The “Line” tool

So as i said in Lesson 3 we have different ways to draw a line.
The first thing you do when you want to draw a line is to select the Line tool.

One way is the “click and drag” method.
A second way is the “click – move – click” method.
For those who do not know the difference between “drag” and “move”, you drag the mouse while you hold and move the mouse pointer button and do do not hold the mouse pointer down while you move.
I prefer the second way. For the simple reason that the end point of the previous line, will automatically be the starting point of the following line.

If you want to draw a second line that begins at the end of the first line, click on the endpoint of the first line, place the cursor at the place where you want the line to end in the drawing box and click again.
Do the same for the following lines.
When you move the mouse after clicking on the endpoint of the first line and thus making the starting point of the second line, it seems that it is connected to an elastic line.
If you do not wish to draw any additional lines that are connected to the previous line, click the Esc key on your keyboard and the “elastic line” disappears.

When you click and move the mouse pointer, SketchUp will tell you (text) and display (color) whether the line runs parallel to the red axis (on red axis) or green axix (on green axis).

Move your mouse over a previously drawn line, SketchUp will tell you where the cursor is on this line.
On the line, at the center or at the end point.

This is not only useful to search the midpoint of a line , but also when you want to create a closed shape from a number of lines.
You can also choose the correct position on the line by means of guides.
For example:
If You want to draw a third line till the intersection point of the center of the horizontal line with the center of the vertical line.
First move the mouse pointer over the vertical line until you’ve reached the center, then move the mouse pointer over the horizontal line until you’ve reached the center. Move the mouse pointer to the center of your drawing, once you’ve reached the center of both lines, SketchUp displays a red and a green dotted helpline.
Right-Click on the mouse and you have a perfect line at the center of your drawing.

The same happens when you want to do this with two endpoints, one endpoint or a midpoint.

Or when you do it with just a reference point.

It does not matter where this point is located on the line , as long as it is a reference point. In other words, a center point or end point.
If you do not want to see the guide lines, you can later remove them with the “Eraser” tool .

First move your mouse pointer over the line until you’ve reached a point of reference, in this case move the mouse pointer to the right, and a guideline will appear.

 

 

When you go through different lines to draw a closed shape, it is automatically filled and this is a plane.

To draw a plane you have to cilck on the endpoint or the centre point of last line drawn line.

 

To remove a plane right click and choose “Erase” from drop-down menu (1), or a second way is to select the fill, and click the “Delete” button on your keyboard.

To fill the plane again with a fill tool, first select the “Line”, it does not matter if its the beginning or at the endpoint (2).

 

 

Attention!

When you draw the plane that is not flat, the plane will not be filled. But this is something that we draw in 3D and it is discussed later in this course.

 

Some of us know that the we can use the left-and right-pointing arrows on your keyboard to move the cursor, or better said to draw a line, to limit to the red or green axis as you draw.
For example.
You draw a horizontal line through the “click move click” method.
You click the left pointing arrow on your keyboard.
Where you place the cursor in the drawing area, the line you draw will be locked to the red axis.
What is useful about this is that you can choose a reference point at any place in the drawing area, in this case the line you will draw will always be a vertical line.

The same can be done with the Shift key on your keyboard is pressed.
Draw your first line, move the cursor down. When you see the green vertical guide, click and hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. The green vertical guide changes to a bold green guide, which indicates that to whichever place you mvoe the cursor, you will be limited to drawing a vertical line.

It’s all a bit hard to explain, but you should try it.

With the arrows pointing upward and downward, we can limit the line to Blue axis, but this is when we start drawing in 3D, in a later lesson.

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