Book Image

Getting Started with SketchUp Pro

By : David S. Sellers
Book Image

Getting Started with SketchUp Pro

By: David S. Sellers

Overview of this book

Owing to its ability to create models quickly and with high level of dimensional accuracy, SketchUp Pro has become a popular choice for many industries, including architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and video game design. If you are seeking to adopt Trimble's exceptional design software, Getting Started with SketchUp Pro serves as an ideal primer to prepare and equip you for its use. This book will help you lay the foundation of a project from scratch, set up appropriate units, and follow a guided path to structure your 3D models. You’ll explore the workflows used for creating designs from sketches, making CAD drawings (DWG), and even updating your existing 3D models. Finally, you’ll work with extensions and 3D Warehouse to find new workflows and models to add to your skill set. By the end of this SketchUp book, you’ll be able to confidently create and share models of your design through CAD drawings and 3D views, and even take them online through the 3D Warehouse
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1 – User Interface and Beginning Modeling!
7
Part 2 – Views, Animations, and Materials
11
Part 3 – Advanced Modeling and Model Organization
12
Chapter 9: Entity Info, Outliner, and Tags Dynamically Organize Your Models
13
Chapter 10: Model Info and Preferences

Camera Options – My Geometry is Not Straight!

You may have noticed while working in SketchUp (or even while looking at the screenshots in this book) that Geometry often appears to lean or to get larger or smaller depending on the camera angle. We know that moving the camera is not changing the size of the Geometry, so what is happening?

The default view in SketchUp is the Perspective camera and it will distort how Geometry looks, depending on where it is on the screen. This is an attempt to mimic the way we see the real world, but it does not always come across perfectly in SketchUp or other 3D modeling software.

The Perspective view is often the best way to work while modeling in SketchUp, as it provides a sense of depth and scale in the model. The Two-Point Perspective option is great for static Scenes, such as when creating a rendering. The Parallel Projection view provides a sense of scale throughout the model while removing any sense of depth:

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