Google sketchup for dummies free download

If you have a group of parts or other things you always use, making your own component collection can save you a lot of time and effort. The second-to-last part of this chapter dives headlong into modeling symmetrical things like couches and hatchbacks; Figure shows some examples.

Figure What do all these things have in common? Anything you find on the 3D Warehouse, you You can get to the 3D Warehouse in a couple of can download and use in your own models. You different ways: can also upload anything you make so that other people can use it.

The Components dialog box is made up of four major areas, which I describe in the following sections. Just like the name, you can only edit descriptions for models in your In Model library. You use this to manage the components on your computer system.

The Select pane This is where your components live if they can be said to live anywhere. You use the Select pane to view, organize, and choose components. Figure shows the Select pane in all its glory. Each SketchUp file you create has its own In Model collection, which contains the components that exist in that model. Clicking the In Model Collection button displays the components in your In Model collection, if you have any. You can access them anytime because they refer to files on your computer.

If you click the name of a collection and see a Searching Google 3D Warehouse progress bar before you see any models, that collection is online. Models in the Google 3D Warehouse that match your search terms appear in the Components window below. Naturally, you need to be online for this to work. Click a component to use it in your model. You can read about DCs later in this chapter. This is where you decide how to view the components or subcollections in the Components window.

Any SketchUp models in that folder show up in the Components Window, ready to be used as components in your models. This is handy if you have a number of components that you use all the time; putting them all in one place makes them easier to find. That goes for local collections folders on your computer ; online collections from the 3D Warehouse ; and 3D Warehouse Searches. Use Select all. Instead of component in the Components dialog box placing 20 big, heavy tree components in your whose instances you want to select all of.

This can save you tons of time, par- a stick. You can only use the options in the Edit pane on components in your In Model collection — everything is grayed out for components that live in any other place. The Statistics pane Can you remember who won the Super Bowl? How many home runs did Hank Aaron hit in his career? Do you always check the nutrition information panel on food packaging? You might be a sucker for statistics, and if so, wel- come home.

You use it to keep track of all the details related to whatever component you have selected in the Components dialog box. This is espe- cially useful for doing the following things: Figure The Statistics pane of the Components dialog box: Geek out on numbers.

If you switch from All Geometry to Components in the drop- down list at the top of the pane, you can see a list of all the constituent components: subcomponents within your main component. To see information about whatever component or other kind of object you have selected in your modeling window, use the Entity Info dialog box located in the Window menu. At least I hope so — using components is probably the single best SketchUp habit you can develop. When you use several instances of a single component, SketchUp only has to remember the information for one of them.

Too bad the planning commission wants you to add a sunshade detail to every one of the 1, windows in the project. New for SketchUp 7, Dynamic Components are components with special abilities. They can be set up with multiple configurations, taught to scale intelligently, programmed to perform simple animations, and more. Making a new component Creating simple components is a pretty easy process, but making more com- plicated ones — components that automatically cut openings, stick to sur- faces, and always face the viewer — can be a little trickier.

For more information on making selections, see Chapter 2. The Create Component dialog box opens. Give your new component a name and description. Of these two, the name is by far the most important. Set the alignment options for your new component. Wondering what the heck all this stuff means? For a quick introduction to each option and tips for using it, check out Table This drops your new component into your model right where your selected geometry was, saving you from having to insert it yourself from the Components dialog box.

Click the Create button to create your new component. It will rearrange: Furniture, windows, almost never be stuck to a and doors are prime examples. Dynamic Component. If you move the com- ponent instance, the opening moves, too.

Always Makes a component always Using flat, lightweight compo- Face face you, no matter how you nents instead of 3D heavy ones Camera orbit around. Shadows Only available when the You should leave this check box Face Sun Always Face Camera check selected unless your Face-Me box is selected, and is component meets the ground selected by default.

Components can only cut through one face at a time. Delete the face you just created to make a making your own window and door compo- hole in your vertical surface. Select all four edges of the hole you just out the illustration that follows this sidebar for created. Then right-click one of the edges visual instructions : and choose Make Component from the 1. Start by drawing a rectangle on a vertical context menu. Try deleting create your new component. With the Select tool, double-click your fixes things; it usually does.

The to edit it; the rest of your model will appear cutting boundary consists of the edges that to fade back a bit. Drawing them back in usually sets things straight. In this case, select the instance s you want to edit, right-click one of them, and choose Make Unique from the context menu. This turns the instances you selected into a separate component. Now edit any of them; only those instances you made unique will reflect your changes.

Explode is a lot like Ungroup in other software programs in SketchUp, you use Explode to disassemble both components and groups. To unlock something, right-click it and choose Unlock. Taking Advantage of Components to Build Better Models The fact is, a huge amount of the stuff in the galaxy is made up of some kind of repeated element.

