SketchUp Success for Woodworkers, 2nd ed. (PREVIEW)

D N 2N TIO I ED

SketchUp

®

SUCCESS

for

WOODWOR K E R S

Four Simple Rules to Create 3-D Drawings Quickly and Accurately

David Heim

SketchUp

®

SUCCESS

for

WOODWOR K E R S

SketchUp

®

SUCCESS

for

WOODWOR K E R S

Four Simple Rules to Create 3-D Drawings Quickly and Accurately 2ND EDITION

David Heim

Text Š 2018, 2020 by David Heim All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electric or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the Publisher.

Publisher: Paul McGahren Copy Editor: Kerri Grzybicki Design: Lindsay Hess Layout: Jodie Delohery Index: Jay Kreider Cedar Lane Press PO Box 5424 Lancaster, PA 17606-5424 Print ISBN: 978-1-950934-06-5 e-Pub ISBN: 978-1-950934-07-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945427 Printed in the United States of America Note: SketchUp, SketchUp Free, SketchUp Extension Warehouse, SketchUp Make 2017, SketchUp Shop, SketchUp Classic, SketchUp Studio, SketchUp Pro, LayOut, and StyleBuilder are trademarks and copyrights of Trimble.

The following list contains names used in SketchUp Success for Woodworkers that may be registered with the United States Copyright Office: 360 Woodworking; Adobe (Photoshop); American Furniture Treasures; Angry Birds; Bezier Curves; Bezier Spline Curves; Clean Up3; CLF Arc Centerpoint Finder; Curve Maker; Curviloft; Cut List; Design.Click.Build; Extrude Edges; Fine Woodworking; Kerkythea; LayOut; LibFredo6; Mac; MasterSketchUp. com; Popular Woodworking; ReadWatchDo.com; Round Corner; Shaderlight; Shape Bender; Simple Loft; SketchUcation.com (Plugin Store); Solid Inspector2; Tahoma; The Woodworking Shows; TIG-Extrude Tools; Weld; Windows; YouTube.

To learn more about Cedar Lane Press books, or to find a retailer near you, email info@cedarlanepress.com or visit us at www.cedarlanepress.com.

Acknowledgements S

uccess, it is said, has a thousand fathers.

This book has only two: Dave Richards and Tim Killen, good friends who have taught me what I know about SketchUp and who continually show me new techniques and shortcuts.

I’m forever grateful to them for their time and patience and for sharing their expertise. Thanks go as well to my wife, Katherine Foran, whose steady hand in managing our household has given me the time and freedom to produce this book.

I also want to acknowledge the help and support I’ve received from Paul McGahren and all the other talented people at Cedar Lane Press.

SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

5

Contents Introduction: The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1

The Workspace

and the Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2

Begin Making Boards

3

1st Rule: Always Work

.................

26

with Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

4

2nd Rule: Draw Once,

Make as Many Copies as You Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

5

3rd Rule: Keep Measuring

and Moving to a Minimum. . . . . . . 50

6

4th Rule: Work in SketchUp

as You Do in the Shop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7

How to Add Dimensions

and Print Plans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

8

Intersecting: How to Make

One Shape From Two. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

9

Master the Follow Me Tool

.......

84

10 How to Work with Images

You Bring into SketchUp.. . . . . . . . . . . 96

11 The Best Plugins for

SketchUp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

12 A Few Words

about Rendering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Appendix: Where to Go for More Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Index.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

INTRODUCTION

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp I

began using SketchUp in 2007. As soon as I saw how simple and powerful this 3-D design program is, I put away my T-square and triangle and began drawing plans only on the computer. In 2014, I began giving presentations about SketchUp at woodworking shows, where I polished my Rules for Success. Now, I will share the rules with a wider audience.

First Things First

In SketchUp, you create a 3-D model of furniture in any style, assembling it piece by piece. Once you have built the model, you can use it to create absolutely accurate plans.

8 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

Technically, SketchUp is a computer-assisted design (CAD) program. The insanely smart people who developed SketchUp call it “CAD for the rest of us.” Compared with other CAD programs, SketchUp is simpler, easier to use, and much more intuitive. It’s also much less expensive. I tell my students that you can download SketchUp at breakfast and be drawing cool plans by dinnertime. To be honest, that isn’t much of an exaggeration.

