n<em>By Fredo6</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Give almost anything thickness with this 3D extruder, including that wacky shape you made from Bézier curves.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">RoundCorner\r\n\r\n<em>By Fredo6</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Precise chamfering and filleting — basically, edge magic.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Skimp\r\n\r\n<em>By Mindsight Studios</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">You’ll find lots of models on the Internet that are too big to load into your project. Skimp simplifies these behemoths to a noncrippling size for composition in SketchUp.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Open Cut List\r\n\r\n<em>By L’Air du Bois</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Designate objects as a certain kind of wood and then use this extension, which spits out a list of pieces and a cutting diagram that accounts for kerf, clearance, and the dimensional lumber you’re working with. Make some sawdust!</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Mirror\r\n\r\n<em>By TIG</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">If you use other CAD programs, you’ve probably spent some time looking for this extension, which quickly copies and inverts a selection across a defined plane.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">True Bend\r\n\r\n<em>By ThomThom</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Lots of extensions that bend and distort models, but the best one to start with is True Bend, which bends an object around a 360-degree radius.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Eneroth Random Selection\r\n\r\n<em>By Eneroth3</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Variety can do wonders for your model. Use this extension to randomly select objects in a uniform array. Then move, scale, or replace them to inject chaos into SketchUp.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab8\" >Get SketchUp on your smartphone</h2>\r\nOkay, it’s true: You can’t use SketchUp to draw 3D models on your smartphone.\r\n\r\nBut you <em>can</em> get the free SketchUp app on a smartphone or tablet to view and reference your models. Think about walking around a hardware store with an exploded view of your model or a scene in which you’ve saved a parts list or cutting layout. Here’s how to get your models on a phone or tablet:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Install SketchUp Viewer from an app store.This part is pretty simple. Go to the app store for your device, and search for <em>SketchUp Viewer</em>.</li>\r\n \t<li>Open the app, and access models stored in Trimble Connect, 3D Warehouse, Dropbox, or on your device.If you use SketchUp for web, the models you’ve saved are already stored in Trimble Connect. If you use SketchUp Pro, you can store your models in Trimble Connect (choose File→Trimble Connect→Publish Model) or upload models to 3D Warehouse. Models that you’ve stored in any of these places are available by clicking the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Additionally, you can load models from Dropbox or from device storage.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273660\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273660 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-viewer.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Viewer\" width=\"556\" height=\"261\" /> Get SketchUp Viewer (and your 3D models).[/caption]\r\n\r\nNow that you have your models on your phone or tablet, what are you going to do with them? Well, you’re going to use them. Isn’t that the beauty of making models in the first place? Here are a few ways to use your models with the SketchUp Viewer.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Styles and Scenes to deliver 3D presentations. </strong>Almost everything about styling and composing models for 3D presentation in Part 3 applies in the SketchUp Viewer, because all the scenes you create in SketchUp are available in the Viewer. Your saved model views — with hidden groups and components (or tags), dimensions and labels, section planes, shadows, or styles — are at your fingertips on your device. In addition to jumping between scenes you’ve saved, you can use the Position Camera tool to jump your camera to first-person view. (Find it by clicking the Orbit icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.)</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Reference project plans while building something. </strong>Wouldn’t you know, the model views that you make to build a project — orthographic plan and elevations, section views that show construction details, dimensions, and label callouts — are pretty useful to reference <em>while</em> building a project. Why wouldn’t you want all this information on your workbench, caked in sawdust?</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Take measurements on the fly. </strong>Need to double-check the dimensions of your design? After you’ve made a note with your real-life tape measure, pull out the 3D Tape Measure tool (the second icon from the top) in SketchUp Viewer. Now place a finger on your screen. You’ll see a little magnified view of your model with an inference cursor. Move your finger to snap to the inference you want; then remove your finger from the screen. Repeat to set the end of your measurement. SketchUp spits out a model dimension. Do you think it will fit?</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Preview models in real space with augmented reality. </strong>Okay, here’s the fun part: You can use the SketchUp Viewer to preview your models in the context of real-world space, using the augmented reality tools available on many smartphones and tablets. The SketchUp Viewer activates the camera on your device and then projects <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-print-to-scale-from-google-sketchup-8/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a scaled 3D mode</a>l onscreen. The result is a scaled preview of your model, set in the frame of the real space you may be designing it for. This feature comes in very handy for evaluating room layouts, previewing custom built-in projects, and catching Pokémon at will.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273661\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273661 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-model.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D model\" width=\"556\" height=\"341\" /> Present, reference, measure, and preview your SketchUp 3D models from your phone.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab9\" >Turn off your SketchUp profiles</h2>\r\nIt’s the nature of computers: At some point, you’ll make a SketchUp model that slows down. When that happens, you can lessen the processing load of SketchUp in many ways. The simplest (and quickest) method to try to speed up SketchUp is to turn off edge profiles. This display setting removes the extra line thickness applied to edges that define the outline of your geometry.\r\n\r\nYou can turn off profiles by changing or editing a style, but it’s much faster to set a customized keyboard shortcut. Now you can toggle in and out of edge profiles. Just like toggling shadows on and off, toggling profiles is a nice way to throttle the demand on your computer while keeping the sketchy look and feel a keystroke away.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab10\" >Connect with the SketchUp community</h2>\r\nThe Internet is an infinite resource of highly specialized SketchUp knowledge. People across the world, in many languages, have uploaded detailed YouTube videos in which they explain how to do something very specific in SketchUp.\r\n\r\nGenerate a cut list, draw with subdivisions to create organic shapes, model videogame levels, import GIS data — you can do it all in SketchUp, because a community of SketchUp people (we call them SketchUppers) are inspired to share and teach those who are willing to learn. You’ll find them in the SketchUp Forums, SketchUcation, and YouTube. Almost anywhere you can ask a question, a SketchUpper will answer it.\r\n\r\nOne last tip: Ask a friendly question, and you’ll get a helpful answer. With that, you are now in the good hands of SketchUppers everywhere.\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","description":"As you set off on your modeling adventure, you’re can be prepared with ten SketchUp quick wins — techniques or extended workflows that upgrade the 3D superpowers you’ve been reading about in this book.\r\n\r\nYou’ll find that these <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp tips and tricks</a> are pretty quick to pick up. Moreover, many of these techniques are designed to speed the core mechanics of your 3D modeling.\r\n\r\nIn fact, quick wins like these are available in every project you’ll do in SketchUp — hidden gems you’ll discover when you think “There’s got to be a quicker way to do this.” When you’re struggling, step back and realize that there is indeed a smarter way.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Set your click style in SketchUp to click-move-click</h2>\r\nIt’s tough to say out loud, but it’s possible that you’ve gotten pretty far in your SketchUp career while click-dragging your mouse for many SketchUp operations. If for some reason you just haven’t picked up the technique that lets you move your mouse freely between the beginning and end of most operations, you can force yourself to learn\r\n\r\nOn the Window menu, choose Preferences (Mac: the SketchUp menu; web: app settings). In the Drawing section of the resulting dialog box, change from Auto Detect to Click-Move-Click.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273652\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273652 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-click-move-click.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp click-move-click\" width=\"556\" height=\"361\" /> It’s click-move-click for your SketchUp tasks from now on.[/caption]\r\n\r\n<em>Click-move-click</em> is what SketchUp calls <em>click-release, click</em>. But you don’t even have to think about what it’s called, because after you change that preference, it’ll be the only way SketchUp works.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Customize your SketchUp shortcuts</h2>\r\nWhen you know the default <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/software/design-software/sketchup/13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools-152331/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp shortcuts</a>, you should customize and use another dozen helpful shortcuts. You can choose your own shortcuts, of course; our suggestions are based on personal preferences and thumb wars.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">In desktop versions of SketchUp, you create or edit shortcut customizations by choosing Window→Preferences (Mac: SketchUp→Preferences). To assign shortcuts, look up the name of the command you want to customize and then click the input field to type a custom shortcut key.</p>\r\nIn SketchUp for web, use Search to look up the commands. When you mouse over a command name, you see a little empty rectangle to the right of its description. Click that rectangle to assign or reassign a shortcut.\r\n\r\nHere are ten SketchUp shortcuts to customize right now:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>X-ray (X): </strong>The X-ray face style toggles the transparency of faces in a model. This shortcut is super-handy if you’re designing pieces that fit together and working with solid tools. X-ray is also great when you’re making complex selections; it helps you understand whether you’ve selected more than you want. If you use the shortcut, you can toggle X-ray on demand.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Hide Rest of Model (Shift+M): </strong>As your model becomes complex, you’ll want to get a better view of the groups and components that you need to edit. This display command turns off everything outside the context of a group and component so that you can orbit around and see what you need to see. SketchUp also operates considerably faster when you hide the rest of the model while editing a piece of it.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Color by Axis (Shift+X):</strong> It’s possible that you might slip an inference with the Line tool and create a mysterious missing face. This mistake happens often enough that it’s handy to have the Color by Axis style toggle at your fingertips to identify edges that have strayed off course. Like the X-ray shortcut, it a helps you spot important details.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>View Hidden Geometry (Shift+H):</strong> Whether you hide edges and faces yourself, SketchUp hides them all the time. Whenever you extrude arcs or circles, SketchUp creates hidden edges. As your modeling skills improve, you’ll often need to see this hidden geometry to grab better inferences, so this shortcut comes in handy.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Perspective or Parallel Projection (Shift+P):</strong> For some reason, these two camera settings do the same thing: toggle between a perspective and orthographic view of your model. If you’re setting up a model to create plans or elevations, you’ll find yourself using this shortcut (which you need to assign to only one of the commands) to switch your world view back and forth.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Create Scene (+):</strong>Scenes are really useful for saving a view or a design scenario. You can create them on the fly with this simple shortcut.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Previous & Next Scene (< and >):</strong> If you’re considering presenting from SketchUp, it’s a good idea to set up this simple pair of shortcuts to reverse or advance a scene-by-scene narrative. The people you’re presenting to will think you’re a wizard.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Shadows (Shift+S):</strong> Let’s face it: Shadows make your SketchUp model look cooler. But they can slow SketchUp as your project grows in size. Slip shadows on and off occasionally. Most users find that intermittent shadow feedback to be visceral and pleasing, like a free bottle of sparkling water.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Make Group (G) and Make Component (Shift+G):</strong> Let’s go rogue here: you should overwrite the default shortcut for the important Make Component command and instead assign G to Make Group. You don’t always know what an object is when you start creating it, and making a component costs you a few extra clicks. So keep G on your trigger finger to create a group immediately, drawing objects in their own modeling context right away. Then, after you’ve made a group, press Shift+G if the group needs to be a component.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Paste in Place (Shift+V): </strong>You’re going to be using Paste in Place all the time — more often than normal pasty Paste but not so much that you can break your Ctrl+V muscle memory. Bring Shift+V into your 3D lexicon to move geometry in and out of groups or components (or across modeling files) efficiently.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Use SketchUp’s inference locking force</h2>\r\nInferencing is like the way of the Jedi. You must trust the inferencing force and know that it is always with you in SketchUp — and can be invoked with arrow keys.\r\n\r\nHere are two inferencing techniques that will significantly speed your work:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the arrow keys to lock orientation for the Move tool. </strong>When you want to raise or lower something in SketchUp, activate the Move tool, click your selection on its bottom corner, and press the up arrow key. Now your cursor is free to roam the screen, and you can to pick an exact finishing height for your move. Inference locking with the arrow keys is accurate as any other technique but requires less mental effort.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273653\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273653 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-inferences.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp inferences\" width=\"556\" height=\"348\" /> Inference locks help you move precisely and fluidly.[/caption]\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Get Down inference to operate off axis. </strong>This is the best inference name ever, right? Seriously, our new favorite inference technique is to hover over an over a face or an edge and then press the down-arrow key to lock a tool orientation (the magenta inference). The Get Down inference lets you treat the orientation of any edge or face as if it were a 4<sup>th</sup> axis, along with red, green, and blue. That’s why it’s so hip, man.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">To get off the down-arrow inference, first, click the down key again. The magenta inference will run perpendicular to your reference. Click the down key a third time and you’ll unlock the inference.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273654\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273654 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/scketchup-shortcuts.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp shortcuts\" width=\"556\" height=\"407\" /> Use the down key to lock tools to off-axis orientations.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >Transport yourself across space and time</h2>\r\nOkay, the title is a slight exaggeration, but some camera tools help you warp through a SketchUp model with much less effort than orbiting and zooming across a model. Integrate them, and your perceived effort of modeling goes down. That’s a big deal!\r\n\r\nTry these camera techniques in SketchUp to see whether any of them sticks for you:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use the Orbit tool to center your screen on an object.</strong> If you’re modeling an interior, this tool is a handy way to skip your view across a room. With Orbit activated, double-click any geometry on the screen. SketchUp jumps to center your screen on the focus of the double-click.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Zoom Window to jump to a nearby selection</strong>. With Zoom Window (choose Camera →Zoom Window), you can use a selection window to jump your view closer to a specific area. It’s recommended that you not use Zoom Window to jump to areas that are very far away.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Zoom Selection to jump right to a selection. </strong>If you wanted to remember one more keyboard shortcut, this one might be it. With the Select tool activated, you can right-click an object and choose Zoom Selection from the shortcut menu to warp right to it.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273655\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273655 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-zoom.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp zoom\" width=\"556\" height=\"408\" /> Use SketchUp's Zoom Window to jump your zooms to a desired spot.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab5\" >Round off edges with SketchUp’s Arc Tool</h2>\r\nThe following technique for rounding corners around a series of edges is just too cool to leave out of this book. This fillet — or rounding — method works on flat faces only.\r\n\r\nFollow these steps and reference the images below to round edges:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>With a flat face, activate the two-point Arc tool.</li>\r\n \t<li>Near one of the junctures between two edges, click to start drawing an arc.</li>\r\n \t<li>Hover your cursor over the adjacent edge to find the magenta tangent inference.</li>\r\n \t<li>Double-click to finish your arc.The face and edges on the outside of your arc disappear. But wait, there’s more.</li>\r\n \t<li>Move your cursor close to another corner or intersection, and double-click the face (not the edges).</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nThe round-off repeats and will keep repeating if you continue to another intersection of edges. Without changing from the Arc tool, you can continue to apply the same rounding to as many edge intersections as you want as long they’re on a flat, nonextruded face.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">This method of rounding edges is also configurable. When you’re done rounding, use the Select tool to select an arc, then open the Entity Info panel to redefine the arc’s radius or segments. Pretty smooth — or at least as smooth as you want it.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273656\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273656 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-fillet.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp fillet\" width=\"556\" height=\"410\" /> Double-click to fillet.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab6\" >Use SketchUp’s Scale Tool to set length for simple objects</h2>\r\nHere’s a quick alternative for simple extrusion when you know exactly how long a simple, uniform object (such as a 2×4) needs to be:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Select the object you want to scale.</li>\r\n \t<li>Make the object a group, if it’s not one already.</li>\r\n \t<li>Using the Scale tool, click one of the middle grips that define the length of the object.</li>\r\n \t<li>Scale the object in one direction.If you chose the right grips, the object extrudes as though you ‘re push/pulling it. If you grabbed the wrong grip, press the Esc key and try again.</li>\r\n \t<li>Click to finish your scaling.Click anywhere at all.</li>\r\n \t<li>Type how long you want that object to be and press Enter to set the length.Just like telling SketchUp, the length of an extrusion after using the Push/Pull tool, you can define the dimensions of a Scale operation by typing an input right after finishing the operation.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nRemember, this technique works only with simple, uniform objects — such as dimensional lumber — but it’s very useful when you need to redefine the length of a piece without a few extra clicks of the Tape Measure tool.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273657\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273657 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-scaling.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp scaling\" width=\"556\" height=\"230\" /> Type a measurement in SketchUp while scaling a uniform object to define its length.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab7\" >10 extensions for Dummies</h2>\r\nTruth be told, there is soooo much to be said about SketchUp extensions — the add-on apps that you can install to access more modeling tools. Think of extensions as being like gems you find in a dungeon, unlocking new powers in SketchUp.\r\n\r\nBut SketchUp extensions can give you superpowers — and they’re incredibly fun — so they’re worth exploring.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">Extensions are available only in desktop versions of SketchUp. You have to have a Pro subscription to use them.</p>\r\nThe quickest way to find and install extensions is to use Extension Warehouse(choose Window→Extension Warehouse). Extension Warehouse works just like an app store on your smartphone: You search for extensions, browse them by category, and install them in SketchUp. You can install many extensions for free; others cost a little bit of money.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273658\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273658 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-extension-warehouse.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Extension Warehouse \" width=\"556\" height=\"360\" /> Extension Warehouse: an app store in SketchUp.[/caption]\r\n\r\nAfter you’ve installed an extension, use Extension Manager to check its status or deactivate it. Choose Window→Extension Manager to find a few extensions that come installed in SketchUp Pro.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Deactivating extensions that you don’t use is a good idea, especially as you start collecting them. Fewer enabled extensions usually means faster and more stable modeling.</p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273659\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273659 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-extension-manager.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Extension Manager\" width=\"556\" height=\"334\" /> Use Extension Manager to turn off the SketchUp tools you’re not using.[/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen will you need extensions? That’s the question! To help you start thinking more three-dimensionally about your modeling, in the table below you discover ten add-ons that are worth checking out — and teaching yourself — as you get into the wild world of SketchUp extensions.\r\n<table width=\"630\"><caption>Ten SketchUp Extensions</caption>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension</td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">What to Use It For</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Get It From</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Weld\r\n\r\n<em>By Smustard</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Singe edges together. Ideal for welding tangent arcs for smooth extrusions. Weld is free, and it’s almost essential for a good Follow Me.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Bézier Curve\r\n\r\n<em>By SketchUp</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">You can use this extension to get 3D curves. This extension is also very useful for tracing over hand sketches or imported images.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Soap Skin Bubble\r\n\r\n<em>By Josef L.</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Create complex mesh faces between noncoplanar edges (like a loop of whacky Bézier curves).</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Joint PushPull\r\n\r\n<em>By Fredo6</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Give almost anything thickness with this 3D extruder, including that wacky shape you made from Bézier curves.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">RoundCorner\r\n\r\n<em>By Fredo6</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Precise chamfering and filleting — basically, edge magic.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Skimp\r\n\r\n<em>By Mindsight Studios</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">You’ll find lots of models on the Internet that are too big to load into your project. Skimp simplifies these behemoths to a noncrippling size for composition in SketchUp.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Open Cut List\r\n\r\n<em>By L’Air du Bois</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Designate objects as a certain kind of wood and then use this extension, which spits out a list of pieces and a cutting diagram that accounts for kerf, clearance, and the dimensional lumber you’re working with. Make some sawdust!</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Mirror\r\n\r\n<em>By TIG</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">If you use other CAD programs, you’ve probably spent some time looking for this extension, which quickly copies and inverts a selection across a defined plane.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">True Bend\r\n\r\n<em>By ThomThom</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Lots of extensions that bend and distort models, but the best one to start with is True Bend, which bends an object around a 360-degree radius.