Pushing and Pulling

“Push / Pull” is a unique tool in SketchUp.

With the “Push / Pull” tool, we have the ability to add or remove volume from a figure in the drawing area.
For this example I will start with a “Metric-centimeter 3D” template, you know the one with the manneken. Not that this changes anything, but since I am in 3D workspace, I might as well use the 3D template.
The first thing I do is remove the manneken, there’s nothing for him to do so I can give him a break. I suppose you know how to do it, if not, you have to select the manneken with the “Select” tool and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Then I draw a rectangle with the “Square” tool, and type the numbers 400, 600 (1).
Which means I have a rectangle of 4 by 6 meters.

Then I select the “Push / Pull” tool in the toolbar, and move the mouse pointer over the surface of the rectangle drawn.

Now we have different ways of making 3D cube of this 2D rectangle (2).
One way is to click the mouse and drag it in the direction that you want to work, in this case up, and then release the mouse button when the desired height for the cube is reached.
This is the click – drag method. But i think you already know that.

A second way is to click the mouse and drag it in the direction that you want to work, that is up, type a number (200) to determine the height, and click Enter key to confirm.

A third way is to click the mouse pointer and move it in the direction that you want to work. When you move the mouse pointer, you will see that the plane remains stuck to the mouse pointer.
Click again on the mouse when the desired height is reached.

How you do it does not matter, but if you want it to get the correct height, make use of the VCB box.

 

Once the cube is drawn, we can change the size of the plane at any time, using the “Push / Pull” tool to push or pull.

Note that when your mouse pointer is over a plane with the “Push / Pull” tool, this area is filled with black dots. This means that this area will be selected when you click and this plane will be pushed or pulled when you move the mouse pointer.

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