For several years, SketchUp came in just two versions: One, a free software download intended for personal use; most recently, this version was called SketchUp Make 2017. Two, a software download that had to be purchased. This was called SketchUp Classic and was intended for those who use SketchUp in their business. You bought a license for the Classic software when you downloaded it, then paid a modest charge every year for upgrades.

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp

Now, the company behind SketchUp has broadened the product line and charges users an annual subscription fee for the software.

Most versions are now web-based, accessed through an Internet browser. They can be updated continually rather than once a year.

SketchUp Classic won’t be sold as a download-only product after November 2020.

Existing license holders can continue to use it, although without receiving annual updates.

The only way to get this version is through an annual subscription. SketchUp Make 2017 is still available but not supported. There’s also a free web-based version.

SketchUp Make and Pro have an X-Ray View mode. It allows you to look inside the model to be sure everything is OK with the joinery.

New Choices SketchUp Free is the very basic version of SketchUp, available online at no cost. While fine for simple modeling, it has limitations that may make it a bad choice for some users.

SketchUp Shop, $119 a year, is a better choice. It gives you some options for customizing the look of your models. But this webbased version shares some limitations with SketchUp Free. See sidebar on page 12.

SketchUp Pro, $299 a year, is the closest to the old downloadable Classic version. This one allows you to work offline, with downloaded software, or over the Internet using SketchUp Shop. It also comes with two allied programs—LayOut and Style Builder—for creating accurately scaled templates and measured drawings, and for customizing the appearance of your models. See the sidebar on page 13 for the details.

The top-line version is called SketchUp Studio, and costs $1,199 a year. It has all the features of SketchUp Pro plus another application called Sefaira, which helps architects

You can add wood textures to a model to make it look fairly realistic.

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9

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp

and engineers with complex building design.

My advice: Download SketchUp Make 2017 and use it for as long as you can. (Keep a copy of the installer file so you can move it to a new computer.) It’s the only way to get a full-featured version of SketchUp at no cost.

Otherwise, buy a subscription to SketchUp Shop, the least-expensive alternative. If you want to use SketchUp for work, you’ll need the $299 annual subscription to SketchUp Pro.

Virtual Reality

You can use a separate free app, or plugin, to generate a cut list for the piece you want to build. It will calculate board feet for boards and square feet for sheet goods.

Two important facts about SketchUp: 1) You are always working in 3-D. 2) You always work full-size. An inch in SketchUp is the same as an inch in real life.

Although you draw shapes in SketchUp, it isn’t a drawing program like Adobe Illustrator.

Think of the shapes as virtual boards. You give each piece its length, width, and height and assemble the pieces just as you would real wood in the shop. The result is more than a 3-D drawing of the piece you plan to build.

You have a model of the real piece, made to exact size, with all the joinery in place.

You can even add knobs, hinges, and other hardware—all the details you need to make the actual construction go smoothly.

Modeling in SketchUp brings three advantages to your woodworking:

Check the joinery. The SketchUp Make and Pro programs have an X-Ray View feature, which allows you to look inside the parts to make sure that dovetail pins and tails fit The same app will generate a rudimentary cutting diagram, to help you together snugly and that mortises align with optimize the layout of parts. This feature has its limitations, however, their tenons. If anything looks out of whack, because it obviously can’t help you work around defects or arrange the cuts you can easily fix it before you begin cutting for the best match of grain and color. the actual wood.

10 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp

Preview the glue-up. Assembling a piece in the computer serves as a useful dress rehearsal for the actual construction. This allows you to mentally walk through the stages of the glue-up, to be sure everything will go smoothly once you are in the shop.

Generate accurate plans. You can easily adapt the SketchUp model to create measured drawings as well as full-size patterns and templates. The measured drawings are based on the sizes of the pieces you created for the model, so you can be sure that all the measurements are absolutely accurate.

There’s also a separate and free SketchUp app that will generate a cut list as well as a cutting diagram from your model. (See Chapter 11 for specifics on this and other add-on programs.)

SketchUp Free, the most basic version of the program, runs via a web browser. You can use Free whenever you have Internet access, but it lacks features that are essential for some users.