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Extension Warehouse</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"120\">Eneroth Random Selection\r\n\r\n<em>By Eneroth3</em></td>\r\n<td width=\"390\">Variety can do wonders for your model. Use this extension to randomly select objects in a uniform array. Then move, scale, or replace them to inject chaos into SketchUp.</td>\r\n<td width=\"120\">SketchUcation Plugin Store</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab8\" >Get SketchUp on your smartphone</h2>\r\nOkay, it’s true: You can’t use SketchUp to draw 3D models on your smartphone.\r\n\r\nBut you <em>can</em> get the free SketchUp app on a smartphone or tablet to view and reference your models. Think about walking around a hardware store with an exploded view of your model or a scene in which you’ve saved a parts list or cutting layout. Here’s how to get your models on a phone or tablet:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Install SketchUp Viewer from an app store.This part is pretty simple. Go to the app store for your device, and search for <em>SketchUp Viewer</em>.</li>\r\n \t<li>Open the app, and access models stored in Trimble Connect, 3D Warehouse, Dropbox, or on your device.If you use SketchUp for web, the models you’ve saved are already stored in Trimble Connect. If you use SketchUp Pro, you can store your models in Trimble Connect (choose File→Trimble Connect→Publish Model) or upload models to 3D Warehouse. Models that you’ve stored in any of these places are available by clicking the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Additionally, you can load models from Dropbox or from device storage.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273660\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273660 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-viewer.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp Viewer\" width=\"556\" height=\"261\" /> Get SketchUp Viewer (and your 3D models).[/caption]\r\n\r\nNow that you have your models on your phone or tablet, what are you going to do with them? Well, you’re going to use them. Isn’t that the beauty of making models in the first place? Here are a few ways to use your models with the SketchUp Viewer.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use Styles and Scenes to deliver 3D presentations. </strong>Almost everything about styling and composing models for 3D presentation in Part 3 applies in the SketchUp Viewer, because all the scenes you create in SketchUp are available in the Viewer. Your saved model views — with hidden groups and components (or tags), dimensions and labels, section planes, shadows, or styles — are at your fingertips on your device. In addition to jumping between scenes you’ve saved, you can use the Position Camera tool to jump your camera to first-person view. (Find it by clicking the Orbit icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.)</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Reference project plans while building something. </strong>Wouldn’t you know, the model views that you make to build a project — orthographic plan and elevations, section views that show construction details, dimensions, and label callouts — are pretty useful to reference <em>while</em> building a project. Why wouldn’t you want all this information on your workbench, caked in sawdust?</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Take measurements on the fly. </strong>Need to double-check the dimensions of your design? After you’ve made a note with your real-life tape measure, pull out the 3D Tape Measure tool (the second icon from the top) in SketchUp Viewer. Now place a finger on your screen. You’ll see a little magnified view of your model with an inference cursor. Move your finger to snap to the inference you want; then remove your finger from the screen. Repeat to set the end of your measurement. SketchUp spits out a model dimension. Do you think it will fit?</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Preview models in real space with augmented reality. </strong>Okay, here’s the fun part: You can use the SketchUp Viewer to preview your models in the context of real-world space, using the augmented reality tools available on many smartphones and tablets. The SketchUp Viewer activates the camera on your device and then projects <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-print-to-scale-from-google-sketchup-8/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a scaled 3D mode</a>l onscreen. The result is a scaled preview of your model, set in the frame of the real space you may be designing it for. This feature comes in very handy for evaluating room layouts, previewing custom built-in projects, and catching Pokémon at will.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273661\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273661 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-model.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D model\" width=\"556\" height=\"341\" /> Present, reference, measure, and preview your SketchUp 3D models from your phone.[/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab9\" >Turn off your SketchUp profiles</h2>\r\nIt’s the nature of computers: At some point, you’ll make a SketchUp model that slows down. When that happens, you can lessen the processing load of SketchUp in many ways. The simplest (and quickest) method to try to speed up SketchUp is to turn off edge profiles. This display setting removes the extra line thickness applied to edges that define the outline of your geometry.\r\n\r\nYou can turn off profiles by changing or editing a style, but it’s much faster to set a customized keyboard shortcut. Now you can toggle in and out of edge profiles. Just like toggling shadows on and off, toggling profiles is a nice way to throttle the demand on your computer while keeping the sketchy look and feel a keystroke away.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab10\" >Connect with the SketchUp community</h2>\r\nThe Internet is an infinite resource of highly specialized SketchUp knowledge. People across the world, in many languages, have uploaded detailed YouTube videos in which they explain how to do something very specific in SketchUp.\r\n\r\nGenerate a cut list, draw with subdivisions to create organic shapes, model videogame levels, import GIS data — you can do it all in SketchUp, because a community of SketchUp people (we call them SketchUppers) are inspired to share and teach those who are willing to learn. You’ll find them in the SketchUp Forums, SketchUcation, and YouTube. Almost anywhere you can ask a question, a SketchUpper will answer it.\r\n\r\nOne last tip: Ask a friendly question, and you’ll get a helpful answer. With that, you are now in the good hands of SketchUppers everywhere.\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. 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Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. 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To select the tool you want, simply press the letter that's indicated in the following table.\r\n<table>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<th>Tool</th>\r\n<th>Shortcut Key</th>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Line</td>\r\n<td>L</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Eraser</td>\r\n<td>E</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Select</td>\r\n<td>Spacebar</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Move</td>\r\n<td>M</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Circle</td>\r\n<td>C</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Arc</td>\r\n<td>A</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Rectangle</td>\r\n<td>R</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Push/Pull</td>\r\n<td>P</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Offset</td>\r\n<td>O</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Rotate</td>\r\n<td>Q</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Scale</td>\r\n<td>S</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Zoom Extents</td>\r\n<td>Shift+Z</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Paint Bucket</td>\r\n<td>B</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>","description":"SketchUp offers keyboard shortcuts for the tools you use most often as you create models. 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Keyboard shortcuts also enable you to work quickly and easily in SketchUp.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"Like any <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/software/other-software/what-is-3d-modeling/\">3-D modeling program</a>, SketchUp offers different ways to do common tasks. In this Cheat Sheet, you'll find tips on the best way to use SketchUp tools and to boost your productivity. Keyboard shortcuts also enable you to work quickly and easily in SketchUp, so you'll uncover keyboard shortcuts for common tools.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_271860\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-271860\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-house-interior.jpg\" alt=\"3-D model created in SketchUp\" width=\"556\" height=\"277\" /> ©AIM Architects/Shutterstock.com<br /><br />Modern architecture house interior created in SketchUp.[/caption]","description":"Like any <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/software/other-software/what-is-3d-modeling/\">3-D modeling program</a>, SketchUp offers different ways to do common tasks. In this Cheat Sheet, you'll find tips on the best way to use SketchUp tools and to boost your productivity. Keyboard shortcuts also enable you to work quickly and easily in SketchUp, so you'll uncover keyboard shortcuts for common tools.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_271860\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-271860\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-house-interior.jpg\" alt=\"3-D model created in SketchUp\" width=\"556\" height=\"277\" /> ©AIM Architects/Shutterstock.com<br /><br />Modern architecture house interior created in SketchUp.[/caption]","blurb":"","authors":[],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":188813,"title":"How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web","slug":"how-to-print-to-scale-in-sketchup-for-web","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/188813"}},{"articleId":152331,"title":"13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools","slug":"13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152331"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":273632,"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273632"}},{"articleId":241390,"title":"How to Animate Sections with Scenes in SketchUp","slug":"animate-sections-scenes-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241390"}},{"articleId":241380,"title":"How to Make Walkthroughs in SketchUp","slug":"make-walkthroughs-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241380"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281864,"slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition","isbn":"9781119617938","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119617936-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition-cover-9781119617938-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"SketchUp For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":true,"authorsInfo":"<p><p><b><b data-author-id=\"9621\">Bill Fane</b></b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b235ea44\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b235f371\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Cheat Sheet","articleList":[{"articleId":152320,"title":"13 Tips and Techniques for Using SketchUp","slug":"13-tips-and-techniques-for-using-sketchup","categoryList":[],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152320"}},{"articleId":152319,"title":"3 Timesaving Techniques for Using SketchUp","slug":"3-timesaving-techniques-for-using-sketchup","categoryList":[],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152319"}},{"articleId":152331,"title":"13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools","slug":"13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152331"}}],"content":[{"title":"13 tips and techniques for using SketchUp","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>One of the best things about SketchUp is that you can use it to create 3-D models much more quickly than with other modeling programs. You can really turn up the speed on your creations with the following tips and techniques for using SketchUp tools.</p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>To Do This Task</th>\n<th>Here&#8217;s the Best Way</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Navigate</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Orbit with your mouse</td>\n<td>Hold down scroll wheel</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Zoom with your mouse</td>\n<td>Roll scroll wheel</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Pan with your mouse</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift and the scroll wheel</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Draw</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Draw an edge a certain length with the Line tool</td>\n<td>Type a length and press Enter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Snip off an edge at the last place you clicked</td>\n<td>Press the Esc key</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Lock your current direction with the Line tool</td>\n<td>Hold down the Shift key while drawing with the tool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Change the number of sides in a circle, arc, or polygon</td>\n<td>Type a number, then type s, and press Enter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Draw a circle or an arc of a certain radius</td>\n<td>Type a radius and press Enter after you draw a circle</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Select with the Select tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Add or subtract from what you&#8217;ve selected</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Select everything that isn&#8217;t hidden</td>\n<td>Press Ctrl+A (Command+A on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Select everything <i>inside</i> a selection box</td>\n<td>Click and drag from left to right</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Select everything <i>touched by</i> a selection box</td>\n<td>Click and drag from right to left</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Select all faces with the same material</td>\n<td>Right-click and choose Select→All with Same Material</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Move with the Move tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Move a certain distance</td>\n<td>Type a distance and press Enter after you move</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Force Auto-Fold (tell SketchUp it&#8217;s okay to fold)</td>\n<td>Press Alt (Command on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Lock yourself in the <i>blue</i> (up and down) direction</td>\n<td>Press the up arrow or down arrow key</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Copy with the Move and Rotate tools</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Make a copy with the Move or Rotate tools</td>\n<td>Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Make multiple copies <i>in a row</i></td>\n<td>Make a copy, type a distance, type <b>x</b>, and press<br />\nEnter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Make multiple copies <i>between</i></td>\n<td>Make a copy, type a number, type <b>/</b>, and press Enter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Hide and Smooth with the Eraser tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Hide something</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift and click with the Eraser</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Smooth something</td>\n<td>Ctrl+click with the Eraser (Option+click on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Unsmooth something</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift+Ctrl and click with the Eraser (Shift+Option on<br />\nthe Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Push/Pull and Offset</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Make a copy of the face you&#8217;re push/pulling</td>\n<td>Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac) and use the Push/Pull tool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Repeat the last distance you push/pulled</td>\n<td>Double-click a face with the Push/Pull tool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Repeat the last distance you Offset</td>\n<td>Double-click a face with the Offset tool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Scale with the Scale tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Scale about the center</td>\n<td>Hold down Ctrl (Option on the Mac) while scaling</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Scale uniformly (don&#8217;t distort)</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift while scaling</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Scale by a certain factor</td>\n<td>Type a number and press Enter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Make something a certain size</td>\n<td>Type the size <i>and</i> the units and then press Enter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Apply materials with the Paint Bucket tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Sample a material from a face</td>\n<td>Hold down Alt (Command on the Mac) and click the face with the<br />\ntool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Paint all faces that match the one you click</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift while you click</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Create guides</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Tell the Tape Measure or Protractor tool to create a guide</td>\n<td>Press Ctrl (Option on the Mac) and click with the tool</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Walk around your model with the Walk tool</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Walk through things</td>\n<td>Hold down Alt (Command on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Run instead of walk</td>\n<td>Hold down Ctrl (Option on the Mac)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Get taller or shorter instead of walking</td>\n<td>Hold down Shift</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Change your eye height</td>\n<td>Select the Look Around tool, type a height, and press<br />\nEnter</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Change your field of view</td>\n<td>Select the Zoom tool, type a number, type <b>deg</b>, and press<br />\nEnter</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n"},{"title":"3 timesaving techniques for using SketchUp","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>Creating a 3-D model takes time, but SketchUp makes it accessible and easy when compared to high-end modeling programs. As you create your models in SketchUp, you&#8217;ll come to appreciate the following timesaving techniques.</p>\n<p>To divide an edge into a number of shorter edges:</p>\n<ol class=\"level-one\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Right-click an edge with the Select tool.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Choose Divide from the context menu that pops up.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Type the number of segments you&#8217;d like and press Enter.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>To resize your whole model based on one known measurement:</p>\n<ol class=\"level-one\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Select the Tape Measure tool.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Press Ctrl (Option on a Mac) until you don&#8217;t see a + next to your cursor.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Measure a distance; click once to start measuring, and again to stop.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Type a dimension for the distance you just measured and press Enter.</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Click Yes in the dialog box that pops up.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>To set up your own keyboard shortcuts:</p>\n<ol class=\"level-one\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Choose Window→Preferences (File→Preferences on the Mac).</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"first-para\">Click the Shortcuts panel.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n"},{"title":"13 keyboard shortcuts for common SketchUp tools","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>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&#8217;s indicated in the following table.</p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Tool</th>\n<th>Shortcut Key</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Line</td>\n<td>L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Eraser</td>\n<td>E</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Select</td>\n<td>Spacebar</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Move</td>\n<td>M</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Circle</td>\n<td>C</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Arc</td>\n<td>A</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Rectangle</td>\n<td>R</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Push/Pull</td>\n<td>P</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Offset</td>\n<td>O</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Rotate</td>\n<td>Q</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Scale</td>\n<td>S</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Zoom Extents</td>\n<td>Shift+Z</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Paint Bucket</td>\n<td>B</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n"}],"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"Six months","lifeExpectancySetFrom":"2022-02-24T00:00:00+00:00","dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":207678},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2016-03-27T16:49:32+00:00","modifiedTime":"2022-02-22T19:26:37+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:19:11+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"AutoCAD","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33635"},"slug":"autocad","categoryId":33635}],"title":"AutoCAD For Dummies Cheat Sheet","strippedTitle":"autocad for dummies cheat sheet","slug":"autocad-2014-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"Learn commands for the AutoCAD drawing setup, keyboard shortcuts, and the drawing scale and limits in feet, inches, and millimeters.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"It's not enough to draw nice-looking lines anymore. If you want to compete in the AutoCAD realm, you need to carefully organize the objects you draw, their properties, and the files in which they reside.\r\n\r\nThis guide provides basic information and tools for the AutoCAD drawing setup, keyboard shortcuts in AutoCAD, and the AutoCAD drawing scale and limits—without putting a T-square through your computer screen in frustration.","description":"It's not enough to draw nice-looking lines anymore. If you want to compete in the AutoCAD realm, you need to carefully organize the objects you draw, their properties, and the files in which they reside.\r\n\r\nThis guide provides basic information and tools for the AutoCAD drawing setup, keyboard shortcuts in AutoCAD, and the AutoCAD drawing scale and limits—without putting a T-square through your computer screen in frustration.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. 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He is the author of more than 240 books and e-books on CAD and other topics, and his renowned WorldCAD Access industry blog is widely respected in the industry.</p> ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/34683"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;autocad&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119868767&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b1f209af\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;autocad&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119868767&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221b1f2143e\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Cheat Sheet","articleList":[{"articleId":167321,"title":"AutoCAD Drawing Setup Roadmap","slug":"autocad-2014-drawing-setup-roadmap","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/167321"}},{"articleId":167320,"title":"Top Keyboard Shortcuts in AutoCAD","slug":"top-keyboard-shortcuts-in-autocad-2014","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/167320"}},{"articleId":225735,"title":"AutoCAD Drawing Scale and Limits in Feet and Inches","slug":"autocad-2017s-drawing-scale-limits-feet-inches","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/225735"}},{"articleId":167193,"title":"AutoCAD Drawing Scale and Limits in Millimeters","slug":"autocad-2014s-drawing-scale-and-limits-in-millimeters","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/167193"}}],"content":[{"title":"The roadmap to setting up","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>At first, AutoCAD’s drawing setup can seem complicated. The following table lists the steps to take in setting up your drawings, along with what each command does and the various ways to access them.</p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Ribbon or Application Menu</td>\n<td>Command Name</td>\n<td>Keyboard Shortcut</td>\n<td>Description</td>\n<td>Your Action</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Model Space</strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 1: Application menu&#8211;&gt;New Drawing</td>\n<td>NEW</td>\n<td>Ctrl+N</td>\n<td>Opens the Select Template file dialog box</td>\n<td>Define the initial settings of new drawings by choosing an imperial (acad.dwt) or metric (adadiso.dwt) template file.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 2: Quick Access toolbar&#8211;&gt;Save</td>\n<td>QSAVE</td>\n<td>Ctrl+S</td>\n<td>Opens the Save Drawing As file dialog box</td>\n<td>The first time you save the new drawing, you need to give it a suitable name.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 3: Application menu&#8211;&gt;Drawing Utilities&#8211;&gt;Units</td>\n<td>UNITS</td>\n<td>UN</td>\n<td>Opens the Drawing Units dialog box</td>\n<td>Specify the units the drawing will be using.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 4: Right-click the status bar icon for Snap, Grid, Object Snap, Polar, or Object Snap Tracking</td>\n<td>DSETTINGS</td>\n<td>DS</td>\n<td>Opens the Drafting Settings dialog box</td>\n<td>Click each tab in the dialog box to choose which are needed for  Snap, Grid, and so on.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 5: View tab&#8211;&gt;Palettes panel&#8211;&gt;Properties</td>\n<td>LTSCALE</td>\n<td>LTS</td>\n<td>Opens the Properties palette</td>\n<td>Specify the linetype scale based on the scale at which the drawing will be printed.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 6: Annotate tab&#8211;&gt;Dimension panel&#8211;&gt;Flyout</td>\n<td>DIMSTYLE</td>\n<td>DIMSTY</td>\n<td>Opens the Dimension Style Manager dialog box</td>\n<td>Specify suitable values for dimensions.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 7: Annotate tab&#8211;&gt;Text panel&#8211;&gt;Flyout</td>\n<td>STYLE</td>\n<td>ST</td>\n<td>Opens the Text Style dialog box</td>\n<td>Specify suitable values for the look of the text.