The working environment

For all those of you who do not know what SketchUp is, SketchUp is very easy to use 3D program, you can learn very quickly and easily.
Who uses SketchUp? I would say anyone who wants to make something in 3D.

Google SketchUp comes in two versions, you have the free version, and you have a paid version (SketchUp Pro). In this course I am using the free version, what did you think!

To download Google SketchUp surf to http://www.google.com/sketchup/downloads/.

SketchUp makes use of the Push / Pull (Push-Pull) technique, wherein we can easily create a 3D model by means od pushing and pulling a 2D plane.

The image below is the screen you see when you open SketchUp:

At the top we find the title bar (titlebar), below we have the menu bar (Menubar), then we have the toolbar (toolbar), the Artboard, and at the bottom we have the status bar (status bar).

 

The Title Bar, mentiones the name of our document and name of the application, the right buttons are minimize, maximize, and close. Actually they are not much different with any Windows application.

 

In the menu bar, we find the majority of tools in SketchUp. Commands and settings are available within these menus.

 

In the Toolbar, we find the various tools and controls to create our 3D runs smoothly. We have various toolbars in SketchUp.
By default, the “Getting Started” bar is displayed.

 

The drawing area is where we make our model.
In the drawing area, we find three axes, a vertical axis (blue), a horizontal axis (red), and a depth axis (green).

 

At the bottom of the screen, a tip for the currently selected tool in the toolbar is displayed in the left of the statusbar and on the right side, we have the value control box (VCB).

VCB displays dimensional information while we draw. In the VCB box, we may enter values, to adjust the element shown at that time to the specified dimensions.

 

Set metric

By default the English version of SketchUp is set to inches, because I, and I suppose you also, usually work with meters and centimeters, we must first change this setting.

Click on “Window” in the menu bar and choose “Model Info”.

This opens the “Model Info” dialog.

Choose “Units” on the left, and click on the down arrows on the right of the “Format” box.

Select “Decimal” in the first box, and “Centimeters” in the second box.

In the “Precision” imagine exactly how you want to work. That is 1 decimal place or 2 decimal places, etc. ..

Click the red X in the upper right corner of the dialog when the settings are made.

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