The Bottom Line Tim Killen, a retired engineer who now makes beautiful period furniture, introduced me to SketchUp. He says the program has totally changed the way he works. Tim will not build anything, no matter how simple, without first making a model and plans in SketchUp. By the time you begin milling lumber and shaping joints, the piece will seem very familiar because you’ve constructed it once in SketchUp. As a result, you will be able to work faster and with fewer costly mistakes.

Although SketchUp is simple and direct, it does come with a learning curve. You need to understand some basic concepts and master some ways of working to complete a model quickly and accurately.

I’ll help you do that in the chapters that follow as I explain how you can use my Rules for Success.

With SketchUp Pro, the for-pay version, you can combine SketchUp models, photos, and photorealistic renderings to make presentation documents.

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1

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp

Modeling on the Web With SketchUp Shop I’ve always been critical of SketchUp Free. I don’t believe it measures up to other versions. SketchUp Shop is a different story. It’s reasonably priced ($120 per year) and quite capable.

If you’ve never used SketchUp, you probably won’t think much about Shop’s user interface. It is very different from that of the downloadable versions.

There are three templates: feet and inches, millimeters, and meters. You can’t modify the units— for example, to work only in inches. You can do that with the downloadable versions of SketchUp. You can, however, tweak some key style settings, such as the color and thickness of the lines you draw and the color for the background.

Shop uses the same wonderfully intuitive tools as all other versions of SketchUp. To draw a straight line, for example, you grab the tool that looks like a pencil. To measure something or place a dotted guideline for reference, use the Tape Measure tool.

In SketchUp Shop, you can change various settings to customize the look of a model.

Clicking on one tool icon reveals other related tools.

You have to search for some commands, but you can create keyboard shortcuts for many of them.

In SketchUp Shop, you can import image files and use them as textures.

Shop comes with Solid Inspector, a model clean-up tool. You can also access the 3-D Warehouse—a repository of ready-made models—right from Shop.

Unlike SketchUp Classic and Make 2017, Shop saves every discrete version of your work, making it easy to step back in time to modify it.

Shop comes with a palette of ready-made colors and textures you can add to a model, but the wood ones aren’t great. However, you can import an image to use instead. You can also import an image, resize it, and trace over it to begin creating a model.

For all its assets, Shop has liabilities it shares with Free. One, it can be time-consuming to find a tool or a command. Some commands are available by right-clicking, but others require a search. Fortunately, you can set up keyboard shortcuts for many commands. Two, you can’t add plugins. That means you can’t install a plugin to generate a cutlist (an important feature for woodworkers).

12 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

The Versions and Virtues of SketchUp

What SketchUp Pro Offers On the surface, there isn’t much difference between SketchUp Make 2017 and SketchUp Pro. The basic tools are the same. The commands are the same. The modeling procedures are the same.

So what does SketchUp Pro offer?

Pro comes with extra tools called Solid Tools. They make it easier to intersect one shape with another.

With Pro, you have more options for the types of file formats you can select when you export a file.

But in my opinion, those aren’t deal-makers for woodworkers.

For me, the main reason to invest in SketchUp Pro is that it’s really a three-for-one deal. It comes with two allied programs that only work with SketchUp Pro. One is LayOut, which is great for making dimensioned drawings as well as full-size patterns and templates that you can print without headaches (printing to actual size is difficult with SketchUp Make 2017). In LayOut, you have much more control over the style for dimension lines and other elements. You can also jump quickly from LayOut to SketchUp to modify the SketchUp file, then see those changes reflected instantly in LayOut. In the newest version of LayOut, you can draw in some elements without going back to SketchUp.

The LayOut program works in tandem with SketchUp Pro. You can import multiple scenes to a page and easily add labels and dimensions.

The second program is StyleBuilder, which allows you to create custom styles for your models. I confess that I very seldom use StyleBuilder, but other SketchUp users have created some finelooking unique styles with this software.

With StyleBuilder, you create a library of sketchy lines and import them to use for the edges in a model.

SketchUp SketchUpSuccess Successfor forWoodworkers Woodworkers

13 13

1

Preliminaries

CHAPTER

1

The Workspace and the Tools Start by getting comfortable with the basics.