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 8: Application menu&#8211;&gt;Drawing Utilities&#8211;&gt;Drawing Properties</td>\n<td>DWGPROPS</td>\n<td>DWG</td>\n<td>Opens the Drawing Properties dialog box</td>\n<td>Enter appropriate values to help search for this drawing later.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Paper Space Layouts</strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n<td><strong> </strong></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 9: Right-click each Layout tab&#8211;&gt;Page Setup</td>\n<td>PAGESETUPMANAGER</td>\n<td>PAGE</td>\n<td>Opens the Page Setup Manager dialog box</td>\n<td>Enter suitable values for paper size, plotter configuration, and so on.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Model Space</strong></td>\n<td></td>\n<td></td>\n<td></td>\n<td></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Step 10: Quick Access toolbar&#8211;&gt;Save</td>\n<td>QSAVE</td>\n<td>Ctrl+S</td>\n<td>Opens the Save Drawing As file dialog box</td>\n<td>Save your settings in a template file: Switch the File of Type to DWT Template and give it a suitable name.</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n"},{"title":"Top keyboard shortcuts in AutoCAD","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>Since AutoCAD came into being nearly 40 years ago, the one input method that’s remained constant is typing on the command line. The following table lists useful AutoCAD keyboard shortcuts for , which can be faster than searching for a command on the Ribbon or menu bar.</p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Keypress</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Command</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Description</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F1</td>\n<td width=\"208\">HELP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Opens the online Help window</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F2</td>\n<td width=\"208\">…</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Expands the command line</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F3</td>\n<td width=\"208\">OSNAP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles the Text screen display on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F4</td>\n<td width=\"208\">3DOSNAP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles 3D Object Snap mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F5</td>\n<td width=\"208\">ISOPLANE</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles the isoplane between left, right, and top</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F6</td>\n<td width=\"208\">3DOSNAP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles 3D Snap to Plane mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F7</td>\n<td width=\"208\">GRIDMODE</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles Grid mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F8</td>\n<td width=\"208\">ORTHO</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Ortho mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F9</td>\n<td width=\"208\">SNAP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggle Snap mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F10</td>\n<td width=\"208\">POLARMODE</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles Polar mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F11</td>\n<td width=\"208\">AUTOSNAP</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles Object Track mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">F12</td>\n<td width=\"208\">DYNMODE</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Toggles Dynamic Input mode on and off</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+A</td>\n<td width=\"208\">AI_SELALL</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Selects all nonfrozen objects in the drawing</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+N</td>\n<td width=\"208\">NEW</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Starts a new drawing with a template</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+S</td>\n<td width=\"208\">QSAVE</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Saves the drawing</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+O</td>\n<td width=\"208\">OPEN</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Displays the Select File dialog box</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+P</td>\n<td width=\"208\">PLOT</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Displays the Plot dialog box</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+Z</td>\n<td width=\"208\">U</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Undoes the last command</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+Tab</td>\n<td width=\"208\">…</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Switches to the next open drawing</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+PgUp</td>\n<td width=\"208\">…</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Switches to the next tab in the current drawing</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"208\">Ctrl+PgDn</td>\n<td width=\"208\">…</td>\n<td width=\"208\">Switches to the previous tab I the current drawing</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\n"},{"title":"AutoCAD drawing scales and sizes in feet and inches","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>The following table lists the dimensions of drawings that fit a range of standard paper sizes when used with standard drawing scales.</p>\n<p>These numbers are useful for setting the scale of size-dependent objects in model space, such as the height of text and dimension scaling. For example, when you use a laser printer that handles only A-size (8-1/2-inch-by-11-inch) paper, you can fit a drawing on the paper that’s as big as 34 feet by 44 feet by using ¼&#8221;=1&#8217;0&#8243; scale.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-290269\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/Sizes-autocad.jpg\" alt=\"AutoCAD sizes chart-feet and inches\" width=\"535\" height=\"245\" /></p>\n"},{"title":"AutoCAD drawing scales and sizes in milimeters","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>The following table lists the dimensions for standard metric paper sizes at different drawing scales. These numbers are useful when setting the scale for size-dependent objects in model space, such as the height of dimension text and linetype scaling.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-290270\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-sizes-milimeters.jpg\" alt=\"AutoCAD sizes in milimeters\" width=\"535\" height=\"334\" /></p>\n"}],"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"One year","lifeExpectancySetFrom":"2022-01-13T00:00:00+00:00","dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":207982},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2020-02-18T16:02:42+00:00","modifiedTime":"2021-03-14T17:36:36+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:17:57+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"AutoCAD","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33635"},"slug":"autocad","categoryId":33635}],"title":"Tinkercad For Dummies Cheat Sheet","strippedTitle":"tinkercad for dummies cheat sheet","slug":"tinkercad-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"In this Cheat Sheet, learn everything from Tinkercad keyboard shortcuts to how to find what you want in the online Tinkercad libraries.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"Tinkercad is a superb cloud-based 3D design platform, which enables you to design 3D prototypes and those 3D “wow” projects that you want to show off to your friends and colleagues (and your mum and dad). <em>Tinkercad For Dummies</em> gives you a great grounding in how to use Tinkercad, but what about all those little shortcuts and tips and tricks that will take you from being a Tinkercad Jedi padawan to a Tinkercad Jedi master? Well, you will find them all in this Cheat Sheet; everything from keyboard shortcuts to how to find what you want in the online Tinkercad libraries. It’s all here!","description":"Tinkercad is a superb cloud-based 3D design platform, which enables you to design 3D prototypes and those 3D “wow” projects that you want to show off to your friends and colleagues (and your mum and dad). <em>Tinkercad For Dummies</em> gives you a great grounding in how to use Tinkercad, but what about all those little shortcuts and tips and tricks that will take you from being a Tinkercad Jedi padawan to a Tinkercad Jedi master? Well, you will find them all in this Cheat Sheet; everything from keyboard shortcuts to how to find what you want in the online Tinkercad libraries. It’s all here!","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":11343,"name":"Shaun C. Bryant","slug":"shaun-bryant","description":"Shaun C Bryant has 30 years of experience in the CAD/BIM field and is a consultant, manager, trainer, and user. He teaches CAD and BIM courses at LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com) and maintains the highly respected Not Just CAD! blog. An Autodesk certified professional, Shaun is also an Autodesk expert elite and an Autodesk certified instructor.","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/11343"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33635,"title":"AutoCAD","slug":"autocad","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33635"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":253010,"title":"10 Great 3D Printing Materials","slug":"10-great-3d-printing-materials","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253010"}},{"articleId":253007,"title":"3D Printing with Nylon (Polyamide)","slug":"3d-printing-nylon-polyamide","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253007"}},{"articleId":253004,"title":"Home-Based 3D Printing with ABS","slug":"home-based-3d-printing-abs","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253004"}},{"articleId":253001,"title":"Liquid Resin Offers Multiple Options for 3D Printing","slug":"liquid-resin-offers-multiple-options-3d-printing","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253001"}},{"articleId":252998,"title":"Paintable Resin for 3D Models","slug":"paintable-resin-3d-models","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/252998"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":264956,"title":"AutoCAD Commands for Modifying and Editing 3D Objects","slug":"autocad-commands-for-modifying-and-editing-3d-objects","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/264956"}},{"articleId":264942,"title":"The Importance of Being DWG in AutoCAD: A Brief Guide to AutoCAD Versions and File Formats","slug":"the-importance-of-being-dwg-in-autocad-a-brief-guide-to-autocad-versions-and-file-formats","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/264942"}},{"articleId":253010,"title":"10 Great 3D Printing Materials","slug":"10-great-3d-printing-materials","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253010"}},{"articleId":253007,"title":"3D Printing with Nylon (Polyamide)","slug":"3d-printing-nylon-polyamide","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253007"}},{"articleId":253004,"title":"Home-Based 3D Printing with ABS","slug":"home-based-3d-printing-abs","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/253004"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281882,"slug":"tinkercad-for-dummies","isbn":"9781119464419","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","autocad"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119464412/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119464412/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119464412-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119464412/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119464412/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-for-dummies-cover-9781119464419-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"Tinkercad For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":false,"authorsInfo":"<p><b data-author-id=\"34836\">Shaun C Bryant</b> has 30 years of experience in the CAD/BIM field and is a consultant, manager, and trainer as well as a user. He teaches CAD and BIM courses at LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com) and maintains the highly respected “Not Just CAD!” blog. An Autodesk Certified Professional, Shaun is also an Autodesk Expert Elite and an Autodesk Certified Instructor.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":34836,"name":"Shaun C. Bryant","slug":"shaun-c-bryant","description":" <p><b>Shaun C Bryant</b> has 30 years of experience in the CAD/BIM field and is a consultant, manager, and trainer as well as a user. He teaches CAD and BIM courses at LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com) and maintains the highly respected &ldquo;Not Just CAD!&rdquo; blog. An Autodesk Certified Professional, Shaun is also an Autodesk Expert Elite and an Autodesk Certified Instructor.</p>","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/34836"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;autocad&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119464419&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221ad52bf4e\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;autocad&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119464419&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221ad52c7eb\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Cheat Sheet","articleList":[{"articleId":0,"title":"","slug":null,"categoryList":[],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/"}}],"content":[{"title":"Common keyboard shortcuts in Tinkercad","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>Tinkercad has LOTS of keyboard shortcuts. Some of these shortcuts are combinations of keys, some are keystrokes combines with mouse actions, and some enable you to make interface changes so that you can edit in 3D more efficiently and effectively.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268315\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-keyboard-shortcuts.jpg\" alt=\"Tinkercad keyboard shortcuts\" width=\"535\" height=\"692\" /></p>\n<p><strong>You can find all the Tinkercad keyboard shortcuts in this <a href=\"https://blog.tinkercad.com/keyboard-shortcuts-for-the-3d-editor\">Tinkercad blog</a></strong>.</p>\n<p><strong>You can also <a href=\"https://blogdottinkercaddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/tinkercad-keyboard-shortcuts_revised-8-31-182.pdf\">download a PDF</a> of the shortcuts shown in the blog.</strong></p>\n<p>Make sure you are logged in to your <a href=\"https://dummies-wp-admin.dummies.com/software/other-software/create-tinkercad-account/\">Tinkercad account</a>, too, so that you can jump straight into these shortcuts and get designing!</p>\n"},{"title":"How to copy and paste your designs between Tinkercad tabs","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>Sometimes, in your browser, you may have more than one Tinkercad tab open with multiple designs that you want to combine into one 3D model. You can use the Copy and Paste commands on the screen in the top left menu.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268316\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-copy.jpg\" alt=\"copying in Tinkercad\" width=\"535\" height=\"310\" /></p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268317\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-paste.jpg\" alt=\"pasting in Tinkercad\" width=\"535\" height=\"310\" /></p>\n<p>You also can use the traditional keyboard shortcuts as follows (Apple shortcuts shown in parentheses):</p>\n<blockquote><p>CTRL + C (CMD + C) = Copy your design in an open browser tab</p>\n<p>CTRL + V (CMD + V) = Paste the copied design into another open browser tab</p></blockquote>\n<p>Using several open browser tabs with different Tinkercad designs in each one not only allows you to keep multiple components of your designs separate, but also allows you to keep them as different projects on your Tinkercad landing page, too.</p>\n<p><strong>This is mentioned on this <a href=\"https://blog.tinkercad.com/tinkertip-copy/paste-between-tabs\">Tinkercad blog</a>.</strong></p>\n"},{"title":"How to work with the Tinkercad iPad app","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>Do you own an Apple iPad? If you do, you can now download the Tinkercad app!</p>\n<p>You can now take Tinkercad on the road with you and utilize the Augmented Reality (AR) features built into the app as well. You can use finger gestures or an Apple Pencil (2nd Generation), too, making the Tinkercad interface even more intuitive.</p>\n<div class=\"figure-container\"><figure id=\"attachment_268318\" aria-labelledby=\"figcaption_attachment_268318\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 410px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-268318\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-iPad-app.jpg\" alt=\"Tinkercad 3D model\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" /><figcaption id=\"figcaption_attachment_268318\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Autodesk, Inc.</p>\n<p>A 3D model showing the cross-section of a cell, as seen through the AR view of the Tinkercad iPad app.</figcaption></figure></div><div class=\"clearfix\"></div>\n<p>The AR function allows you to see your Tinkercad in real space, utilizing the iPad camera, and with its Apple Classroom functionality, it makes for a great learning tool, too.</p>\n<p><strong>You can read more about the app on <a href=\"https://blog.tinkercad.com/introducing-the-tinkercad-ipad-app\">the Tinkercad blog</a>.</strong></p>\n"},{"title":"How to customize your shape libraries in Tinkercad","thumb":null,"image":null,"content":"<p>In the Tinkercad For Dummies publication, you get to use the Basic Shapes library. If you expand that library list by clicking on the dropdown menu, you see the Part Collection under the YOU section.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268321\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-part-collection.jpg\" alt=\"Tinkercad Part Collection\" width=\"201\" height=\"400\" /></p>\n<p>Clicking on <strong>Part Collection</strong> gives you the option to save selections from your design as reusable parts.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268320\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-create-part.jpg\" alt=\"create part in Tinkercad\" width=\"344\" height=\"220\" /></p>\n<p>Simply select a part in your design and click on Create Part. You then can name your part, give it a description, and add appropriate tags. You can even lock down its scale if you need to.</p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-268319\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/tinkercad-name-part.jpg\" alt=\"name part in Tinkercad\" width=\"333\" height=\"362\" /></p>\n"}],"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":"Six months","lifeExpectancySetFrom":null,"dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":268314},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2020-09-30T16:43:32+00:00","modifiedTime":"2020-09-30T16:43:32+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:17:51+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"SketchUp","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"},"slug":"sketchup","categoryId":33636}],"title":"Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","strippedTitle":"working with sketchup’s 3d warehouse","slug":"working-with-sketchups-3d-warehouse","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"SketchUp's 3D Warehouse is full of treasures. Use this guide from Dummies.com to learn how to work with the 3D Warehouse.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"SketchUp’s 3D Warehouseis a huge online collection of 3D models that is searchable and, most important, free for everyone to use. To access the 3D Warehouse, all you need is an Internet connection. If you have a SketchUp model that you want to share with the world, share with just a few people or store on SketchUp’s servers for safekeeping, the 3D Warehouse is where you put it.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273634\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273634 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-warehouse.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D Warehouse\" width=\"556\" height=\"315\" /> SketchUp's 3D Warehouse is chock-full of models shared by people like you. [/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Why use SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse?</h2>\r\nLet’s dispel a popular misconception right away: When you upload a model to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse, you aren’t automatically donating your hard work to the world — you can make uploaded models and collections private.\r\n\r\nWith that understanding, here are some awesome reasons to use the 3D Warehouse:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Sharing is good for your self-esteem.</strong> To be clear, you don’t need to subscribe to the nouveau-tech mindset that all information has to be free of charge. If you spent a lot of time on something and you don’t want to give it away, you shouldn’t have to. But if you’re proud of what you made, and sharing it with others would make you feel good, the 3D Warehouse offers a great way to contribute to the 3D modeling community.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Create your own personal component library.</strong> Because SketchUp can download models directly from the 3D Warehouse into the model you’re working on, making your own online collections is incredibly handy. Everything you upload is accessible anywhere you happen to be working.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">For example, you can maintain a collection of the furniture in your house. Whenever you need a model of your sofa, you can just download it — no matter what computer you’re using.</p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Explore uploaded models in 3D without having to download them.</strong> You can orbit, pan, and zoom around any model you can see on the 3D Warehouse — <em>without</em> having to download it into SketchUp first. If you want to show someone your model in 3D, you can just send them its 3D Warehouse link. Better yet, you can embed a 3D viewer window on your web page; anyone who visits your page can poke around.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>It’s never a bad idea to have a backup.</strong> If all you’re looking to do is save a copy of your work in the cloud (where you can’t spill your coffee all over it), services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are great choices. None of these, however, give you direct access to your models inside of SketchUp. When you <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-upload-your-google-sketchup-model-to-the-3d-warehouse/\">upload something to the 3D Warehouse</a>, it’s both safe <em>and</em> readily available. It’s also a good idea to keep a backup of everything on a removable USB drive and store it away from your computer, preferably in a different building.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Getting to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</h2>\r\nYou can get to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse in two ways:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>From SketchUp:</strong> Choose Window→3D Warehouse. A mini web browser opens right in front of your modeling window. In SketchUp for web, use Search to find and open 3D Warehouse.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>From the web:</strong> Check out <a href=\"https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/\">SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</a> on the web.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Accessing the 3D Warehouse from the web is a great way to hunt for and curate 3D models to quickly create component collections for use as you’re modeling.</p>\r\nGo ahead and poke around the 3D Warehouse. It’s amazing what you find; thousands of people add new content every day. Much of it isn’t very useful, but you still find plenty of interesting things to download and look at.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Taking apart strangers’ models is a great way to figure out how they’re built.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Find, preview, and download models in SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</h2>\r\nBefore you get into sharing models, here’s a quick explanation of the most important thing you’ll do in 3D Warehouse: search, evaluate, and download 3D models:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Finding models: </strong>Once you’ve searched in 3D Warehouse, there are various ways to refine and improve your model search results. In particular, it’s recommended that you filter your results by either Popularity or Likes and using Categories (in the upper left of your search results) to filter out models that aren’t related to what you’re looking for.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Evaluating models for size and performance: </strong>Be careful about downloading models that are very big or complex. Unfortunately, a bad 3D Warehouse download can cripple your model. Keep the junk out by restricting the file size and polygon count of your searches.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Downloading models: </strong>If you’re using 3D Warehouse while modeling, models you download will import directly into SketchUp, where they are placed on the cursor of the Move tool. Move the cursor to the desired location in your model and then click to place the new component at that location. If you downloaded a SKP file from 3D Warehouse in a web browser, you can drag and drop that file into SketchUp to place it in your model.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >Managing your SketchUp models online</h2>\r\n3D Warehouse can sometimes feel like a free-for-all of individual models floating around in cyberspace. But if you use it intentionally, it’s actually a pretty organized place.\r\n\r\nIf you are downloading models, the image below shows the doodads and gadgets you should pay attention to on a model’s details page:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>3D model preview:</strong> This preview, which is available in a web browser only, enables you to hover over the image of a model and click 3D Model to preview the model using SketchUp’s camera tools. If you don’t have a mouse, press O for Orbit and H for Pan.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Statistics panel:</strong> The numbers that appear on this section of the page are all interesting and useful, but the ones you should pay closest attention to are Polygons and Materials. These tell you the model’s size in the three metrics that count most:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><em>Polygons</em> is 3D modeling shorthand for faces; the more you have, the harder SketchUp has to work to display your model. If you’re thinking about downloading a tree with 350,000 polygons, consider taking a vacation to Tahiti while SketchUp opens it.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Materials</em> are similarly taxing on your computer’s performance, but they only come into play for models that have been heavily photo-textured.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Distance from Origin </em>is how far away the geometry in a model is from the origin of that model. The bigger the number this is, the worse your model will perform when you initially load it into SketchUp. You can fix this, but beware: A model that is very far from the origin is likely to have other problems!