The whole is composed of two or more instances of a single part. Not having to model the same things twice provides you with more time for playing golf or answering e-mail, depending on what you prefer to do. Using component instances means only ever having to do things once. Modeling something and then watching it repeat in a bunch of other places are fun to do, and the overall effect impresses the heck out of a crowd. The first involves symmetrical objects, and it covers about 50 percent of the things you might ever want to model.

The second technique applies to things like stairs and fences, which are both perfect examples of why components were invented in the first place. Modeling symmetrically: Good news for lazy people And smart people, I suppose. First off, take a hard look at the shape of the things you might want to model. I want you to think about all the objects in the universe. Done so soon?

Another kind of symmetry is radial symmetry; starfish are good examples of this, as are umbrellas and apple pies. If you were going to build a model of something that exhibits some form of symmetry, build- ing one part and making copies would be a smarter way to do it. You can take advantage of both bilateral and radial symmetry with SketchUp components. You can use components to model things like car wheels and turrets by build- ing a single wedge and rotating a bunch of copies around a central point.

Working smarter by only building half Bilaterally symmetrical forms are everywhere. Most animals you can name, the majority of the furniture in your house, your personal helicopter — they can all be modeled by building half, creating a component, and flipping over a copy. Follow these steps to get the general idea of how to start building a bilater- ally symmetrical model in SketchUp see Figure : 1.

Make a simple box. Draw a diagonal edge on the corner of your box. Turn your box into a component. Make a copy of your new component instance. Choose the Move tool. Click your component instance.

Move your copy over beside the original, and click again to drop it. Make sure that you move in either the red or the green direction; it makes things easier in the next step.

Flip the copy over. To do this, right-click the copy and choose Flip Along from the context menu. Stick the two halves back together.

Using the Move tool this time without Copy toggled on , pick up your copy from the corner and move it over, dropping it on the corresponding corner of the original. Take a look at the last image in Figure to see what I mean. Doing this precisely is important, if you want your model to look right.

Make a box Turn it into a component Move a copy over Flip the copy Stick the two halves together Figure Getting set up to build a bilaterally symmetrical model.

If you want, you can do a test to make sure things went smoothly see Figure With the Select tool, double-click one of the halves of your model to edit it.

Start a new file and try again, paying particular attention to Step 3 in the preceding steps. Figure Test your setup to make sure that every- thing works.

Whatever you do on this side should happen on the other side, too www. To hide it again, would disappear, because those edges are just choose the same thing. See the second and third images of the your hidden geometry see the previous boat? When I hold down Shift as I drag over the point or unhide them altogether. Just edges I want to hide with the Eraser, they disap- show your hidden geometry, select the pear.

Distracting edges Use Eraser to hide The coolest things since radially sliced bread You can model objects that exhibit radial symmetry just as easily as those with bilateral symmetry; you just start out slightly differently. The only thing you have to decide before you start is how many wedges — how many identi- cal parts — your object is made of. To set yourself up to model something with radial symmetry, you start by modeling one wedge, then you make it into a component, and then you rotate copies around the center.

Follow these steps to get the hang of it yourself: 1. Click once to establish the center I like to do this on the axis origin , move your cursor, and then click again to establish the radius. Figure Make a polygon Define a wedge Erase the rest Draw a polygon to start, draw two edges to create a wedge, and erase the rest of your polygon.

Draw edges from the center of your polygon to two adjacent vertices endpoints on the perimeter, creating a wedge. To find the center of a polygon or a circle , hover your cursor over the outline for a couple of seconds and move the cursor toward the middle; a center inference point should appear. Erase the rest of your polygon, leaving only the wedge. Turn your wedge into a component. Make copies of your wedge component instance with the Rotate tool see Figure Just like with the Move tool, you can use the Rotate tool to make copies.

You can even make an array more than one copy at a time. Select the face, too. Click the pointy end of your wedge to set your center of rotation. Click one of the opposite corners of your wedge to set your rota- tion start point. Click the other corner to make a rotated copy of your wedge. Before you do anything else, type in the number of additional wedges you want, followed by the letter x, and then press Enter.

Test your setup, if you want. Follow the steps at the end of the previous section in this chapter to test things out. Hiding the edges in your component instances makes your finished model look a whole lot better. Click to define center of rotation Click to start rotating Press Ctrl Option on Mac to rotate copy Make more copies Figure Use the Rotate tool to make copies of your wedge component instance.

The Treads Are Components method involves you guessed it making each tread step in your staircase into an instance of the same component.

Because every step is linked, anything you do to one automatically happens to all of them. Go through these steps to build a staircase using the Treads Are Components method: 1. Model a single step, including the tread and the riser. You can make this very simple at this stage, if you want to; all that mat- ters is that the tread depth and the riser height are correct.

