More Sketchup questions

[Steve Turner]

Ok, so I found some time to try to get over the hump with Sketchup, and I brought up the video that Karl posted a few weeks back:

tried my best to follow along (with lots of pauses and rewinds along the way). All was going well until I reached the point where he was creating the lower shelf support by copying two of the upper rails to a lower position, then using "push/pull" to change their widths (this is right at 3:20 in the video). At that point Sketchup refused to perform the push/pull operation (the tool shows a circle with a slash through it), and in fact I cannot "push/pull" *any* existing surface in the drawing, apparently something to do with the fact that everything is a component. I can create a new surface (a rectangle, for example), then push/pull that into a 3D object, and I can continue to stretch any of its surfaces up to the point where I make it a component, then it's no-go. What gives? If I create a completely new drawing, push/pull a rectangle and make the 3D result a component, I can continue to use push/pull to stretch or shrink any of its surfaces, but in the fern stand document I cannot, even after saving it, exiting and re-entering Sketchup, etc. Thoughts?

[RicodJour]

Double click on the component to edit it. You can nest components (and groups) so multiple clicking might be required to burrow down to the level where you can edit something.

R

[Swingman]

>> and tried my best to follow along (with lots of pauses and rewinds along

Once a component has been created, in order to change it you must "edit" it by right clicking on it and chosing "edit component", or by doing a double left click, which will also open it for editing.

Let me know if this is not clear ...

[Steve Turner]

Got durn it! I spent all that time typing that long problem description, and that's the solution? "Double-click it"? Well let me tell you one thing... it works! (Settle down there Steve) :-)

Oh wait, I can think of something else to bitch about. Where the *heck* is this documented? The "Instructor" gives no clue about this type of selection, and so far the online help and I aren't getting along very well together.

As you can probably tell, I just LOVE learning new software tools. (Grassa wappa frap!)

[Swingman]

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[Steve Turner]

out of "orbit" mode very quickly, many times right in the middle of other operations (like push/pull), and I think he said something about having that function assigned to his middle mouse button (I don't have one of those). Currently I'm just using the 'O' key to get in and 'Esc" to get out, but I presume there's a way to assign these functions to a mouse event of some kind? Have you done this?

[Swingman]

With SU it's default for a mouse to orbit by clicking and holding the wheel on a scroll-wheel mouse ... don't need to do anything.

[Steve Turner]

mouse (Logitech MX1100, in concert with the accompanying software, SetPoint) was assigning the default function of "double click" to the depressing of the center mouse wheel. I added an exception for Sketchup and programmed it to be "middle button" instead, and now it works as you've described; much better! Thanks Karl (again). :-)

[Paul Franklin]

>>>>> and tried my best to follow along (with lots of pauses and rewinds along

And one more tip. If you have made a component and inserted multiple copies of it into your drawing, editing one will edit them all, unless you first select the one you want to edit, right click, and select "maike unique".

Paul F.

[Leon]

> and tried my best to follow along (with lots of pauses and rewinds along

Coming in late here but let me clue you in on a few things to be aware of concerning components.....DAMHIKT

To edit a component you have to edit it, done by double clicking to get that edit box to show up around the component. You know that now..... BUT uh,,,,,,, I,,, you may find a time where you again forget that and begin adding lines to your component when it is not in edit mode. You draw and draw and draw and every thing is going along nicely and then you move the component and none of you additions move with it......

The moral to this story is to be sure you are in edit mode when editing the component. Just because it looks like you are editing the component does not meand you are actually doing so... Be sure you see the edit box.

[Leon]

LOL. How bout that...... and if you are like me you will one day decide that the push/pull icon "should" work as the follow me tool..... It one day took me about half an hour to realize I was using the wrong tool.

[Steve Turner]

Yep, been there already, and hopefully I won't do it too many more times before it *really* sinks in. :-)

[Jack Stein]

A couple more tips. If you hold the Shift key and press the middle mouse wheel you can PAN the screen. Also, if you place the mouse on any portion of an item, you can center that point on your screen by holding Alt key and double clicking the mouse wheel.

Also, when you start drawing something, it is a good idea to place the screen in a camera view that makes it easy to get the geometry right. For example, to draw a table top, it is good to start in a top view, or say you were going to draw a 6x6x10' post laying horizontally across the screen, you might want to start with Front camera view. Camera views are often used so I'd suggest you put them on your tool bar:

Click on "View" in the tool bar and then "toolbars" then click on "Views". This will place the various camera views on your tool bar to make it easy to switch views. This helps when you go "orbit" crazy and are having trouble getting back.

Also, once you get familiar, I like to get rid of the "axes" lines by clicking on View in the toolbar and then unchecking "Axes" You still get the color hints when you draw to make sure the planes are correct, w/o all the clutter.

[RicodJour]

before it *really*

In case you haven't seen it yet, there's a quick reference card in SketchUp. Go to Help->Quick Reference Card Very handy while you're learning the program.

R