</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Related Collections:</strong> If the model you’re searching for doesn’t quite do the trick, it can be useful to browse related Collections compiled by other people who are interested in the same thing you are looking for.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273635\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273635 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-warehouse-model.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D Warehouse model\" width=\"556\" height=\"315\" /> Something’s fishy about this model in 3D Warehouse.[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn addition to information about a model you’re looking at, either yours or someone else’s, you’ll find some valuable tools for curation and organization, just below the title of the model.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Like models:</strong> Liking a model by clicking its heart icon is a quick way to give it positive feedback. Likes make it easier for people to find useful 3D models. Whether or not you share models, you can help improve 3D Warehouse by liking things. Models you like are saved for you in My Content (on the Account menu).</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Adds to Folders or Collections:</strong> One of the most productive things you can do on the 3D Warehouse is collect models — your own <em>and</em> other people’s. Make yourself empty collections for things like chairs, scale figures, trees, and star destroyers. Then fill them with the amazing models you find as you’re exploring. Back in SketchUp, in the Components panel, choose My Collections from the Collections drop-down menu, and there they are, ready to use in your own work. Collections are public, so if you prefer to keep your libraries private, use Folders instead. In SketchUp, able to access folders by going to My Content in the 3D Warehouse mini-browser.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Embed:</strong> Click here, and the 3D Warehouse serves up some HTML code that you can use to embed the model on a web page.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">The Embed feature is especially important for product manufacturers, designers, and anyone else who wants to let people explore a model in 3D without leaving their website.</p>\r\nWhile we’re on the subject of SketchUp collections and folders, here’s how to create and manage them:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Make sure you’re logged in to the 3D Warehouse.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIf you're logged in, you’ll see your username on the account drop-down menu at the top of every page in the Warehouse. If you’re not logged in, click Sign In (also at the top of every page) and enter your account credentials.</li>\r\n \t<li>Go to the model details page for a model you want to add to a Folder or Collection.</li>\r\n \t<li>To create a Folder or a Collection, click on the appropriate Folder or Collection icon.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Folder and Collections icons are located just below the lower-left corner of the image in the model details page. The Folder icon looks like a folder, and the Collection icon is right next to it.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFirst things first: Decide how you want to organize things. Remember, folders are private to you; collections are visible to everybody. Then create a name for your new library. You can also create new folders or collections, using the icons on the My Content page.</li>\r\n \t<li>To add a model to an existing folder or collection, choose it from the list.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs you create more folders and collections, you’ll see designations when you click the Folder or Collections icons. Add the model you are viewing to a folder or collection by choosing it from the list that appears.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nIf you find yourself working on the same kind of project over and over, these techniques for searching for, evaluating, and organizing models comes in handy big time. A well-organized stash of attractive, high-performance SketchUp components is one of your best weapons for dramatically speeding your modeling. After all, why draw something from scratch if a perfectly good something already exists?\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/?keyword=sketchup%20cheat%20sheet&index=1&isSearch=1\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","description":"SketchUp’s 3D Warehouseis a huge online collection of 3D models that is searchable and, most important, free for everyone to use. To access the 3D Warehouse, all you need is an Internet connection. If you have a SketchUp model that you want to share with the world, share with just a few people or store on SketchUp’s servers for safekeeping, the 3D Warehouse is where you put it.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273634\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273634 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-warehouse.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D Warehouse\" width=\"556\" height=\"315\" /> SketchUp's 3D Warehouse is chock-full of models shared by people like you. [/caption]\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Why use SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse?</h2>\r\nLet’s dispel a popular misconception right away: When you upload a model to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse, you aren’t automatically donating your hard work to the world — you can make uploaded models and collections private.\r\n\r\nWith that understanding, here are some awesome reasons to use the 3D Warehouse:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Sharing is good for your self-esteem.</strong> To be clear, you don’t need to subscribe to the nouveau-tech mindset that all information has to be free of charge. If you spent a lot of time on something and you don’t want to give it away, you shouldn’t have to. But if you’re proud of what you made, and sharing it with others would make you feel good, the 3D Warehouse offers a great way to contribute to the 3D modeling community.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Create your own personal component library.</strong> Because SketchUp can download models directly from the 3D Warehouse into the model you’re working on, making your own online collections is incredibly handy. Everything you upload is accessible anywhere you happen to be working.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">For example, you can maintain a collection of the furniture in your house. Whenever you need a model of your sofa, you can just download it — no matter what computer you’re using.</p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Explore uploaded models in 3D without having to download them.</strong> You can orbit, pan, and zoom around any model you can see on the 3D Warehouse — <em>without</em> having to download it into SketchUp first. If you want to show someone your model in 3D, you can just send them its 3D Warehouse link. Better yet, you can embed a 3D viewer window on your web page; anyone who visits your page can poke around.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>It’s never a bad idea to have a backup.</strong> If all you’re looking to do is save a copy of your work in the cloud (where you can’t spill your coffee all over it), services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are great choices. None of these, however, give you direct access to your models inside of SketchUp. When you <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/how-to-upload-your-google-sketchup-model-to-the-3d-warehouse/\">upload something to the 3D Warehouse</a>, it’s both safe <em>and</em> readily available. It’s also a good idea to keep a backup of everything on a removable USB drive and store it away from your computer, preferably in a different building.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Getting to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</h2>\r\nYou can get to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse in two ways:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>From SketchUp:</strong> Choose Window→3D Warehouse. A mini web browser opens right in front of your modeling window. In SketchUp for web, use Search to find and open 3D Warehouse.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>From the web:</strong> Check out <a href=\"https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/\">SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</a> on the web.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Accessing the 3D Warehouse from the web is a great way to hunt for and curate 3D models to quickly create component collections for use as you’re modeling.</p>\r\nGo ahead and poke around the 3D Warehouse. It’s amazing what you find; thousands of people add new content every day. Much of it isn’t very useful, but you still find plenty of interesting things to download and look at.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Taking apart strangers’ models is a great way to figure out how they’re built.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >Find, preview, and download models in SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse</h2>\r\nBefore you get into sharing models, here’s a quick explanation of the most important thing you’ll do in 3D Warehouse: search, evaluate, and download 3D models:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Finding models: </strong>Once you’ve searched in 3D Warehouse, there are various ways to refine and improve your model search results. In particular, it’s recommended that you filter your results by either Popularity or Likes and using Categories (in the upper left of your search results) to filter out models that aren’t related to what you’re looking for.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Evaluating models for size and performance: </strong>Be careful about downloading models that are very big or complex. Unfortunately, a bad 3D Warehouse download can cripple your model. Keep the junk out by restricting the file size and polygon count of your searches.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Downloading models: </strong>If you’re using 3D Warehouse while modeling, models you download will import directly into SketchUp, where they are placed on the cursor of the Move tool. Move the cursor to the desired location in your model and then click to place the new component at that location. If you downloaded a SKP file from 3D Warehouse in a web browser, you can drag and drop that file into SketchUp to place it in your model.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab4\" >Managing your SketchUp models online</h2>\r\n3D Warehouse can sometimes feel like a free-for-all of individual models floating around in cyberspace. But if you use it intentionally, it’s actually a pretty organized place.\r\n\r\nIf you are downloading models, the image below shows the doodads and gadgets you should pay attention to on a model’s details page:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>3D model preview:</strong> This preview, which is available in a web browser only, enables you to hover over the image of a model and click 3D Model to preview the model using SketchUp’s camera tools. If you don’t have a mouse, press O for Orbit and H for Pan.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Statistics panel:</strong> The numbers that appear on this section of the page are all interesting and useful, but the ones you should pay closest attention to are Polygons and Materials. These tell you the model’s size in the three metrics that count most:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><em>Polygons</em> is 3D modeling shorthand for faces; the more you have, the harder SketchUp has to work to display your model. If you’re thinking about downloading a tree with 350,000 polygons, consider taking a vacation to Tahiti while SketchUp opens it.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Materials</em> are similarly taxing on your computer’s performance, but they only come into play for models that have been heavily photo-textured.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Distance from Origin </em>is how far away the geometry in a model is from the origin of that model. The bigger the number this is, the worse your model will perform when you initially load it into SketchUp. You can fix this, but beware: A model that is very far from the origin is likely to have other problems!</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Related Collections:</strong> If the model you’re searching for doesn’t quite do the trick, it can be useful to browse related Collections compiled by other people who are interested in the same thing you are looking for.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_273635\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"556\"]<img class=\"wp-image-273635 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-3d-warehouse-model.jpg\" alt=\"SketchUp 3D Warehouse model\" width=\"556\" height=\"315\" /> Something’s fishy about this model in 3D Warehouse.[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn addition to information about a model you’re looking at, either yours or someone else’s, you’ll find some valuable tools for curation and organization, just below the title of the model.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Like models:</strong> Liking a model by clicking its heart icon is a quick way to give it positive feedback. Likes make it easier for people to find useful 3D models. Whether or not you share models, you can help improve 3D Warehouse by liking things. Models you like are saved for you in My Content (on the Account menu).</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Adds to Folders or Collections:</strong> One of the most productive things you can do on the 3D Warehouse is collect models — your own <em>and</em> other people’s. Make yourself empty collections for things like chairs, scale figures, trees, and star destroyers. Then fill them with the amazing models you find as you’re exploring. Back in SketchUp, in the Components panel, choose My Collections from the Collections drop-down menu, and there they are, ready to use in your own work. Collections are public, so if you prefer to keep your libraries private, use Folders instead. In SketchUp, able to access folders by going to My Content in the 3D Warehouse mini-browser.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Embed:</strong> Click here, and the 3D Warehouse serves up some HTML code that you can use to embed the model on a web page.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">The Embed feature is especially important for product manufacturers, designers, and anyone else who wants to let people explore a model in 3D without leaving their website.</p>\r\nWhile we’re on the subject of SketchUp collections and folders, here’s how to create and manage them:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Make sure you’re logged in to the 3D Warehouse.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIf you're logged in, you’ll see your username on the account drop-down menu at the top of every page in the Warehouse. If you’re not logged in, click Sign In (also at the top of every page) and enter your account credentials.</li>\r\n \t<li>Go to the model details page for a model you want to add to a Folder or Collection.</li>\r\n \t<li>To create a Folder or a Collection, click on the appropriate Folder or Collection icon.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Folder and Collections icons are located just below the lower-left corner of the image in the model details page. The Folder icon looks like a folder, and the Collection icon is right next to it.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFirst things first: Decide how you want to organize things. Remember, folders are private to you; collections are visible to everybody. Then create a name for your new library. You can also create new folders or collections, using the icons on the My Content page.</li>\r\n \t<li>To add a model to an existing folder or collection, choose it from the list.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs you create more folders and collections, you’ll see designations when you click the Folder or Collections icons. Add the model you are viewing to a folder or collection by choosing it from the list that appears.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nIf you find yourself working on the same kind of project over and over, these techniques for searching for, evaluating, and organizing models comes in handy big time. A well-organized stash of attractive, high-performance SketchUp components is one of your best weapons for dramatically speeding your modeling. After all, why draw something from scratch if a perfectly good something already exists?\r\n\r\nWant to learn more? Check out our <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/google-sketchup/sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/?keyword=sketchup%20cheat%20sheet&index=1&isSearch=1\">SketchUp Cheat Sheet</a>.","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"primaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":33636,"title":"SketchUp","slug":"sketchup","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33636"}},"secondaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"tertiaryCategoryTaxonomy":{"categoryId":0,"title":null,"slug":null,"_links":null},"trendingArticles":null,"inThisArticle":[{"label":"Why use SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse?","target":"#tab1"},{"label":"Getting to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","target":"#tab2"},{"label":"Find, preview, and download models in SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse","target":"#tab3"},{"label":"Managing your SketchUp models online","target":"#tab4"}],"relatedArticles":{"fromBook":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":207678,"title":"SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet","slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-cheat-sheet","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/207678"}},{"articleId":188813,"title":"How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web","slug":"how-to-print-to-scale-in-sketchup-for-web","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/188813"}},{"articleId":152331,"title":"13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools","slug":"13-keyboard-shortcuts-for-common-sketchup-tools","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/152331"}}],"fromCategory":[{"articleId":273651,"title":"10 SketchUp Quick Wins","slug":"10-sketchup-quick-wins","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273651"}},{"articleId":273640,"title":"10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds","slug":"10-sketchup-issues-and-their-workarounds","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/273640"}},{"articleId":241390,"title":"How to Animate Sections with Scenes in SketchUp","slug":"animate-sections-scenes-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241390"}},{"articleId":241380,"title":"How to Make Walkthroughs in SketchUp","slug":"make-walkthroughs-sketchup","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241380"}},{"articleId":241348,"title":"How to Use SketchUp’s CleanUp3 and Solid Inspector2 Tools for 3D Printing","slug":"use-sketchups-cleanup3-solid-inspector2-tools-3d-printing","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/articles/241348"}}]},"hasRelatedBookFromSearch":false,"relatedBook":{"bookId":281864,"slug":"sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition","isbn":"9781119617938","categoryList":["technology","software","design-software","sketchup"],"amazon":{"default":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","ca":"https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","indigo_ca":"http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-9208661-13710633?url=https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/1119617936-item.html&cjsku=978111945484","gb":"https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20","de":"https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1119617936/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wiley01-20"},"image":{"src":"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/sketchup-for-dummies-2nd-edition-cover-9781119617938-203x255.jpg","width":203,"height":255},"title":"SketchUp For Dummies","testBankPinActivationLink":"","bookOutOfPrint":true,"authorsInfo":"<p><p><b><b data-author-id=\"9621\">Bill Fane</b></b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine.</p>","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/9621"}},{"authorId":33377,"name":"Mark Harrison","slug":"mark-harrison","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33377"}},{"authorId":33376,"name":"Josh Reilly","slug":"josh-reilly","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. ","hasArticle":false,"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/authors/33376"}}],"_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/books/"}},"collections":[],"articleAds":{"footerAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_adhesion_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221acf2da49\"></div></div>","rightAd":"<div class=\"du-ad-region row\" id=\"article_page_right_ad\"><div class=\"du-ad-unit col-md-12\" data-slot-id=\"article_page_right_ad\" data-refreshed=\"false\" \r\n data-target = \"[{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;cat&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;technology&quot;,&quot;software&quot;,&quot;design-software&quot;,&quot;sketchup&quot;]},{&quot;key&quot;:&quot;isbn&quot;,&quot;values&quot;:[&quot;9781119617938&quot;]}]\" id=\"du-slot-63221acf2e2b2\"></div></div>"},"articleType":{"articleType":"Articles","articleList":null,"content":null,"videoInfo":{"videoId":null,"name":null,"accountId":null,"playerId":null,"thumbnailUrl":null,"description":null,"uploadDate":null}},"sponsorship":{"sponsorshipPage":false,"backgroundImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"brandingLine":"","brandingLink":"","brandingLogo":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0},"sponsorAd":"","sponsorEbookTitle":"","sponsorEbookLink":"","sponsorEbookImage":{"src":null,"width":0,"height":0}},"primaryLearningPath":"Advance","lifeExpectancy":null,"lifeExpectancySetFrom":null,"dummiesForKids":"no","sponsoredContent":"no","adInfo":"","adPairKey":[]},"status":"publish","visibility":"public","articleId":273632},{"headers":{"creationTime":"2016-03-27T10:56:53+00:00","modifiedTime":"2020-01-22T19:28:28+00:00","timestamp":"2022-09-14T18:17:30+00:00"},"data":{"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Technology","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33512"},"slug":"technology","categoryId":33512},{"name":"Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33618"},"slug":"software","categoryId":33618},{"name":"Design Software","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33634"},"slug":"design-software","categoryId":33634},{"name":"AutoCAD","_links":{"self":"https://dummies-api.dummies.com/v2/categories/33635"},"slug":"autocad","categoryId":33635}],"title":"How to Create a 2D View from a 3D Model and Other 3D AutoCAD Tricks","strippedTitle":"how to create a 2d view from a 3d model and other 3d autocad tricks","slug":"how-to-create-a-2d-view-from-a-3d-model-and-other-3d-autocad-tricks","canonicalUrl":"","seo":{"metaDescription":"Use this guide from Dummies.com to create a 2D view from a 3D model and learn other 3D AutoCAD tricks to maximize your drawings.","noIndex":0,"noFollow":0},"content":"AutoCAD can be your best friend. The latest version of AutoCAD is packed full of 3D tricks. Use the information below <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/10-autocad-resources/\">to make the most of AutoCAD</a>. Would you believe that it took less than five minutes to produce the image below?\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264958\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264958 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"AutoCAD drawing\" width=\"535\" height=\"416\" /> An AutoCAD drawing, in less than five minutes![/caption]\r\n\r\nFollow these steps to produce a 2D view from a 3D model:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong> Click the Workspace Switching button on the status bar, and then choose 3D Modeling.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Toolbars, palettes, and Ribbon panels flash on and off, and soon AutoCAD settles down to display the Ribbon, as configured for the 3D Modeling workspace with a few additional panels.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Set up a 3D model.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Create a new model or open an existing file that contains a 3D model.You can find the files used here at <a href=\"http://www.dummies.com/go/autocadfd18\">this link</a>. Go to and download afd23.zip. The drawing named afd23a.dwg contains the model Use in the following steps.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Switch to paper space.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Click the Layout 1 tab near the lower-left corner of the screen.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Delete the existing viewport by clicking the viewport object (the frame of the viewport) and then pressing Delete.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>By default, new drawings created from a standard template file contain a single viewport. If you’ll frequently create new drawings like this, set up a template file with the viewport already deleted.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong><strong>Click the Base button from the Create View panel on the Layout tab of the Ribbon, and then choose From Model Space from the drop-down list.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong></strong>The VIEWBASE command creates several new layers automatically. By default, they’re the opposite of the screen color (black or white), but they always print in black. You can change these layers to any color you want.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Position the base view.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>AutoCAD automatically selects what it thinks is an appropriate scale, assuming that you’ll place the three standard orthographic views and one pictorial view. However, you can change it. Select a suitable place in the lower-left quadrant of the layout sheet.The Drawing View Creation contextual tab appears on the Ribbon, a drop-down list of view options appears at the cursor, and an option list appears on the command line.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264959\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264959 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing-view-creation-tab.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing View Creation context tab\" width=\"535\" height=\"87\" /> The Drawing View Creation context tab of the Ribbon.[/caption]</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Define the base view.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Using any one of the three selection methods — Ribbon, cursor, or command line — set up the base view as follows:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><em>Orientation:</em> The view shows what appears to be the bottom view of the part because AutoCAD defines top, bottom, and so on relative to the world X,Y coordinates. Select Orientation and the Top to create the view you want.