O

A

ne reason SketchUp is so easy to use is because it provides a clean, clutter-free space for your work.

The SketchUp screen consists of several elements. Most of the real estate is the modeling space: the area where you create, move, and connect shapes to build a model. At the top of the screen, you’ll see a toolbar and several tabs for drop-down menus.

On Windows computers, the screen consists of the modeling space and, to its right, an area for trays; these are windows that stay onscreen to make certain tasks go more quickly.

The Mac version of SketchUp doesn’t have trays, but you can still open various windows and stack them at one side of the screen. The screen also includes a Measurements box.

More on it in Chapter 2.

At the bottom of the Mac screen is a question mark in a blue circle. It’s the Instructor; click on it to see a tutorial on how to use whatever tool you have selected. In the Windows version, the Instructor gets its own tray.

Customize a Template B

The basic SketchUp screen for Mac (top) and Windows (above).

16 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

When you open SketchUp for the first time, you need to choose a template and customize the styles associated with it. The styles control the look of the workspace and the appearance of your models. This includes the background

The Workspace and the Tools

color, units of measure, and the thickness and color of the lines in your models.

Setup procedures for the Mac are slightly different from the procedures for Windows, but you’ll wind up in the same place with either flavor of computer.

The welcome screen. When you finish installing SketchUp, you’ll see a welcome screen.

Click on Choose Template. While you’re at it, uncheck the box labeled Always Show on Startup.

Scroll through the lineup of templates and click on Woodworking-Inches. Then click Start Using SketchUp to open a new file. On a Mac, you will see only a blank drawing space with three axis lines in the center (A). On Windows, you will see the drawing space and the default set of trays (B).

Change styles. From the new file, work through some choices to set key attributes.

Choose Model Info from the Windows drop-down menu. Then choose Units. Set the Format to Fractional and the Precision to 1/16." (This setting won’t limit you; if you need to measure something to 1/32" or 1/64", you can do that.) Be sure the box labeled Enable Length Snapping is unchecked (C).

Next, for Mac, choose Styles from the Windows drop-down menu. For Windows computers, open the Styles tray. You’ll see a window full of thumbnail images and buttons. Click the Edit button near the top of the window (D).

Below the Edit button are five thumbnail images. Click on the one at the far left. Make sure the Profiles option is checked and change the number in the box to 1. This sets

C

To customize a drawing template, begin by setting parameters for dimensions in the Model Info window (above). Then open the Styles window (left) to set the line thickness, background color, and other basic attributes. When you have finished, click on the arrows forming a circle, in the upper right corner, to update the style.

D

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The Workspace and the Tools

E

Clicking on the Background button in the Styles window opens up the Colors window, which gives you a half-dozen ways to customize the color in the background of the modeling space.

The last thumbnail in the Styles window allows you to customize the look of elements like guidelines and shapes that you select. You don’t need to change any of these settings; the defaults are fine.

F

18 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

thin lines for the edges of shapes. The default profile number is 2; I find that setting produces lines that are sometimes too thick for precision modeling.

At the bottom of this window is a setting for Color, which allows you to change the color of the lines in the model. I keep the color black (the default) and choose the default setting of All Same; this keeps the line color uniform throughout the model.

Click on the next thumbnail to the right. If you wish, you can change the color for the front and back faces of the shapes in your model; I don’t usually bother with this step, but other seasoned SketchUp users do. Be sure the Enable Transparency box is checked.

Click on the center thumbnail and then in the little thumbnail labeled Background to change the background color of the modeling space. You can go with all-white or a very light gray or tan. Clicking on the Background thumbnail opens the Colors menu, allowing you to set the background color with sliders or by choosing a stock color. Also, uncheck the boxes for Sky and Ground (E).

Skip the thumbnail that’s second to the right; it’s useful only if you want a watermark over your models.

Finally, click on the far-right thumbnail (F). Make sure that the boxes for Guides and Model Axes are checked. If you want to get pretty fancy, change the color labeled Selected; this alters the color that shows what elements in the model you have selected. You can also change the color for Guides, if you want guidelines in the model to appear in a color other than black. (Guidelines are like the layout lines you place on real boards; they tell you where to cut, chop, drill, and position.)