You can fiddle with everything else later. Figure shows a simple example of this. Figure Model a single step, making sure that the depth and height are accurate. Make a component out of the step you just built. Move a copy of your step into position, above the first one see Figure Type in the total number of steps you want, type an x, and then press Enter.

Typing 12x generates 12 steps the same distance apart as the first step and its copy. The last image on the right in Figure shows what I mean. With the Select tool, double-click any one of your steps to edit all instances of your component.

Go nuts. This really is the fun part. Having your staircase made up of multiple component instances means that you have all the flexibility to make drastic changes to the whole thing without ever having to repeat your- self. Add a nosing a bump at the leading edge of each tread , a stringer a diagonal piece of structure that supports all your steps , or even a handrail by getting creative with how you modify a single component instance.

Figure shows some of what you can do. The color insert in this book shows the Treads Are Components method applied to building a circular stair. Figure Make your step into a component instance, move a copy into position above the original, and then create an array. On the right, a single component instance. Discovering Dynamic Components Once upon a time, the smartest thing a component could do was cut its own hole in a surface. With the latest release, the folks at Google have introduced an entirely new dimension to modeling with SketchUp: Dynamic Components are components with spe- cial powers.

Until version 7, SketchUp components were basically dumb. If you wanted to make a staircase longer, you had to make copies of the steps and place them in the right spot. If you needed to change the color of a car, you had to dig out the Paint Bucket and dive into the geometry. Dynamic Components DCs are models that have an idea of what they are; they know what to do when you interact with them. This section outlines what DCs represent for SketchUp modelers, how to use them, and how to go about creating your own.

More on that later. Figure Dynamic Components can do all kinds of things. The SketchUp team invented them at least partially to make SketchUp easier for new modelers to pick up. If you need to build your own Dynamic Components or modify ones that other folks have made , you need a copy of SketchUp Pro 7.

As you can imagine, companies that make things like furni- ture and building products windows, kitchen cabinets, flooring are really excited about the possibilities that Dynamic Components offer. Many of them are in the process of producing DCs of everything in their catalogues and posting them to the 3D Warehouse. The best way to get more is to visit the 3D Warehouse and do a special search: 1.

Add the following parameter to any search for models you do: :isdynamic. You can also just search for is:dynamic to find all of the DCs in the 3D Warehouse. Smart Scaling DCs designed to react intelligently to the Scale tool are the closest thing to true magic that SketchUp offers. The first image shows what happens when I scale a non-dynamic window component to make it wider. See how the frame stretches? The image on the bottom shows the dynamic version of the same window.

It gets wider when I scale it, but the frame stays the same thickness. Dynamic stairs are a perfect example of this, as you can see in Figure When I use the Scale tool to make it taller, the staircase adds steps instead of stretching.

Original Non-dynamic component stretches Figure Scaling a non- dynamic window top stretches the whole Dynamic component resizes correctly thing. The DC version scales properly. You can turn on the Dynamic Component toolbar, which is a quicker way to work with DCs than constantly using the menu bar. You can configure DCs that have been hooked up to this dialog box by choosing options from drop-down lists, typing in dimensions, and performing other simple tasks.

The first image in Figure shows the Component Options dialog box for a simple, straight staircase I built. I set it up so you can choose a riser height and a tread depth from preprogrammed lists. The dialog box also displays the total height rise , total length run , and number of steps in the staircase as it currently appears.

I wanted to provide a lot of configuration options, so it looks a lot different. The dialog box lets you enter a size, structure type, and other infor- mation, then redraws the staircase based on your specifications.

Activate the Interact tool by choosing it from the Tools menu. If any show up, grab one and scale to see what happens. You should know that groups can be dynamic, too. What does it matter to you? Building your own Dynamic Components Keeping in mind that this topic could easily occupy the remainder of this book if I let it, making your own Dynamic Components really is easier than it sounds. It also helps to remember a little bit of algebra. Many DCs end up being made of complicated hierarchies of components nested inside other compo- nents, which are in turn nested inside other components.

Because a SketchUp com- ponent is actually a mini-model inside your main model, it has its own set of red, green, and blue axes.

When it comes to Dynamic Components, things get a little bit more complicated. This is what you need to know: X is red, Y is green, and Z is blue. I strongly suggest skipping to the following DC example sections and coming back when you feel like it.

As you get familiar with erwise — has its own set of red, green, and blue DCs, you develop a good sense of where axes. To build your own Dynamic Components, they should go, right from the start. Right-click the compo- be able to relocate them when necessary; as nent and choose Change Axes.