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Hidden lines:</em> The preview image in paper space always displays in shaded mode, regardless of the visual style of the model in model space. Change the Hidden Lines option to Visible and Hidden. The view won’t change yet, but don’t worry — it will after you complete the steps.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Scale:</em> This setting defaults to 1:4, which is suitable for your purposes if you started from the sample drawing.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Visibility,</em> or <em>Edge Visibility:</em> This setting specifies how to display edges that are formed where tangent surfaces meet. The normal practice is not to display them, but it sometimes causes features to disappear (or partially disappear). If you change this setting, hover the cursor over the Edge Visibility button in the Appearance panel of the Ribbon and pause for a few seconds; a much more extensive tooltip list then explains each option.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Move:</em> Specify a new location for the view before it is finally created. This isn’t such a big deal, though, because views can always be easily moved later.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Exit:</em> Or press Enter.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">You can edit any of these view specifications later, view by view.</p>\r\n</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Place the other drawing views.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>When you finish placing and defining the base view, AutoCAD automatically runs the VIEWPROJ command. All you need is three quick clicks to place the top, isometric, and right-side views; then press Enter to have AutoCAD generate the views.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Edit the isometric projection.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Isometric projections don’t normally show hidden lines. Double-click anywhere in the isometric projection to bring up the Drawing View Editor tab on the Ribbon.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264960\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264960 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing-view-editor.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing View Editor context tab AutoCAD\" width=\"535\" height=\"112\" /> The Drawing View Editor context tab on the Ribbon.[/caption]\r\n\r\nClick Hidden Lines on the Appearance tab and choose Shaded with Visible Lines from the drop-down list.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">If a Ribbon button has a drop-down list, the Ribbon displays the last button that was used. Any one of four different buttons may be in this particular location.</p>\r\nThe image below shows three ortho views and a shaded isomeric view, which was created in 37.6 seconds.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264961\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264961 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-view-creation-time.jpg\" alt=\"average creation time for AutoCAD drawing\" width=\"535\" height=\"377\" /> Average creation time: 9.4 seconds per view.[/caption]</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Add annotations.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Add dimensions and text notes in the paper space layout. Dimensions are associative to their matching geometry if you use object snaps to the geometry when you place them. While you’re at it, perhaps you can use VIEWDETAIL to create a detail view at a different scale.When you submit a drawing to your boss, they’ll be impressed that you managed to create such a complex drawing, including the shaded isometric projection, in only three days.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Place text and dimensions on their own layers.</p>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">An isometric view and an isometric projection are different creatures. An isometric view is normally drawn so that lines that are parallel to the three principal axes appear in their true length, and an isometric projection foreshortens them due to the tilting and rotating of the viewing angle of the object. Traditional paper-and-pencil drawings use isometric views, whereas AutoCAD creates isometric projections.</p>\r\nIf you truly want an isometric <em>view</em>, the solution is simply to ignore the usual rule about drawing and inserting at full size. When creating an isometric projection, use this approximate scale factor to produce an isometric view:\r\n\r\n1.2247441227836356744839797834917\r\n\r\nYou can also edit the insertion later, to make it match this <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/autocad-2017s-drawing-scale-limits-feet-inches/\">scale factor</a>.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Editing views in AutoCAD</h2>\r\nYou can apply two different types of editing to 2D views that were generated from 3D models.\r\n\r\nYou can edit the view specifications themselves (start with the easy one):\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li><strong> Select the base view, and then select the blue grip box that appears in the center of the view.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong> Drag and drop the view into a new location.</strong></strong> \r\n\r\nInteresting! If you move the base view, all the ortho views projected from it follow along, with some constraints. The ortho views don’t move in perfect unison as a single group, but they maintain their orthographic relationship to the base view.Similarly, you can move projected ortho views in only the direction that still maintains their ortho relationship to the base view. Better yet, all attached dimensions (you hope) also follow along.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nYou can also double-click a view and then change the specifications that were used to create it. Refer to Step 9 above.\r\n\r\nTo experience the magic of creating 2D views from a 3D model, return to model space and edit the model. For example, add a second hole (hint: subtract a cylinder), extend the length of the peg, and then return to the paper space layout. All your views and their dimensions are updated.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264962\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264962 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-updated-views.jpg\" alt=\"updated specs AutoCAD\" width=\"535\" height=\"409\" /> If anything changes, everything changes.[/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">AutoCAD creates the views as a series of anonymous blocks. They behave much like regular blocks, but because they don’t have normal names, you can’t access them directly to edit or explode them</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Additional 3D AutoCAD tricks</h2>\r\nTo fully cover the 3D capabilities of AutoCAD would easily require a full book on its own, but meanwhile, here are a few high points:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Don’t want four views?</strong> If you don’t want four standard views, you can create only the base view and then change its scale factor to better suit the sheet size.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Need additional base views?</strong> If necessary, you can have more than one base view in a single layout. For example, one large drawing might show an assembly and its component parts.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Didn’t create enough views?</strong> Use the VIEWPROJ command to add more projected views later. They don’t have to project from the original base view, but can project from an existing projected view.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>No longer need a view?</strong> You can delete a view, even a base view, without affecting the other views — except that doing so breaks the horizontal and vertical links between the views that were projected from it.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>No 3D model in your drawing?</strong> You can use the VIEWBASE command to generate views from a 3D model that lived in the model space of the current drawing.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >AutoCAD’s top model</h2>\r\nYou may have generated 2D drawing views from a 3D model in model above. But if the VIEWBASE command cannot find a 3D model in the current drawing file, it opens a standard file dialog box so that you can browse for an Autodesk Inventor\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">Inventor is the 3D parametric modeling software from Autodesk, primarily intended for the mechanical design field. Inventor is fully parametric, in that dimensional constraints drive the profiles that define the solid features that consist of the parts that comprise the assembly model that drives the 2D drawing views that Jack built. If you change a dimension on a 2D drawing of a part, everything updates, all the way down the line.</p>\r\nThe Inventor file isn’t inserted into the AutoCAD file. Instead, it’s attached like an xref. VIEWBASE creates a 2D drawing view based on it, and additional views can be projected from the base view.\r\n\r\nHere’s the magic part: The AutoCAD drawing views are still linked back to the Inventor file so that any changes made to the Inventor file reflect down to the AutoCAD file, updating it.\r\n\r\nBetter yet, you can send the <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/the-importance-of-being-dwg-in-autocad-a-brief-guide-to-autocad-versions-and-file-formats/\">AutoCAD DWG file</a> to a client or vendor without having to send the source Inventor file. The AutoCAD file contains only anonymous blocks for the 2D views and has nothing in model space.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, whenever the AutoCAD DWG file has access to the Inventor file, the AutoCAD drawing views update and remain in step with any changes made to the Inventor model.\r\n\r\nHere are more tips for working with AutoCAD and Inventor files:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Mix and match 2D drawing views.</strong> If VIEWBASE finds an AutoCAD solid in your part, you can tell it to ignore it and let you attach it to an Inventor file instead. You can have more than one base view in an AutoCAD drawing, so you can mix and match 2D drawing views. One or more base views can come from an internal AutoCAD 3D model, and others can be linked to external Inventor files.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select additional solids.</strong> If model space contains more than one solid, VIEWBASE allows you to switch back to model space, where you can select and deselect solids to appear in the base view. For example, a model of a gearbox assembly might consist of many components. Separate views can be created, perhaps on several different layouts: one showing an outside view of the entire gearbox (which doesn’t need to include the internals such as gears and bearings); another showing only the input shaft, gear, bearings, and seals; and another showing the output shaft and its related components.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Choose a different scale.</strong> The VIEWDETAIL command generates detail views at scales different from the parent view.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use different section views.</strong> The VIEWSECTION command has five options for creating section views: Full, Half, Offset, Aligned, and From Object. This command creates section views based on existing views in the layout. The cutting plane line that it generates can be manipulated like any regular polyline, and the section view then updates accordingly.</li>\r\n</ul>","description":"AutoCAD can be your best friend. The latest version of AutoCAD is packed full of 3D tricks. Use the information below <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/10-autocad-resources/\">to make the most of AutoCAD</a>. Would you believe that it took less than five minutes to produce the image below?\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264958\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264958 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"AutoCAD drawing\" width=\"535\" height=\"416\" /> An AutoCAD drawing, in less than five minutes![/caption]\r\n\r\nFollow these steps to produce a 2D view from a 3D model:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong> Click the Workspace Switching button on the status bar, and then choose 3D Modeling.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Toolbars, palettes, and Ribbon panels flash on and off, and soon AutoCAD settles down to display the Ribbon, as configured for the 3D Modeling workspace with a few additional panels.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Set up a 3D model.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Create a new model or open an existing file that contains a 3D model.You can find the files used here at <a href=\"http://www.dummies.com/go/autocadfd18\">this link</a>. Go to and download afd23.zip. The drawing named afd23a.dwg contains the model Use in the following steps.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Switch to paper space.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Click the Layout 1 tab near the lower-left corner of the screen.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Delete the existing viewport by clicking the viewport object (the frame of the viewport) and then pressing Delete.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>By default, new drawings created from a standard template file contain a single viewport. If you’ll frequently create new drawings like this, set up a template file with the viewport already deleted.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong><strong>Click the Base button from the Create View panel on the Layout tab of the Ribbon, and then choose From Model Space from the drop-down list.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong></strong>The VIEWBASE command creates several new layers automatically. By default, they’re the opposite of the screen color (black or white), but they always print in black. You can change these layers to any color you want.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Position the base view.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>AutoCAD automatically selects what it thinks is an appropriate scale, assuming that you’ll place the three standard orthographic views and one pictorial view. However, you can change it. Select a suitable place in the lower-left quadrant of the layout sheet.The Drawing View Creation contextual tab appears on the Ribbon, a drop-down list of view options appears at the cursor, and an option list appears on the command line.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264959\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264959 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing-view-creation-tab.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing View Creation context tab\" width=\"535\" height=\"87\" /> The Drawing View Creation context tab of the Ribbon.[/caption]</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Define the base view.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Using any one of the three selection methods — Ribbon, cursor, or command line — set up the base view as follows:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><em>Orientation:</em> The view shows what appears to be the bottom view of the part because AutoCAD defines top, bottom, and so on relative to the world X,Y coordinates. Select Orientation and the Top to create the view you want.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Hidden lines:</em> The preview image in paper space always displays in shaded mode, regardless of the visual style of the model in model space. Change the Hidden Lines option to Visible and Hidden. The view won’t change yet, but don’t worry — it will after you complete the steps.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Scale:</em> This setting defaults to 1:4, which is suitable for your purposes if you started from the sample drawing.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Visibility,</em> or <em>Edge Visibility:</em> This setting specifies how to display edges that are formed where tangent surfaces meet. The normal practice is not to display them, but it sometimes causes features to disappear (or partially disappear). If you change this setting, hover the cursor over the Edge Visibility button in the Appearance panel of the Ribbon and pause for a few seconds; a much more extensive tooltip list then explains each option.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Move:</em> Specify a new location for the view before it is finally created. This isn’t such a big deal, though, because views can always be easily moved later.</li>\r\n \t<li><em>Exit:</em> Or press Enter.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">You can edit any of these view specifications later, view by view.</p>\r\n</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Place the other drawing views.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>When you finish placing and defining the base view, AutoCAD automatically runs the VIEWPROJ command. All you need is three quick clicks to place the top, isometric, and right-side views; then press Enter to have AutoCAD generate the views.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Edit the isometric projection.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Isometric projections don’t normally show hidden lines. Double-click anywhere in the isometric projection to bring up the Drawing View Editor tab on the Ribbon.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264960\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264960 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-drawing-view-editor.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing View Editor context tab AutoCAD\" width=\"535\" height=\"112\" /> The Drawing View Editor context tab on the Ribbon.[/caption]\r\n\r\nClick Hidden Lines on the Appearance tab and choose Shaded with Visible Lines from the drop-down list.\r\n<p class=\"article-tips remember\">If a Ribbon button has a drop-down list, the Ribbon displays the last button that was used. Any one of four different buttons may be in this particular location.</p>\r\nThe image below shows three ortho views and a shaded isomeric view, which was created in 37.6 seconds.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264961\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264961 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-view-creation-time.jpg\" alt=\"average creation time for AutoCAD drawing\" width=\"535\" height=\"377\" /> Average creation time: 9.4 seconds per view.[/caption]</li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong>Add annotations.\r\n\r\n\r\n</strong></strong>Add dimensions and text notes in the paper space layout. Dimensions are associative to their matching geometry if you use object snaps to the geometry when you place them. While you’re at it, perhaps you can use VIEWDETAIL to create a detail view at a different scale.When you submit a drawing to your boss, they’ll be impressed that you managed to create such a complex drawing, including the shaded isometric projection, in only three days.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tip\">Place text and dimensions on their own layers.</p>\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">An isometric view and an isometric projection are different creatures. An isometric view is normally drawn so that lines that are parallel to the three principal axes appear in their true length, and an isometric projection foreshortens them due to the tilting and rotating of the viewing angle of the object. Traditional paper-and-pencil drawings use isometric views, whereas AutoCAD creates isometric projections.</p>\r\nIf you truly want an isometric <em>view</em>, the solution is simply to ignore the usual rule about drawing and inserting at full size. When creating an isometric projection, use this approximate scale factor to produce an isometric view:\r\n\r\n1.2247441227836356744839797834917\r\n\r\nYou can also edit the insertion later, to make it match this <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/autocad-2017s-drawing-scale-limits-feet-inches/\">scale factor</a>.\r\n<h2 id=\"tab1\" >Editing views in AutoCAD</h2>\r\nYou can apply two different types of editing to 2D views that were generated from 3D models.\r\n\r\nYou can edit the view specifications themselves (start with the easy one):\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li><strong> Select the base view, and then select the blue grip box that appears in the center of the view.</strong></li>\r\n \t<li><strong><strong> Drag and drop the view into a new location.</strong></strong> \r\n\r\nInteresting! If you move the base view, all the ortho views projected from it follow along, with some constraints. The ortho views don’t move in perfect unison as a single group, but they maintain their orthographic relationship to the base view.Similarly, you can move projected ortho views in only the direction that still maintains their ortho relationship to the base view. Better yet, all attached dimensions (you hope) also follow along.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\nYou can also double-click a view and then change the specifications that were used to create it. Refer to Step 9 above.\r\n\r\nTo experience the magic of creating 2D views from a 3D model, return to model space and edit the model. For example, add a second hole (hint: subtract a cylinder), extend the length of the peg, and then return to the paper space layout. All your views and their dimensions are updated.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_264962\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"535\"]<img class=\"wp-image-264962 size-full\" src=\"https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/autocad-updated-views.jpg\" alt=\"updated specs AutoCAD\" width=\"535\" height=\"409\" /> If anything changes, everything changes.[/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">AutoCAD creates the views as a series of anonymous blocks. They behave much like regular blocks, but because they don’t have normal names, you can’t access them directly to edit or explode them</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 id=\"tab2\" >Additional 3D AutoCAD tricks</h2>\r\nTo fully cover the 3D capabilities of AutoCAD would easily require a full book on its own, but meanwhile, here are a few high points:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Don’t want four views?</strong> If you don’t want four standard views, you can create only the base view and then change its scale factor to better suit the sheet size.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Need additional base views?</strong> If necessary, you can have more than one base view in a single layout. For example, one large drawing might show an assembly and its component parts.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Didn’t create enough views?</strong> Use the VIEWPROJ command to add more projected views later. They don’t have to project from the original base view, but can project from an existing projected view.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>No longer need a view?</strong> You can delete a view, even a base view, without affecting the other views — except that doing so breaks the horizontal and vertical links between the views that were projected from it.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>No 3D model in your drawing?</strong> You can use the VIEWBASE command to generate views from a 3D model that lived in the model space of the current drawing.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"tab3\" >AutoCAD’s top model</h2>\r\nYou may have generated 2D drawing views from a 3D model in model above. But if the VIEWBASE command cannot find a 3D model in the current drawing file, it opens a standard file dialog box so that you can browse for an Autodesk Inventor\r\n<p class=\"article-tips tech\">Inventor is the 3D parametric modeling software from Autodesk, primarily intended for the mechanical design field. Inventor is fully parametric, in that dimensional constraints drive the profiles that define the solid features that consist of the parts that comprise the assembly model that drives the 2D drawing views that Jack built. If you change a dimension on a 2D drawing of a part, everything updates, all the way down the line.</p>\r\nThe Inventor file isn’t inserted into the AutoCAD file. Instead, it’s attached like an xref. VIEWBASE creates a 2D drawing view based on it, and additional views can be projected from the base view.\r\n\r\nHere’s the magic part: The AutoCAD drawing views are still linked back to the Inventor file so that any changes made to the Inventor file reflect down to the AutoCAD file, updating it.\r\n\r\nBetter yet, you can send the <a href=\"https://www.dummies.com/programming/autocad/the-importance-of-being-dwg-in-autocad-a-brief-guide-to-autocad-versions-and-file-formats/\">AutoCAD DWG file</a> to a client or vendor without having to send the source Inventor file. The AutoCAD file contains only anonymous blocks for the 2D views and has nothing in model space.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, whenever the AutoCAD DWG file has access to the Inventor file, the AutoCAD drawing views update and remain in step with any changes made to the Inventor model.\r\n\r\nHere are more tips for working with AutoCAD and Inventor files:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li><strong>Mix and match 2D drawing views.</strong> If VIEWBASE finds an AutoCAD solid in your part, you can tell it to ignore it and let you attach it to an Inventor file instead. You can have more than one base view in an AutoCAD drawing, so you can mix and match 2D drawing views. One or more base views can come from an internal AutoCAD 3D model, and others can be linked to external Inventor files.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Select additional solids.</strong> If model space contains more than one solid, VIEWBASE allows you to switch back to model space, where you can select and deselect solids to appear in the base view. For example, a model of a gearbox assembly might consist of many components. Separate views can be created, perhaps on several different layouts: one showing an outside view of the entire gearbox (which doesn’t need to include the internals such as gears and bearings); another showing only the input shaft, gear, bearings, and seals; and another showing the output shaft and its related components.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Choose a different scale.</strong> The VIEWDETAIL command generates detail views at scales different from the parent view.</li>\r\n \t<li><strong>Use different section views.</strong> The VIEWSECTION command has five options for creating section views: Full, Half, Offset, Aligned, and From Object. This command creates section views based on existing views in the layout. The cutting plane line that it generates can be manipulated like any regular polyline, and the section view then updates accordingly.</li>\r\n</ul>","blurb":"","authors":[{"authorId":9621,"name":"Bill Fane","slug":"bill-fane","description":" <p><b>Bill Fane</b> was a doorknob designer for many years. Then, in 1996, he began teaching mechanical design, including courses in AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, and machine design. Having used AutoCAD since Version 2.17g debuted in 1986, Bill lectured on a wide range of AutoCAD and Inventor subjects at Autodesk University from 1995 to 2012. He has written extensively for <i>CADalyst</i> magazine. 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SketchUp 10 SketchUp Issues and Their Workarounds