The Workspace and the Tools

If your template has a drawing of a person somewhere near the center, click once on the drawing and press Delete.

Go to the File tab and choose Save as Template from the drop-down menu. Give your template a name if you like. Click the box labeled Set as Default Template, then click Save (G).

The next time you open a new file in SketchUp, the template you just customized will fill the modeling space.

When you have finished customizing the SketchUp styles, go to File>Save as Template. Give the template a name and be sure to check the box labeled Set as default template.

G

The Axes and Measurements Box As I explained in the Introduction, you are always working in three dimensions in SketchUp. The colored axis lines are vital to keep you oriented as you create your models (H).

The point where the three lines converge is known as the origin, and it’s a useful place to anchor a model. Think of the red axis line as defining the left-to-right direction; green, the front-to-back direction; and blue, the up-anddown direction. The space defined by the red and green axes is known as the ground plane—the floor, where your models sit.

Whenever you create an entity known as a component (see page 36), you can also set its axis orientation. In most instances, the orientation of the component will match the axis orientation of the drawing space. There are some instances, though, where you want to modify a component’s axis orientation. For more on that, see page 43.

Since most woodworking involves rectangular pieces, nearly every element in a model should align with those axis lines.

H

The red, green, and blue axis lines are a critical part of the SketchUp modeling space. In most cases, the shapes you draw will be oriented parallel to those axes. The three lines meet at a point called the origin.

The rectangle shown above falls on the red-green plane, also known as the ground plane.

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The Workspace and the Tools

The Large Tool Set, Decoded BASIC TOOLS. Use these to choose things, make shapes into components, get rid of mistakes, and apply color or texture to surfaces. Brown indicates the tools used most often.

DRAWING TOOLS. Use these to create lines, arcs, rectangles, and polygons. Brown indicates the tools used most often.

Select Paint bucket Line Rectangle Circle Arc

MODELING TOOLS. Use these to move, rotate, or copy elements; to give a 2-D shape its third dimension; to extrude shapes along a path; to resize an object; and to create lines parallel to existing lines. Brown indicates the tools used most often.

MEASURING TOOLS. Use these to lay down guidelines, check angles, measure lengths, add dimensions or text, or to adjust the axis orientation of a component. Brown indicates the tools used most often.

NAVIGATION TOOLS. Use these to orbit and pan around a model, to zoom in, or to zoom quickly into a particular area of a model. Brown indicates the tools used most often.

20 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

Eraser Freehand Rotated rectangle Polygon 2-Point arc

3-Point arc

Pie

Move/Copy

Push/Pull

Rotate/Copy

Follow Me

Scale Tape measure Protractor

Offset Dimension Text

Axes

3-D text

Orbit

Pan

Zoom

Zoom window

Zoom extents MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS. Use these to reorient a view of a model or to create a section cut. None of these tools is used often in woodworking.

Make component

Position camera Look around

Previous Walk Section plane

The Workspace and the Tools

A Tour of the Toolbars SketchUp comes with an extensive kit of tools. Nearly all of them work very much like their real-life counterparts. By default, the basic tools appear in the bar at the top of the workspace. However, you can customize that bar and add a second toolset to the screen.

Mac toolbars. Go to View, then Customize Toolbar. You can drag individual tool icons out of the toolbar, or drop other icons into that space (I). Or, go to View>Tool Palettes>Large Tool Set. This opens the toolbar shown on the opposite page. You can position the large tool set anywhere on screen.

Windows toolbars. To make the Large Tool Set appear, open the View tab at the top of the screen and choose Toolbars. Click the box next to the toolbars you would like to see in rows at the top of the screen (J).

The illustration on the facing page describes each tool in the Large Tool Set. I’ve used brown to highlight the tools that woodworkers are likely to use most often in their modeling.

Take some time to practice with the important tools. It won’t matter what you draw— just mess around with the tools to get a feel for how they work. If you aren’t sure what to do with a tool, choose it and then click on the Instructor button or tray.

Helpful Hints and Prompts SketchUp provides a wealth of on-screen hints and prompts to help you create models quickly and accurately. See the sidebar on pages 24 and 25. Here’s a brief rundown:

I

On the Mac, you can drag icons for SketchUp’s tools as well as tools for separate plugin apps onto the tool bar that sits at the top of the screen.

