Book Image

Taking SketchUp Pro to the Next Level

By : Aaron Dietzen aka 'The SketchUp Guy'
Book Image

Taking SketchUp Pro to the Next Level

By: Aaron Dietzen aka 'The SketchUp Guy'

Overview of this book

Anyone who’s worked with it will know that SketchUp is the quickest and easiest way to create 3D models. While its approachable interface makes it super easy to learn, this book will show you how the extremely capable SketchUp software can take you far beyond what you may have initially thought possible. Get ready to level up from a basic user to becoming a SketchUp ninja! Each chapter will take you through the capabilities of SketchUp, challenging you to use tools in innovative ways. This includes organizing your model, modifying native commands, customizing your interface, utilizing inferencing, and much more. Additionally, you’ll learn about the extensions that can be added to SketchUp to supplement the tools you have been using, allowing you to make your 3D modeling process quicker, easier, and more powerful. By the end of this SketchUp book, you’ll have an enhanced understanding of how to use the impressive range of tools and be on your way to customizing SketchUp for your one-of-a-kind workflow.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting More Out of Native Tools
7
Part 2: Customizing SketchUp and Making It Your Own
13
Part 3: Extending SketchUp’s Capabilities for Modeling

Inputting with inferencing

Many new users can be caught off guard by inferencing when they first see it. It can be confusing, with the different color lines and dots showing up and the tool tips appearing and disappearing. But once you learn what each of the colors and symbols mean, using inferencing can mean accurate input from the start and less editing of geometry after it is drawn. There is a lot to inferencing! In this section, we will look at how to use inferencing to draw along the axes and find out what different colors and symbols mean with regard to drawing in SketchUp.

Axes colors

I remember being a little bit confused when I first started using SketchUp. At that point, I had been using many other 3D modeling programs, and they all had one thing in common – X, Y, and Z axes. SketchUp, on the other hand, never mentioned any axes by these names; instead, they just colored them. Whereas I was used to a Z axis, they had blue. X was called red and green replaced...