Article / Updated 08-10-2022

The bad news is that every new SketchUp user encounters certain problems, usually in the first couple hours of using the software. You can call these problems growing pains. The good news is that, because these SketchUp problems are common, you can anticipate a lot of the bad stuff you’ll go through. This article offers you SketchUp tips and tricks to help you work around those issues. SketchUp won’t create a face where you want it to You’ve dutifully traced all around where you want SketchUp to create a face, but nothing’s happening. If you follow along in the image below, which was inspired by a visit to the M.C. Escher museum in Amsterdam, you see the top-left image seems to show a cube beside a rectangle, but the rectangle didn’t produce a face. In the top-right image, a diagonal line was drawn between diagonally opposite corners of the rectangle, producing two triangular faces, but something still doesn’t look right. Changing the camera position to standard front (lower-left image) and right side (lower-right image) reveals the source of the problem. It turns out that the upper-right corner of the rectangle doesn’t lie on the red-blue plane but is actually to the right of the blue-green plane, and to the right of the blue-red plane. The upper-left image isn’t really an optical illusion; it just looks like one. Ninety percent of the time, when SketchUp doesn’t create a face where you think it should, an edge isn’t on the plane you think it’s on. To check whether your edges are coplanar, draw an edge that cuts diagonally across the area where you want a face to appear. If a face appears now, your edges aren’t all on the same plane. To fix the problem, you have to figure out which edge is the culprit, and the Color By Axis option may help you see this information at a glance. Here’s how Color By Axis works: In the Styles panel, change your edge color from All Same to By Axis.SketchUp draws the edges in your model using the color of the axis to which they’re parallel; edges parallel to the red axis are red, and so on. Look carefully at the edges that you wanted to define your desired face.Are all the edges the color they’re supposed to be? If they’re not all supposed to be parallel to the drawing axes, this technique doesn’t do much good. But if they are, and one (or more) of them is black (instead of red or green or blue), that edge (or those edges) is your problem child. Fix it and switch back to All Same when you’re done. If the plane isn’t the problem with your edges, then check whether one edge is part of a separate group or component. To check whether you have a component problem, try hiding groups or components and checking the edges to make sure that they’re all in the group or component you think they’re in. A common source of this problem is SketchUp’s inferences. As you slide the mouse over a face you may unwittingly be latching on to an unintended inference, such as the edge of a surface that is part of a cylinder. Watch those inference prompts, and use Undo when you complete a face but no face appears. Your SketchUp faces are two different colors In SketchUp, faces have two sides: a front and a back. By default, these two sides are different colors. When you use certain tools, such as Push/Pull or Follow Me, on a face, sometimes the faces on the resulting geometry are “inside out.” For some people, the issue is just bothersome. If you want to 3D-print your model, you need to fix the issue so that your model will print correctly. To fix this issue, right-click the faces you want to flip and choose Reverse Faces from the context menu. If you have lots of faces to flip, you can select them all and then choose Reverse Faces to flip them all at once. In 3D printing, this process is called checking your model’s normals. The plan for the structure you see below was for all the outside walls to be wood siding and the interior walls to be painted yellow. But the top two images show that somehow the left wall got reversed. The bottom two images show that the problem has been solved by selecting the yellow face and reversing it. Edges on a face won’t sink in Edges on a face tend not to sink in when you’re trying to draw a rectangle (or another geometric figure) on a face with one of SketchUp’s shape-drawing tools. Ordinarily, the Rectangle tool creates a new face on top of any face you use it on; after that, you can use Push/Pull to create a hole, if you want. When the edges you just drew don’t seem to cut through the face you drew them on, try these approaches: Retrace one of the edges. Sometimes that works — you’d be surprised how often. Select Hidden Geometry from the View menu. You’re checking to make sure that the face you just drew isn’t crossing any hidden or smoothed edges; if it is, the face you thought was flat may not be. Make sure that the face you drew on isn’t part of a group or component. If it is, undo a few steps and then redraw your shape while you edit the group or component. Select the face + edges, right-click, and choose Intersect Faces→With Selection. This approach is often needed when you are working with one or more curved surfaces. SketchUp crashed, and you lost your model Unfortunately, SketchUp crashes happen sometimes. The good news is that SketchUp automatically saves a copy of your file every five minutes. In the web version, these autosaves are captured in Trimble Connect as revisions. You can always view the revision history for a file by navigating to it in the Trimble Connect tab (by clicking Open in the menu at the top of the screen to access Trimble Connect). For any file, you can choose to view or restore an older version. In desktop versions, the file that SketchUp autosaves is actually a separate file, AutoSave_yourfilename.skp. If your file ever gets corrupted in a crash, an intact file is ready for you. The problem is that most people don’t even know that the autosaved file is there. Where do you find it? If you’ve ever saved your file, the autosaved file is in the same folder as the original; therefore, it’s very important that you save your file almost immediately after starting it. Simple, right? Not so fast. On a Mac, you may need to change your Library folder from hidden to visible. In the Finder app, hold down the Option key while you choose Go→Library. If you don’t hold down the Option key, Library may not appear on the menu. When you close your model, SketchUp typically assumes nothing untoward has happened and usually cleans up after itself by deleting the autosaved file. The really good news is that every time you save a file, SketchUp proactively saves two identical files, one with the normal file extension .SKP and the other with the file extension .SKB. You continue working on the .SKP file. If something goes really wrong with your model, you can always go back to how it was an instant before the last time you saved it. But you can’t find it in the Open File dialog box. Here’s the secret: In the Open File dialog box, go to the end of the File Name window, click the down arrow beside Sketchup Models (.SKP), and click All Files. Now the .SKB files show, and you can open them. (web: The same basic principles apply, but read more details on SketchUp's website.) To minimize the amount of work you lose when software (or hardware) goes south, always do two things: Save often — compulsively, even. Use the Save a Copy As command on the File menu. When you’re working on a big project, the following steps can help ensure you don’t lose any work: Save the original version of your file as yourfilename_Master.skp.That’s the file you’ll always be working on. Create a folder that lives in the same place as your Master file; call the folder something like Your file’s name Archive. Every half-hour or so, choose File→Save a Copy As, and save a sequentially numbered version of your file to the Archive folder.When you’re building a big model, it’s not uncommon for your Archive folder to contain 40 or 50 saved versions of the model dating back to when the project first started. Back up regularly.At least at the end of every work session, such as when you head to a coffee or lunch break, back up your files to a low-cost, high-capacity, high-speed portable USB drive, then remove it and keep it separate from your computer. At the end of your shift, take it to a different location. You don’t need to keep it in a bank vault, just in a separate building. Take it home at night, for example. You can always buy new hardware and software, but you can’t buy your personal files. SketchUp is sooooo slooooooooow The bigger your SketchUp model, the worse your computer’s performance. What makes a model big? In a nutshell, faces. Do everything in your power to keep your model as small as you can. Here are some tips for doing that: Reduce the number of sides on your extruded circles and arcs. Use 2D people and trees instead of 3D ones. 3D plants and people have hundreds of faces each. Consider using 2D ones instead, especially if your model won’t be seen much from overhead. Use search filters in 3D Warehouse. When you’re searching for models in 3D Warehouse, you can restrict your search result to show only models of a certain file size or polygon (face) complexity. Especially if your model is more than 10 MB, it makes sense to keep your 3D Warehouse downloads small! Some models are just big, and you can’t do much about it. Here are some tricks for working with very large SketchUp models: Make liberal use of the Outliner and tags. These SketchUp features were specifically designed to let you organize your model into manageable chunks. Hide everything you’re not working on at the moment; doing so gives your computer a fighting chance. Substitute simple forms for large numbers of complex components. For example, insert sticks as placeholders for big sets of 3D trees, cars, and other big components. Turn off shadows and switch to a simple style, such as Shaded in the Default Styles collection. It takes a lot of computer horsepower to display shadows, edge effects, and textures in real time on your monitor. When you’re working, turn off all that stuff. Use scenes to navigate between views. Scenes aren’t just for presenting your model; they’re also great for working with it. If you create scenes for the different views you commonly use and with different combinations of hidden geometry, then you don’t have to orbit, pan, and zoom around your gigantic model. To speed up things even more, deselect Enable Scene Transitions in the Animation panel of the Model Info dialog box. (web: Animation settings are in the Scenes panel.) You can’t get a good view of the inside of your SketchUp model It’s not always easy to work on the inside of something in SketchUp. You can do these things to make it easier, though: Cut into your model with section SketchUp’s Sections feature lets you cut away parts of your model — temporarily, of course — so that you can get a better view of what’s inside. Widen your field of view. Field of view is the part of your model you can see onscreen at one time. A wider FOV is like having better peripheral vision. You can change the field of view only when in Perspective view mode, but the setting will be remembered if you then switch to Parallel view mode. The image below shows the plan view of a room. If you zoom or walk in through the door — oops, tunnel vision. Increase peripheral vision by changing your field of view. Ah, that’s better! Now you can see that the picture hanging on the wall is the floor plan of this room. A face flashes when you orbit in SketchUp If you have two faces in the same spot — maybe one is in a separate group or component — you see a Z-fighting effect. SketchUp is deciding which face to display by switching back and forth between them; it’s not a good solution, but certainly a logical one — at least for a piece of software. The image below attempts to portray this effect in a single image. The only way to get rid of Z-fighting is to delete or hide one of the faces. You can’t move your SketchUp component the way you want When you insert some components into your model, the components by default glue to faces. A glued component instance isn’t actually glued in one place. Instead, it’s glued to the plane of the face you originally placed (or created) it on. For example, if you place a sofa component on the floor of your living room, you can move it around only on that plane — not up and down. This gluing behavior comes in handy when you deal with things like furniture; it allows you to rearrange things with the Move tool without accidentally picking them up. If you can’t move your component the way you want to, right-click it to see whether Unglue is an option; if it is, choose it. Now you can move your component around however you want. Bad stuff happens almost every time you use SketchUp’s Eraser When you use the Eraser tool, it’s pretty easy to delete stuff accidentally. Worse, you usually don’t notice what’s missing until it’s too late. Here are some tips for erasing more accurately: Orbit around. Try to make sure that nothing is behind whatever you’re erasing; use SketchUp’s navigation tools to get a view of your model that puts you out of danger. Switch on Back Edges. When you’re doing a lot of erasing, choose View→Edge Style→Back Edges. That way, you can see every edge in your model, and you’re less likely to erase the wrong ones. Use the Undo modifier of the eraser. Follow along starting in the upper-left image you see below. The intent is to erase the four edges in the center to create a single face. While erasing, you can select multiple objects by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the eraser over them. Oh, great googly moogly (or words to that effect) — you selected some things you didn’t want to erase. No problem: Don’t release the mouse button, but press and hold down the keyboard Alt key (Mac: ⌘). Now anything you drag the eraser over will be unselected. You can switch back and forth as desired, but nothing actually gets erased until you release the mouse button. Double-check. After you do a lot of erasing, give your model a quick once-over with the Orbit tool, just to make sure that you didn’t get rid of anything important. Put a sticky note on your computer monitor that says something like Check after Erase! just to remind you. All your edges and faces have different tags Using Tags in SketchUp can be a dangerous business. Here’s the short version of some good advice: Always build everything on Untagged, and assign whole groups or components to other tags only if you really need to. If you used tags in SketchUp and now things are messed up, here’s what you can do to recover: Make sure that everything is visible.Select Hidden Geometry on the View menu; then (in the Tags panel) make all your tags visible. Just make sure that you can see everything in your model. Choose Edit→Select All. In the Entity Info panel, move everything to Layer0. In the Tags panel, delete your other tags. When you’re prompted, tell SketchUp to move anything remaining on them to Untagged. Create new tags and follow best practices to avoid problems. If you’ve downloaded 3D Warehouse models, you’ll probably find that they have some tags that you don’t understand and might want to get rid of. They may have had significance to the original creator, but they can become clutter in your file, so they should be removed. Want to learn more? Check out our SketchUp Cheat Sheet.