J

On a Windows computer, go to View>Toolbars and click on the tool sets you want. They will pop up on a new row at the top of the screen.

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The Workspace and the Tools

Drawing and moving along an axis. When you draw a straight line and you want it parallel to one of the axes, watch the colored line that trails behind the cursor. If it’s red, it means you’re parallel to the red axis; you will also see a small on-screen window saying, On Red Axis (K). A green line means you’re drawing parallel to the green axis; blue, parallel to the blue axis. The same color coding works when you want to move an object.

K

Here are three of the many prompts that SketchUp provides.

A line parallel to one of the axes will take that axis’ color, and you’ll see a small label. SketchUp tells you when you have grabbed a piece at the midpoint of an edge. Below, when an arc turns cyan, that tells you it’s tangent to the edge; again, you also see a small label.

22 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

L M

Finding midpoints. You can use the Tape Measure tool to find the midpoint of a line or a shape quickly and without measuring.

Choose the tool and click on one edge of the shape. Drag the cursor toward the opposite edge. When you reach the midpoint, a cyancolored dot will appear, the tool will stop for a second, almost as if it has hit a dent, and a prompt saying Midpoint or Midpoint in Component will appear (L).

Using arrow keys to lock movement. Use the arrow keys on the computer keyboard to lock in the direction for line-drawing or moving.

The right arrow key locks the movement on the red axis. The up arrow key locks movement on the blue axis. And the left arrow key locks movement on the green axis. The down arrow will align a tool with a surface that’s off-axis; if you want a circle on a face cut at a 45° angle, choose the circle tool, hover it over the slanted face, and tap the down arrow; you will see the circle and the edges of the face turn pink.

You can also use the Shift key to lock drawing or movement along an axis. Begin the movement, check the color to be sure you’re

The Workspace and the Tools

aligned with the axis you want, then tap Shift to lock the movement’s direction.

Keeping a curve on a plane. Use SketchUp’s 2-Point Arc tool to draw curves: Quartercircles to round over the corner of a rectangle or larger arcs to define cutouts on a rectangle.

If you aren’t careful, though, the curved line may not align with the face of the rectangle.

Pay attention to the prompts. When you see a pop-up window saying On Face or Tangent to Edge, you know everything will align properly. When the curved line changes from black to cyan (a kind of blue-green), you know the arc is aligned with the face (M). When the curve changes to magenta, you know that the endpoints of the arc are equidistant from the corner where the arc appears.

When the arc turns magenta, double-click; that will round over the corner and get rid of the waste.

Now that you know your way around the SketchUp screen and toolbars, you’re ready to begin making models.

Learn to Speak SketchUp Like a Native SketchUp has its own vocabulary. Here are some key terms.

Array. A set of shapes spaced uniformly along a straight or curved path. Stairway balusters are an example of an array.

Group. A collection of shapes, or a collection of faces and edges that make up a shape. A group is like a component, but not as versatile. See page 40.

Axis. One of the three principal directions in the 3-D modeling space: left-right, shown in red; front-back, shown in green; up-down, shown in blue.

Hidden Geometry. A network of triangles and rectangles, normally invisible, that make up a 3-D object.

Bounding Box. The blue lines that enclose an object when you click on it once.

Component. A separate, discrete element in a model.

Edge. The line that forms the boundary of an object’s face.

Face. One surface of an object. A cube has six faces.

Flip Along. A command that essentially mirrors one copy of an object relative to its mate. An essential command in woodworking to orient joinery properly. See page 46.

Geometry. The lines (hidden and visible) that form an object.

Inferencing. The act of using existing edges or faces to position other shapes, to constrain a move, or constrain an operation with the Push/ Pull tool.

Intersect. An operation that merges one shape with another.

Mesh. The network of polygons that forms an object.

Soften/Smooth. An operation that makes some stray lines invisible, improving the appearance of the model.

Plugin. A separate app that works with SketchUp to do tasks that the native SketchUp tools can’t perform.

See Chapter 11 for more on plugins, which are also called extensions.