When you you get into authoring DCs, it becomes second do, your cursor turns into a set of axes. The simply knowing that your component has its Create Component dialog box has a button own axes and that you control where they are is labeled Set Component Axes. Clicking it lets the first step in understanding how DCs work. Each piece of information about your DC — dimensions, colors, angles, copies, visibility — is a discrete value called an attribute.

Which attributes your DC has depends entirely on what you want it to do. Figure shows what it looks like for a semi-simple dynamic staircase. The staircase example in this sidebar includes three children, or subcomponents: Tread, Backstop, and Stringer. If you have more than two levels of nesting in your DC, drill down into your component by double-clicking it with the Select tool to make the deeper levels appear in Component Attributes.

Each row in the dialog box is a single attribute. The name of the attribute is in the cell on the left, and the value is in the cell on the right. Some attributes are very simple StringerHeight , some are formulas that calculate values based on other attributes RiserActual , and some include scary-looking functions StepNumber. You can switch between viewing formulas and the values they produce by clicking the Toggle Formula View button in the upper-right corner of the dialog box.

When you do, a list of pre-made attributes pops up. Click one to add it, or type in a name to create a custom attribute. Keep your attri- bute names short but meaningful. See how the value of LenZ in the com- ponent Staircase is lighter than most of the others? It just happens to be the cur- rent value of that attribute.

Just like in other spreadsheets. The exclamation point! No matter what order you add them in, your attributes always arrange themselves in alphabetical order — in Component Attributes and in the Component Options dialog box. When it gets to the bottom the last formula in the lowest-level nested component in your DC , it redraws the model. This means that values that are calculated later in the process have no effect on formulas earlier in the process. Damn the torpedoes: Smart Scaling I think the best way to get started with Dynamic Components is to dive right in and look at an example.

Writing about stuff like this in the abstract makes my brain sore. I assume you feel the same way. I can use the Component Options dialog box to choose table height, leg thickness, and tabletop thickness. I can also use the Interact tool to cycle through three different color choices.

Figure This table component is made up of five subcompo- nents, each with its own Component Axes. Main component axis origin www. The third image in Figure shows the location of the axes for each of the six components. I placed the axes for each leg at the outside corners of the table so that scaling the table also reposi- tions the legs. Now take a look at the Component Attributes dialog box for the component Table; see Figure Clicking the little triangles next to each component reveals and hides the rows called attributes associated with that component.

The Z direction is the same as the blue direc- tion. I clicked the Details button on the right side of the row to set which grips should be visible. To learn more about the DC-building functions, click the More button at the top of the Component Attributes dialog box. Having fun yet? Clicking that button opens a special part of the Component Attributes dialog box. There you can decide if — and how — that attribute should be visible in the Component Options dialog box.

Figure shows the Component Options dialog box for Table, as well as the settings in Component Attributes that make those options available. Figure The choices in the Component Options dialog box are deter- mined by settings you make in Component Attributes. In other words, if you want to be component to create what I like to call an attri- able to set an attribute from the Component bute chain. Take a look at the following diagram to see level of your DC.

When you scale is shorter, it removes shelves. This DC is an example of a behavior I like to call smart replication, meaning that it adds or removes copies of a particular part as it changes size. As you can imagine, things like stairways and fences also benefit from this kind of setup. The hierarchy of this Dynamic Component is very simple. Figure This bookcase automati- cally adds or removes shelves as you change its height. As always, where you locate the axes for your DCs and their children is the single biggest factor in determining how complicated your formulas will be.

And now, thanks to the insight and expert tips from former SketchUp product director Aidan Chopra and co-author Rebecca Huehls, this easy-to-follow guide makes it more accessible than ever!

Create buildings and components Alter the appearance of your model Tour your designs via SketchUp Get quick tips on troubleshooting If you're a designer with sketchy computer modeling skills, SketchUp For Dummies is the trusted reference you'll turn to again and again. The content provides real-world and applied material including better PowerPoint presentations and how-to animations.

Additional features include updated content to reflect software upgrades and market use; new pedagogy elements and interior design; and more robust resources that will are appropriate for different users of Google Sketch. This edition goes beyond the basic software use to teach on portions of SketchUp.

Building buildings ; Falling in love with components ; Going beyond buildings ; Keeping your model organized ; Modeling with photographs -- Viewing your model in different ways. Working with styles and shadows ; Presenting your model inside SketchUp -- Sharing what you've made. Ten SketchUp traps and their workarounds ; Ten plugins, extensions, and resources worth getting ; Ten ways to discover even more. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review.

Books for People with Print Disabilities. Developed around the needs of intermediate professional users and their workflows, this book provides practical all-around coaching on using SketchUp specifically for modeling site plans.

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Additional features include updated content to reflect software upgrades and market use; new pedagogy elements and interior design; and more robust resources that will are appropriate for different users of Google Sketch. This edition goes beyond the basic software use to teach on portions of SketchUp.