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SketchUp The Ten-Minute SketchUp Tour

Article / Updated 08-10-2022

Need to take a brief 10-minute SketchUp tour: a rundown of the layout, tools, and utilities you’ll interact with on a regular basis? Check out this brief walkthrough to see what you can expect from SketchUp and SketchUp for Web. Modeling window: See the big area in the middle of your computer screen? That’s your modeling window. You build your model here, and your modeling window always shows a 3D view of your model, even if you’re looking at it from the top or side. Key features of the modeling window are the model axes: three green, red, and blue lines that help define the directional space of your model. Menu bar (Desktop only): If you’ve used a computer in the past 30 years, the menu bar is nothing new. Each menu contains a long list of options, commands, tools, settings, and other goodies that pertain to just about everything you do in SketchUp. You should generally refrain from using the menu bar to find things, because that requires that you remember the name of a tool, the menu it lives on, and where on the menu it is. Menu (web only): In SketchUp for Web, you will be using the menu a lot less to find tools but just as much to open files, save copies using Save As, and change settings. Search (web only): A recent addition to the SketchUp interface is this quick way to find and activate tools and look up shortcuts. If you’re using the web version (it’s not available in SketchUp Pro yet), you’ll find this really handy when you start learning tools and utility settings that you don’t use that often or have a hard time remembering. Toolbar: Click a toolbar button to activate a tool or command. You’ll start to use tool icons naturally while using SketchUp. In desktop versions, you can customize your SketchUp toolbar setup to show tools you use most often, or to not show those tools whose shortcuts you’ve remembered. In the web version, similar tools are nested together in the toolbar. So when you click the Rectangle tool icon, you’ll switch to the Rectangle tool but also see the other shape-drawing tools available to you. Similarly, the Tape Measure tool contains other tools for measuring and labeling things. Large toolset (desktop only): Usually, it’s better to turn off the Large Toolset and attempt to use core commands by shortcuts. But if you prefer a visual reference for tool icons, you may prefer leaving the Large Toolset on to have all the tools handy all the time. You can can control its visibility by choosing View→Toolbars (Mac: View→Tool Palettes). Status bar: Consider this your SketchUp dashboard. The status bar provides helpful information about the SketchUp tool you are currently using. It’s important to check the status bar for reminders about modifier keys: keystrokes that you use in combination with certain tools to perform additional functions. Soon enough, you’ll know how to copy by using the Move tool with a modifier key. You’ll definitely forget this key, and when you do, the place to look is the status bar. The status bar also relays step-by-step instructions for the tool’s operation, but you may be better off using the Instructor. Utility panels desktop only): Before long you’ll start to interact with utilities — things like colors and display settings — that are generally organized on the right side of your SketchUp window. In desktop versions, you control which utility settings are visible via the Window menu. In more recent PC versions of SketchUp Pro, you can manage the default tray of utilities: Choose Window→Manage Trays, and use the Manage Trays dialog box to reconfigure what you do (or don’t) see here. On a Mac, utilities look like dialogs except that they’re neatly collapsible, and you can stack them aside in tidy trays when you are not using them. Utility panels (web only): In the web version, all utility panels — for stuff like saving model views or libraries of model textures — are organized on the right side of the screen, accessible by their icons. Opening a utility panel slides open a larger interface where you can access one or multiple panels. Use the X next to a panel name to close it, or use the arrow icon at the top right of the panel to hide the utilities you are currently using. Measurements box: You use this box all the time as you model in SketchUp, but you’ll never need to touch it. Depending on what you’re doing, this box displays information about what you’re modeling or enables you to specify a precise length, angle, or other measurement while modeling. Context (right-click) menus: Whenever you have something selected in SketchUp, you can right-click your selection to reveal a shortcut menu of commands and options. These are always relevant to whatever you right-clicked, so the contents of each menu are different. If you decided to proceed without a mouse, you can still right-click a trackpad, usually by using two separated fingers. Want to learn more? Check out our SketchUp Cheat Sheet.

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SketchUp How to Print to Scale in SketchUp for Web

Article / Updated 08-10-2022

In some cases, you may want your prints to reflect the scale of your SketchUp design. In SketchUp for Web, scaled printing is available with a paid subscription (or as part of SketchUp for Schools). Here’s how printing to scale works in SketchUp for Web: Before entering the print preview, create orthographic views of your model and save them as a SketchUp scene.Scale is a notion that cannot be applied to model views in SketchUp’s perspective camera mode. To create an orthographic view, use the Search tool and type Ortho to activate the Parallel Projection camera mode. Then use view commands (and search queries) like Front, Top, or Align View to orient your camera as desired. When you have the orthographic view you want, create a new scene. Using Search, type Print to activate the print preview canvas. Click the Print Mode drop-down menu to the right of the canvas, select Scenes, and then choose the orthographic scene you just made. Click the Print Mode drop-down menu again, and choose Print to Scale.Notice that the view of your SketchUp model changes slightly. When you switch into this scaled printing mode, SketchUp resizes your model slightly and derives an arbitrary scale just below your list of scenes (see below). Set your desired drawing scale, and choose whether to display that scale on your printed page.You can assign any scale you want, but you probably want to pick one that will aptly display your SketchUp model view on the page you’re printing. You can type any units you like in the In Drawing and In Model fields, but the scale displayed in the canvas respects the unit settings in your model. You can change these in the Model Info panel, near the bottom of the utility tray on the right. Last, you can click the Print Scale check box to display the scale of your drawing on the printed page. Want to learn more? Check out our SketchUp Cheat Sheet.

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SketchUp 10 SketchUp Quick Wins

Article / Updated 08-04-2022

As you set off on your modeling adventure, you’re can be prepared with ten SketchUp quick wins — techniques or extended workflows that upgrade the 3D superpowers you’ve been reading about in this book. You’ll find that these SketchUp tips and tricks are pretty quick to pick up. Moreover, many of these techniques are designed to speed the core mechanics of your 3D modeling. In fact, quick wins like these are available in every project you’ll do in SketchUp — hidden gems you’ll discover when you think “There’s got to be a quicker way to do this.” When you’re struggling, step back and realize that there is indeed a smarter way. Set your click style in SketchUp to click-move-click It’s tough to say out loud, but it’s possible that you’ve gotten pretty far in your SketchUp career while click-dragging your mouse for many SketchUp operations. If for some reason you just haven’t picked up the technique that lets you move your mouse freely between the beginning and end of most operations, you can force yourself to learn On the Window menu, choose Preferences (Mac: the SketchUp menu; web: app settings). In the Drawing section of the resulting dialog box, change from Auto Detect to Click-Move-Click. Click-move-click is what SketchUp calls click-release, click. But you don’t even have to think about what it’s called, because after you change that preference, it’ll be the only way SketchUp works. Customize your SketchUp shortcuts When you know the default SketchUp shortcuts, you should customize and use another dozen helpful shortcuts. You can choose your own shortcuts, of course; our suggestions are based on personal preferences and thumb wars. In desktop versions of SketchUp, you create or edit shortcut customizations by choosing Window→Preferences (Mac: SketchUp→Preferences). To assign shortcuts, look up the name of the command you want to customize and then click the input field to type a custom shortcut key. In SketchUp for web, use Search to look up the commands. When you mouse over a command name, you see a little empty rectangle to the right of its description. Click that rectangle to assign or reassign a shortcut. Here are ten SketchUp shortcuts to customize right now: X-ray (X): The X-ray face style toggles the transparency of faces in a model. This shortcut is super-handy if you’re designing pieces that fit together and working with solid tools. X-ray is also great when you’re making complex selections; it helps you understand whether you’ve selected more than you want. If you use the shortcut, you can toggle X-ray on demand. Hide Rest of Model (Shift+M): As your model becomes complex, you’ll want to get a better view of the groups and components that you need to edit. This display command turns off everything outside the context of a group and component so that you can orbit around and see what you need to see. SketchUp also operates considerably faster when you hide the rest of the model while editing a piece of it. Color by Axis (Shift+X): It’s possible that you might slip an inference with the Line tool and create a mysterious missing face. This mistake happens often enough that it’s handy to have the Color by Axis style toggle at your fingertips to identify edges that have strayed off course. Like the X-ray shortcut, it a helps you spot important details. View Hidden Geometry (Shift+H): Whether you hide edges and faces yourself, SketchUp hides them all the time. Whenever you extrude arcs or circles, SketchUp creates hidden edges. As your modeling skills improve, you’ll often need to see this hidden geometry to grab better inferences, so this shortcut comes in handy. Perspective or Parallel Projection (Shift+P): For some reason, these two camera settings do the same thing: toggle between a perspective and orthographic view of your model. If you’re setting up a model to create plans or elevations, you’ll find yourself using this shortcut (which you need to assign to only one of the commands) to switch your world view back and forth. Create Scene (+):Scenes are really useful for saving a view or a design scenario. You can create them on the fly with this simple shortcut. Previous & Next Scene (< and >): If you’re considering presenting from SketchUp, it’s a good idea to set up this simple pair of shortcuts to reverse or advance a scene-by-scene narrative. The people you’re presenting to will think you’re a wizard. Shadows (Shift+S): Let’s face it: Shadows make your SketchUp model look cooler. But they can slow SketchUp as your project grows in size. Slip shadows on and off occasionally. Most users find that intermittent shadow feedback to be visceral and pleasing, like a free bottle of sparkling water. Make Group (G) and Make Component (Shift+G): Let’s go rogue here: you should overwrite the default shortcut for the important Make Component command and instead assign G to Make Group. You don’t always know what an object is when you start creating it, and making a component costs you a few extra clicks. So keep G on your trigger finger to create a group immediately, drawing objects in their own modeling context right away. Then, after you’ve made a group, press Shift+G if the group needs to be a component. Paste in Place (Shift+V): You’re going to be using Paste in Place all the time — more often than normal pasty Paste but not so much that you can break your Ctrl+V muscle memory. Bring Shift+V into your 3D lexicon to move geometry in and out of groups or components (or across modeling files) efficiently. Use SketchUp’s inference locking force Inferencing is like the way of the Jedi. You must trust the inferencing force and know that it is always with you in SketchUp — and can be invoked with arrow keys. Here are two inferencing techniques that will significantly speed your work: Use the arrow keys to lock orientation for the Move tool. When you want to raise or lower something in SketchUp, activate the Move tool, click your selection on its bottom corner, and press the up arrow key. Now your cursor is free to roam the screen, and you can to pick an exact finishing height for your move. Inference locking with the arrow keys is accurate as any other technique but requires less mental effort. Use the Get Down inference to operate off axis. This is the best inference name ever, right? Seriously, our new favorite inference technique is to hover over an over a face or an edge and then press the down-arrow key to lock a tool orientation (the magenta inference). The Get Down inference lets you treat the orientation of any edge or face as if it were a 4th axis, along with red, green, and blue. That’s why it’s so hip, man. To get off the down-arrow inference, first, click the down key again. The magenta inference will run perpendicular to your reference. Click the down key a third time and you’ll unlock the inference. Transport yourself across space and time Okay, the title is a slight exaggeration, but some camera tools help you warp through a SketchUp model with much less effort than orbiting and zooming across a model. Integrate them, and your perceived effort of modeling goes down. That’s a big deal! Try these camera techniques in SketchUp to see whether any of them sticks for you: Use the Orbit tool to center your screen on an object. If you’re modeling an interior, this tool is a handy way to skip your view across a room. With Orbit activated, double-click any geometry on the screen. SketchUp jumps to center your screen on the focus of the double-click. Use Zoom Window to jump to a nearby selection. With Zoom Window (choose Camera →Zoom Window), you can use a selection window to jump your view closer to a specific area. It’s recommended that you not use Zoom Window to jump to areas that are very far away. Use Zoom Selection to jump right to a selection. If you wanted to remember one more keyboard shortcut, this one might be it. With the Select tool activated, you can right-click an object and choose Zoom Selection from the shortcut menu to warp right to it. Round off edges with SketchUp’s Arc Tool The following technique for rounding corners around a series of edges is just too cool to leave out of this book. This fillet — or rounding — method works on flat faces only. Follow these steps and reference the images below to round edges: With a flat face, activate the two-point Arc tool. Near one of the junctures between two edges, click to start drawing an arc. Hover your cursor over the adjacent edge to find the magenta tangent inference. Double-click to finish your arc.The face and edges on the outside of your arc disappear. But wait, there’s more. Move your cursor close to another corner or intersection, and double-click the face (not the edges). The round-off repeats and will keep repeating if you continue to another intersection of edges. Without changing from the Arc tool, you can continue to apply the same rounding to as many edge intersections as you want as long they’re on a flat, nonextruded face. This method of rounding edges is also configurable. When you’re done rounding, use the Select tool to select an arc, then open the Entity Info panel to redefine the arc’s radius or segments. Pretty smooth — or at least as smooth as you want it. Use SketchUp’s Scale Tool to set length for simple objects Here’s a quick alternative for simple extrusion when you know exactly how long a simple, uniform object (such as a 2×4) needs to be: Select the object you want to scale. Make the object a group, if it’s not one already. Using the Scale tool, click one of the middle grips that define the length of the object. Scale the object in one direction.If you chose the right grips, the object extrudes as though you ‘re push/pulling it. If you grabbed the wrong grip, press the Esc key and try again. Click to finish your scaling.Click anywhere at all. Type how long you want that object to be and press Enter to set the length.Just like telling SketchUp, the length of an extrusion after using the Push/Pull tool, you can define the dimensions of a Scale operation by typing an input right after finishing the operation. Remember, this technique works only with simple, uniform objects — such as dimensional lumber — but it’s very useful when you need to redefine the length of a piece without a few extra clicks of the Tape Measure tool. 10 extensions for Dummies Truth be told, there is soooo much to be said about SketchUp extensions — the add-on apps that you can install to access more modeling tools. Think of extensions as being like gems you find in a dungeon, unlocking new powers in SketchUp. But SketchUp extensions can give you superpowers — and they’re incredibly fun — so they’re worth exploring. Extensions are available only in desktop versions of SketchUp. You have to have a Pro subscription to use them. The quickest way to find and install extensions is to use Extension Warehouse(choose Window→Extension Warehouse). Extension Warehouse works just like an app store on your smartphone: You search for extensions, browse them by category, and install them in SketchUp. You can install many extensions for free; others cost a little bit of money. After you’ve installed an extension, use Extension Manager to check its status or deactivate it. Choose Window→Extension Manager to find a few extensions that come installed in SketchUp Pro. Deactivating extensions that you don’t use is a good idea, especially as you start collecting them. Fewer enabled extensions usually means faster and more stable modeling. When will you need extensions? That’s the question! To help you start thinking more three-dimensionally about your modeling, in the table below you discover ten add-ons that are worth checking out — and teaching yourself — as you get into the wild world of SketchUp extensions. Ten SketchUp Extensions Extension What to Use It For Get It From Weld By Smustard Singe edges together. Ideal for welding tangent arcs for smooth extrusions. Weld is free, and it’s almost essential for a good Follow Me. Extension Warehouse Bézier Curve By SketchUp You can use this extension to get 3D curves. This extension is also very useful for tracing over hand sketches or imported images. Extension Warehouse Soap Skin Bubble By Josef L. Create complex mesh faces between noncoplanar edges (like a loop of whacky Bézier curves). Extension Warehouse Joint PushPull By Fredo6 Give almost anything thickness with this 3D extruder, including that wacky shape you made from Bézier curves. SketchUcation Plugin Store RoundCorner By Fredo6 Precise chamfering and filleting — basically, edge magic. SketchUcation Plugin Store Skimp By Mindsight Studios You’ll find lots of models on the Internet that are too big to load into your project. Skimp simplifies these behemoths to a noncrippling size for composition in SketchUp. Extension Warehouse Open Cut List By L’Air du Bois Designate objects as a certain kind of wood and then use this extension, which spits out a list of pieces and a cutting diagram that accounts for kerf, clearance, and the dimensional lumber you’re working with. Make some sawdust! Extension Warehouse Mirror By TIG If you use other CAD programs, you’ve probably spent some time looking for this extension, which quickly copies and inverts a selection across a defined plane. SketchUcation Plugin Store True Bend By ThomThom Lots of extensions that bend and distort models, but the best one to start with is True Bend, which bends an object around a 360-degree radius. Extension Warehouse Eneroth Random Selection By Eneroth3 Variety can do wonders for your model. Use this extension to randomly select objects in a uniform array. Then move, scale, or replace them to inject chaos into SketchUp. SketchUcation Plugin Store Get SketchUp on your smartphone Okay, it’s true: You can’t use SketchUp to draw 3D models on your smartphone. But you can get the free SketchUp app on a smartphone or tablet to view and reference your models. Think about walking around a hardware store with an exploded view of your model or a scene in which you’ve saved a parts list or cutting layout. Here’s how to get your models on a phone or tablet: Install SketchUp Viewer from an app store.This part is pretty simple. Go to the app store for your device, and search for SketchUp Viewer. Open the app, and access models stored in Trimble Connect, 3D Warehouse, Dropbox, or on your device.If you use SketchUp for web, the models you’ve saved are already stored in Trimble Connect. If you use SketchUp Pro, you can store your models in Trimble Connect (choose File→Trimble Connect→Publish Model) or upload models to 3D Warehouse. Models that you’ve stored in any of these places are available by clicking the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Additionally, you can load models from Dropbox or from device storage. Now that you have your models on your phone or tablet, what are you going to do with them? Well, you’re going to use them. Isn’t that the beauty of making models in the first place? Here are a few ways to use your models with the SketchUp Viewer. Use Styles and Scenes to deliver 3D presentations. Almost everything about styling and composing models for 3D presentation in Part 3 applies in the SketchUp Viewer, because all the scenes you create in SketchUp are available in the Viewer. Your saved model views — with hidden groups and components (or tags), dimensions and labels, section planes, shadows, or styles — are at your fingertips on your device. In addition to jumping between scenes you’ve saved, you can use the Position Camera tool to jump your camera to first-person view. (Find it by clicking the Orbit icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.) Reference project plans while building something. Wouldn’t you know, the model views that you make to build a project — orthographic plan and elevations, section views that show construction details, dimensions, and label callouts — are pretty useful to reference while building a project. Why wouldn’t you want all this information on your workbench, caked in sawdust? Take measurements on the fly. Need to double-check the dimensions of your design? After you’ve made a note with your real-life tape measure, pull out the 3D Tape Measure tool (the second icon from the top) in SketchUp Viewer. Now place a finger on your screen. You’ll see a little magnified view of your model with an inference cursor. Move your finger to snap to the inference you want; then remove your finger from the screen. Repeat to set the end of your measurement. SketchUp spits out a model dimension. Do you think it will fit? Preview models in real space with augmented reality. Okay, here’s the fun part: You can use the SketchUp Viewer to preview your models in the context of real-world space, using the augmented reality tools available on many smartphones and tablets. The SketchUp Viewer activates the camera on your device and then projects a scaled 3D model onscreen. The result is a scaled preview of your model, set in the frame of the real space you may be designing it for. This feature comes in very handy for evaluating room layouts, previewing custom built-in projects, and catching Pokémon at will. Turn off your SketchUp profiles It’s the nature of computers: At some point, you’ll make a SketchUp model that slows down. When that happens, you can lessen the processing load of SketchUp in many ways. The simplest (and quickest) method to try to speed up SketchUp is to turn off edge profiles. This display setting removes the extra line thickness applied to edges that define the outline of your geometry. You can turn off profiles by changing or editing a style, but it’s much faster to set a customized keyboard shortcut. Now you can toggle in and out of edge profiles. Just like toggling shadows on and off, toggling profiles is a nice way to throttle the demand on your computer while keeping the sketchy look and feel a keystroke away. Connect with the SketchUp community The Internet is an infinite resource of highly specialized SketchUp knowledge. People across the world, in many languages, have uploaded detailed YouTube videos in which they explain how to do something very specific in SketchUp. Generate a cut list, draw with subdivisions to create organic shapes, model videogame levels, import GIS data — you can do it all in SketchUp, because a community of SketchUp people (we call them SketchUppers) are inspired to share and teach those who are willing to learn. You’ll find them in the SketchUp Forums, SketchUcation, and YouTube. Almost anywhere you can ask a question, a SketchUpper will answer it. One last tip: Ask a friendly question, and you’ll get a helpful answer. With that, you are now in the good hands of SketchUppers everywhere. Want to learn more? Check out SketchUp Cheat Sheet.

