Google - SketchUp

Lesson 34: Groups (1)

Group

What we have till now are all individual objects in our drawing.
However, when we try to move, the entire drawing will be distorted.

For example, I select the garage and move it with the “Move” tool (1).
Not quite what I want (2).

A solution is,  select the garage, right click it and choose “Make Group” in the drop-down menu. Select the “Move” tool in the toolbar, and move the garage.
We now have a hole in our house, but this is easy to close, right?
Well if you do not know how to, select the “Line” tool and click two endpoints of the edge of the hole.

Once the hole in the wall is closed, we can confidently move the garage to any position in the drawing area.

 

Move Group

To correctly align with another object in the drawing area, in this example the house, click for the first time at a specific point in the group, in this case the lower left corner of the garage.
Move the mouse pointer to a specific point of an object, in this case the lower edge of the house, and then click for a second time.
The garage is now perfectly aligned against the house.

You can see when we switch to the “X-Ray” view (1).
If the garage is not perfectly aligned, this would be very clear in this view (2).
The X-Ray button is in the “Face Style” toolbar. To access this toolbar, click “View” in the menu bar, choose “Toolbars” in the drop-down menu, and click “Face Style”.

To return to “normal” mode, click again the “X-Ray” button.

To move the garage backwards or forwards, click the left arrow on your keyboard.
This will lock the possibility of movement on the green axis. In other words, wherever you move the cursor, the garage will always align with the green axis.

If you want the garage also to be aligned to the front view of your house, move your mouse over this area and click again.

If you want the garage to move in a vertical position, click the up-arrow on your keyboard. In this case, this seems pretty ridiculous, but it’s just to show you how to do this.

If you want to move the garage horizontally, click the right pointing arrow on the keyboard. This will limit the movement to the red axis.

If you want to undo the restriction of movement, click the same arrow again that you had clicked to set the restriction.

So, if you had chosen to limit the possibility of movement to the red axis, click the right pointing arrow again on your keyboard.

You can also see when a restriction is set.
An icon that resembles handcuffs is placed right above the icon of the “Move” tool.

Awesome!
You've completed Lesson 34
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