Google - SketchUp

Lesson 3: Introduction to SketchUp (3)

“Views” Toolbar

SketchUp provides several pre-set views, with which we can view the object.

From left to right:

Iso              Top             Front            Right         Back         Left

     

I find this toolbar very useful, so click on the “View” button in the menu bar, choose “Toolbars” and click “Views” in the drop-down menu.

“Standard” Toolbar

And the last toolbar that I want to have is the “Standard toolbar”.

It has the “New”, “Open”, “Save,” “Cut”, “Copy”, etc. .. buttons that we find in any application.

Once you have these three toolbars also checked in the drop-down menu of the toolbars, then the SketchUp application would look like in the below image.

About the rest of the toolbars, we will include them when we need them.

VCB Box

We find the Value Control Box, or VCB in short, at the bottom right of our screen.

The VCB box shows the dimensions of the object, that is selected at that moment .

When the dimensions of a shape or line should be of a specific value, you use the VCB box.

Suppose we must draw a line of exactly 5.25 meters in the drawing area with the Line tool.
Select the Line tool in the tool bar.
Click the drawing area where you want the line to begin, and drag it until the desired size is reached.

You can check this in the VCB box.

Let loose the mouse pointer when the VCB box displays 525.00 cm.

This is one way.

A second way is select the Line tool, click in the artboard where you want the line to start, move the cursor (do not drag) in the direction you want to draw the line, type the size on your keyboard ( 525) and click the Enter key.

The line is automatically adjusted to the valu you just typed.

We do the same for a shape.

For example, select the “Square” tool, then move the mouse pointer in the drawing area, the dimensions do not matter.

Type 300: 200.

This gives us an exact rectangle of 3 by 2 meters.

You can also type 3m, 2m or 300cm, 200cm.
The length and width are separated by the punctuation coma (,)

How you type it does not matter. Keep in mind that if you do not specify any units, then it is considered as cm. We set this in lesson 1 when we changed the metric.

You can do this with any shape in SketchUp.

For example for a circle, we give the radius.

Select the circle tool and click and move the mouse pointer in the drawing area.

Type the size of the radius for your circle.
Click the Enter key on your keyboard.

In the picture below, it is 100, so this is 100cm or 1 meter.

If you want to use exact dimensions, please use the VCB box.

Attention!

You can change the dimensions in the VCB box change as many times as you want, but when you choose a different tool (tool), you cannot modify it anymore.

Awesome!
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