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SketchUp 13 Keyboard Shortcuts for Common SketchUp Tools

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

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SketchUp SketchUp For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-25-2022

Like any 3-D modeling program, SketchUp offers different ways to do common tasks. In this Cheat Sheet, you'll find tips on the best way to use SketchUp tools and to boost your productivity. Keyboard shortcuts also enable you to work quickly and easily in SketchUp, so you'll uncover keyboard shortcuts for common tools.

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AutoCAD AutoCAD For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-22-2022

It's not enough to draw nice-looking lines anymore. If you want to compete in the AutoCAD realm, you need to carefully organize the objects you draw, their properties, and the files in which they reside. This guide provides basic information and tools for the AutoCAD drawing setup, keyboard shortcuts in AutoCAD, and the AutoCAD drawing scale and limits—without putting a T-square through your computer screen in frustration.

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AutoCAD Tinkercad For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-14-2021

Tinkercad is a superb cloud-based 3D design platform, which enables you to design 3D prototypes and those 3D “wow” projects that you want to show off to your friends and colleagues (and your mum and dad). Tinkercad For Dummies gives you a great grounding in how to use Tinkercad, but what about all those little shortcuts and tips and tricks that will take you from being a Tinkercad Jedi padawan to a Tinkercad Jedi master? Well, you will find them all in this Cheat Sheet; everything from keyboard shortcuts to how to find what you want in the online Tinkercad libraries. It’s all here!

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SketchUp Working with SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse

Article / Updated 09-30-2020

SketchUp’s 3D Warehouseis a huge online collection of 3D models that is searchable and, most important, free for everyone to use. To access the 3D Warehouse, all you need is an Internet connection. If you have a SketchUp model that you want to share with the world, share with just a few people or store on SketchUp’s servers for safekeeping, the 3D Warehouse is where you put it. Why use SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse? Let’s dispel a popular misconception right away: When you upload a model to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse, you aren’t automatically donating your hard work to the world — you can make uploaded models and collections private. With that understanding, here are some awesome reasons to use the 3D Warehouse: Sharing is good for your self-esteem. To be clear, you don’t need to subscribe to the nouveau-tech mindset that all information has to be free of charge. If you spent a lot of time on something and you don’t want to give it away, you shouldn’t have to. But if you’re proud of what you made, and sharing it with others would make you feel good, the 3D Warehouse offers a great way to contribute to the 3D modeling community. Create your own personal component library. Because SketchUp can download models directly from the 3D Warehouse into the model you’re working on, making your own online collections is incredibly handy. Everything you upload is accessible anywhere you happen to be working. For example, you can maintain a collection of the furniture in your house. Whenever you need a model of your sofa, you can just download it — no matter what computer you’re using. Explore uploaded models in 3D without having to download them. You can orbit, pan, and zoom around any model you can see on the 3D Warehouse — without having to download it into SketchUp first. If you want to show someone your model in 3D, you can just send them its 3D Warehouse link. Better yet, you can embed a 3D viewer window on your web page; anyone who visits your page can poke around. It’s never a bad idea to have a backup. If all you’re looking to do is save a copy of your work in the cloud (where you can’t spill your coffee all over it), services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are great choices. None of these, however, give you direct access to your models inside of SketchUp. When you upload something to the 3D Warehouse, it’s both safe and readily available. It’s also a good idea to keep a backup of everything on a removable USB drive and store it away from your computer, preferably in a different building. Getting to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse You can get to SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse in two ways: From SketchUp: Choose Window→3D Warehouse. A mini web browser opens right in front of your modeling window. In SketchUp for web, use Search to find and open 3D Warehouse. From the web: Check out SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse on the web. Accessing the 3D Warehouse from the web is a great way to hunt for and curate 3D models to quickly create component collections for use as you’re modeling. Go ahead and poke around the 3D Warehouse. It’s amazing what you find; thousands of people add new content every day. Much of it isn’t very useful, but you still find plenty of interesting things to download and look at. Taking apart strangers’ models is a great way to figure out how they’re built. Find, preview, and download models in SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse Before you get into sharing models, here’s a quick explanation of the most important thing you’ll do in 3D Warehouse: search, evaluate, and download 3D models: Finding models: Once you’ve searched in 3D Warehouse, there are various ways to refine and improve your model search results. In particular, it’s recommended that you filter your results by either Popularity or Likes and using Categories (in the upper left of your search results) to filter out models that aren’t related to what you’re looking for. Evaluating models for size and performance: Be careful about downloading models that are very big or complex. Unfortunately, a bad 3D Warehouse download can cripple your model. Keep the junk out by restricting the file size and polygon count of your searches. Downloading models: If you’re using 3D Warehouse while modeling, models you download will import directly into SketchUp, where they are placed on the cursor of the Move tool. Move the cursor to the desired location in your model and then click to place the new component at that location. If you downloaded a SKP file from 3D Warehouse in a web browser, you can drag and drop that file into SketchUp to place it in your model. Managing your SketchUp models online 3D Warehouse can sometimes feel like a free-for-all of individual models floating around in cyberspace. But if you use it intentionally, it’s actually a pretty organized place. If you are downloading models, the image below shows the doodads and gadgets you should pay attention to on a model’s details page: 3D model preview: This preview, which is available in a web browser only, enables you to hover over the image of a model and click 3D Model to preview the model using SketchUp’s camera tools. If you don’t have a mouse, press O for Orbit and H for Pan. Statistics panel: The numbers that appear on this section of the page are all interesting and useful, but the ones you should pay closest attention to are Polygons and Materials. These tell you the model’s size in the three metrics that count most: Polygons is 3D modeling shorthand for faces; the more you have, the harder SketchUp has to work to display your model. If you’re thinking about downloading a tree with 350,000 polygons, consider taking a vacation to Tahiti while SketchUp opens it. Materials are similarly taxing on your computer’s performance, but they only come into play for models that have been heavily photo-textured. Distance from Origin is how far away the geometry in a model is from the origin of that model. The bigger the number this is, the worse your model will perform when you initially load it into SketchUp. You can fix this, but beware: A model that is very far from the origin is likely to have other problems! Related Collections: If the model you’re searching for doesn’t quite do the trick, it can be useful to browse related Collections compiled by other people who are interested in the same thing you are looking for. In addition to information about a model you’re looking at, either yours or someone else’s, you’ll find some valuable tools for curation and organization, just below the title of the model. Like models: Liking a model by clicking its heart icon is a quick way to give it positive feedback. Likes make it easier for people to find useful 3D models. Whether or not you share models, you can help improve 3D Warehouse by liking things. Models you like are saved for you in My Content (on the Account menu). Adds to Folders or Collections: One of the most productive things you can do on the 3D Warehouse is collect models — your own and other people’s. Make yourself empty collections for things like chairs, scale figures, trees, and star destroyers. Then fill them with the amazing models you find as you’re exploring. Back in SketchUp, in the Components panel, choose My Collections from the Collections drop-down menu, and there they are, ready to use in your own work. Collections are public, so if you prefer to keep your libraries private, use Folders instead. In SketchUp, able to access folders by going to My Content in the 3D Warehouse mini-browser. Embed: Click here, and the 3D Warehouse serves up some HTML code that you can use to embed the model on a web page. The Embed feature is especially important for product manufacturers, designers, and anyone else who wants to let people explore a model in 3D without leaving their website. While we’re on the subject of SketchUp collections and folders, here’s how to create and manage them: Make sure you’re logged in to the 3D Warehouse. If you're logged in, you’ll see your username on the account drop-down menu at the top of every page in the Warehouse. If you’re not logged in, click Sign In (also at the top of every page) and enter your account credentials. Go to the model details page for a model you want to add to a Folder or Collection. To create a Folder or a Collection, click on the appropriate Folder or Collection icon. The Folder and Collections icons are located just below the lower-left corner of the image in the model details page. The Folder icon looks like a folder, and the Collection icon is right next to it. First things first: Decide how you want to organize things. Remember, folders are private to you; collections are visible to everybody. Then create a name for your new library. You can also create new folders or collections, using the icons on the My Content page. To add a model to an existing folder or collection, choose it from the list. As you create more folders and collections, you’ll see designations when you click the Folder or Collections icons. Add the model you are viewing to a folder or collection by choosing it from the list that appears. If you find yourself working on the same kind of project over and over, these techniques for searching for, evaluating, and organizing models comes in handy big time. A well-organized stash of attractive, high-performance SketchUp components is one of your best weapons for dramatically speeding your modeling. After all, why draw something from scratch if a perfectly good something already exists? Want to learn more? Check out our SketchUp Cheat Sheet.

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AutoCAD How to Create a 2D View from a 3D Model and Other 3D AutoCAD Tricks

Article / Updated 01-22-2020

AutoCAD can be your best friend. The latest version of AutoCAD is packed full of 3D tricks. Use the information below to make the most of AutoCAD. Would you believe that it took less than five minutes to produce the image below? Follow these steps to produce a 2D view from a 3D model: Click the Workspace Switching button on the status bar, and then choose 3D Modeling. Toolbars, palettes, and Ribbon panels flash on and off, and soon AutoCAD settles down to display the Ribbon, as configured for the 3D Modeling workspace with a few additional panels. Set up a 3D model. Create a new model or open an existing file that contains a 3D model.You can find the files used here at this link. Go to and download afd23.zip. The drawing named afd23a.dwg contains the model Use in the following steps. Switch to paper space. Click the Layout 1 tab near the lower-left corner of the screen. Delete the existing viewport by clicking the viewport object (the frame of the viewport) and then pressing Delete. By default, new drawings created from a standard template file contain a single viewport. If you’ll frequently create new drawings like this, set up a template file with the viewport already deleted. Click the Base button from the Create View panel on the Layout tab of the Ribbon, and then choose From Model Space from the drop-down list. The VIEWBASE command creates several new layers automatically. By default, they’re the opposite of the screen color (black or white), but they always print in black. You can change these layers to any color you want. Position the base view. AutoCAD automatically selects what it thinks is an appropriate scale, assuming that you’ll place the three standard orthographic views and one pictorial view. However, you can change it. Select a suitable place in the lower-left quadrant of the layout sheet.The Drawing View Creation contextual tab appears on the Ribbon, a drop-down list of view options appears at the cursor, and an option list appears on the command line. Define the base view. Using any one of the three selection methods — Ribbon, cursor, or command line — set up the base view as follows: Orientation: The view shows what appears to be the bottom view of the part because AutoCAD defines top, bottom, and so on relative to the world X,Y coordinates. Select Orientation and the Top to create the view you want. Hidden lines: The preview image in paper space always displays in shaded mode, regardless of the visual style of the model in model space. Change the Hidden Lines option to Visible and Hidden. The view won’t change yet, but don’t worry — it will after you complete the steps. Scale: This setting defaults to 1:4, which is suitable for your purposes if you started from the sample drawing. Visibility, or Edge Visibility: This setting specifies how to display edges that are formed where tangent surfaces meet. The normal practice is not to display them, but it sometimes causes features to disappear (or partially disappear). If you change this setting, hover the cursor over the Edge Visibility button in the Appearance panel of the Ribbon and pause for a few seconds; a much more extensive tooltip list then explains each option. Move: Specify a new location for the view before it is finally created. This isn’t such a big deal, though, because views can always be easily moved later. Exit: Or press Enter. You can edit any of these view specifications later, view by view. Place the other drawing views. When you finish placing and defining the base view, AutoCAD automatically runs the VIEWPROJ command. All you need is three quick clicks to place the top, isometric, and right-side views; then press Enter to have AutoCAD generate the views. Edit the isometric projection. Isometric projections don’t normally show hidden lines. Double-click anywhere in the isometric projection to bring up the Drawing View Editor tab on the Ribbon. Click Hidden Lines on the Appearance tab and choose Shaded with Visible Lines from the drop-down list. If a Ribbon button has a drop-down list, the Ribbon displays the last button that was used. Any one of four different buttons may be in this particular location. The image below shows three ortho views and a shaded isomeric view, which was created in 37.6 seconds. Add annotations. Add dimensions and text notes in the paper space layout. Dimensions are associative to their matching geometry if you use object snaps to the geometry when you place them. While you’re at it, perhaps you can use VIEWDETAIL to create a detail view at a different scale.When you submit a drawing to your boss, they’ll be impressed that you managed to create such a complex drawing, including the shaded isometric projection, in only three days. Place text and dimensions on their own layers. An isometric view and an isometric projection are different creatures. An isometric view is normally drawn so that lines that are parallel to the three principal axes appear in their true length, and an isometric projection foreshortens them due to the tilting and rotating of the viewing angle of the object. Traditional paper-and-pencil drawings use isometric views, whereas AutoCAD creates isometric projections. If you truly want an isometric view, the solution is simply to ignore the usual rule about drawing and inserting at full size. When creating an isometric projection, use this approximate scale factor to produce an isometric view: 1.2247441227836356744839797834917 You can also edit the insertion later, to make it match this scale factor. Editing views in AutoCAD You can apply two different types of editing to 2D views that were generated from 3D models. You can edit the view specifications themselves (start with the easy one): Select the base view, and then select the blue grip box that appears in the center of the view. Drag and drop the view into a new location. Interesting! If you move the base view, all the ortho views projected from it follow along, with some constraints. The ortho views don’t move in perfect unison as a single group, but they maintain their orthographic relationship to the base view.Similarly, you can move projected ortho views in only the direction that still maintains their ortho relationship to the base view. Better yet, all attached dimensions (you hope) also follow along. You can also double-click a view and then change the specifications that were used to create it. Refer to Step 9 above. To experience the magic of creating 2D views from a 3D model, return to model space and edit the model. For example, add a second hole (hint: subtract a cylinder), extend the length of the peg, and then return to the paper space layout. All your views and their dimensions are updated. AutoCAD creates the views as a series of anonymous blocks. They behave much like regular blocks, but because they don’t have normal names, you can’t access them directly to edit or explode them Additional 3D AutoCAD tricks To fully cover the 3D capabilities of AutoCAD would easily require a full book on its own, but meanwhile, here are a few high points: Don’t want four views? If you don’t want four standard views, you can create only the base view and then change its scale factor to better suit the sheet size. Need additional base views? If necessary, you can have more than one base view in a single layout. For example, one large drawing might show an assembly and its component parts. Didn’t create enough views? Use the VIEWPROJ command to add more projected views later. They don’t have to project from the original base view, but can project from an existing projected view. No longer need a view? You can delete a view, even a base view, without affecting the other views — except that doing so breaks the horizontal and vertical links between the views that were projected from it. No 3D model in your drawing? You can use the VIEWBASE command to generate views from a 3D model that lived in the model space of the current drawing. AutoCAD’s top model You may have generated 2D drawing views from a 3D model in model above. But if the VIEWBASE command cannot find a 3D model in the current drawing file, it opens a standard file dialog box so that you can browse for an Autodesk Inventor Inventor is the 3D parametric modeling software from Autodesk, primarily intended for the mechanical design field. Inventor is fully parametric, in that dimensional constraints drive the profiles that define the solid features that consist of the parts that comprise the assembly model that drives the 2D drawing views that Jack built. If you change a dimension on a 2D drawing of a part, everything updates, all the way down the line. The Inventor file isn’t inserted into the AutoCAD file. Instead, it’s attached like an xref. VIEWBASE creates a 2D drawing view based on it, and additional views can be projected from the base view. Here’s the magic part: The AutoCAD drawing views are still linked back to the Inventor file so that any changes made to the Inventor file reflect down to the AutoCAD file, updating it. Better yet, you can send the AutoCAD DWG file to a client or vendor without having to send the source Inventor file. The AutoCAD file contains only anonymous blocks for the 2D views and has nothing in model space. On the other hand, whenever the AutoCAD DWG file has access to the Inventor file, the AutoCAD drawing views update and remain in step with any changes made to the Inventor model. Here are more tips for working with AutoCAD and Inventor files: Mix and match 2D drawing views. If VIEWBASE finds an AutoCAD solid in your part, you can tell it to ignore it and let you attach it to an Inventor file instead. You can have more than one base view in an AutoCAD drawing, so you can mix and match 2D drawing views. One or more base views can come from an internal AutoCAD 3D model, and others can be linked to external Inventor files. Select additional solids. If model space contains more than one solid, VIEWBASE allows you to switch back to model space, where you can select and deselect solids to appear in the base view. For example, a model of a gearbox assembly might consist of many components. Separate views can be created, perhaps on several different layouts: one showing an outside view of the entire gearbox (which doesn’t need to include the internals such as gears and bearings); another showing only the input shaft, gear, bearings, and seals; and another showing the output shaft and its related components. Choose a different scale. The VIEWDETAIL command generates detail views at scales different from the parent view. Use different section views. The VIEWSECTION command has five options for creating section views: Full, Half, Offset, Aligned, and From Object. This command creates section views based on existing views in the layout. The cutting plane line that it generates can be manipulated like any regular polyline, and the section view then updates accordingly.

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