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SketchUp Prompts: A Brief Guide SketchUp has numerous color-coded prompts that help you keep your modeling aligned and on-axis. Here are the ones you’re likely to see most often, with a short explanation of what they mean. Learn to rely on these colored lines, dots, and pop-up messages as you create your models. They will make the modeling go faster and more accurately.

ORIGIN Tells you that the tool’s cursor is anchored where the three axis lines meet.

ON LINE Tells you when a tool’s cursor has touched a guideline.

ON AXIS A pop-up message and color coding tell you when you are moving a tool parallel to the red, green, or blue axis.

ENDPOINT Tells you when a tool’s cursor has touched the end of another line. Here, the green dot signals that the end of the line is on the green axis.

INTERSECTION The pop-up and a red X tell you when you have a tool’s cursor or the corner of an object where two guidelines cross.

ON EDGE Tells you when a tool’s cursor (here, the 2-Point Arc tool) is anchored on the edge of an object. The pattern of blue dots tells you that a face has been highlighted with a single mouse-click.

24 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

The Workspace and the Tools

ON FACE This prompt tells you when the line generated by the 2-Point Arc tool is on another object’s face, not off-axis in space somewhere.

MIDPOINT IN COMPONENT This tells you that you have used the Move tool to anchor an object exactly at the middle of the edge of a component.

The bright blue edges indicate that a component has been selected with a single mouseclick.

TANGENT TO EDGE The magenta curve and the pop-up message tell you when the endpoints of the 2-Point Arc tool are equidistant from a corner.

CENTER The prompt tells you when you have placed a tool’s cursor at the center of a circle.

HALF CIRCLE This tells you when you have drawn a half circle with the 2-Point Arc tool. Note that the endpoints are shown with green dots, indicating that they are in line with the green axis, and the line trailing the cursor is red, indicating that it is parallel to the red axis.

COLOR-CODED CIRCLES When you draw a circle, use the arrow keys to set the circle’s axis of rotation. The left arrow sets the circle on the green axis; the right arrow, on the red axis; and the up arrow, on the blue axis.

ENDPOINT IN COMPONENT The message tells you that the Move tool’s cursor is anchored on a corner of a component.

CONSTRAINED ON PLANE The rectangle’s green outline tells you that it can be extruded only along the green axis. The pop-up also notes that the shape is that of a golden section. The arrow keys orient rectangles and polygons just as they do circles.

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1

Rules for Success

CHAPTER

3

1st Rule: Always Work with Components

Components allow replication and simplify changes.

T

he title of this chapter gives you the most important rule for success by far. If you don’t work with components, you’ll just create random lines and shapes and never get anywhere with SketchUp.

What Is a Component?

A B

These two overlapping shapes look all right . . . until you try to move one.

Then truly puzzling things happen to the geometry.

36 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

For woodworkers, a component is a virtual board. That is, just like any single piece of wood in your shop, a component is a separate, discrete entity. You can cut, shape, size, copy, and move a component without affecting any other component in your model. In the shop, after all, cutting one board doesn’t make all the other boards shorter. It’s the same with components in SketchUp. Do this exercise to understand the importance of components. Use the Rectangle and Push/Pull tools to draw a board, just as you did in the last chapter. Draw a second board a little distance away from the first. Choose the Select tool and triple-click on the second board to highlight it. Switch to the Move tool and drag the board to overlap the first one partway. Click to place the board in its new position (A).

Now, with the Move tool, click on the top face of the second board and begin trying to move it away—go left, right, up, down, any direction you choose (B). As you can see,

1st Rule: Always Work with Components

everything goes haywire and all you get are wildly distorted shapes.

Perform an Undo command several times to bring back the two separate boards. (It’s Command+Shift+Z on the Mac, Ctrl+Shift+Z on Windows.)

How to Make a Component Use the Select tool to triple-click one board to highlight it. Now, choose the Make Component tool from the Large Tool Set or type the letter G. (I much prefer the keyboard shortcut and almost never use the Make Component tool.) This opens up a window on-screen (C).

Type in a name for the component, make sure there’s a check in the box labeled Replace selection with component, and click the Create button. That’s all there is to it.

Make the second board a component, too, but give it a different name.

Choose the Move tool and hover it over the second component to highlight it. Click once and drag the component so it partly overlaps the first (D). Click again to reposition the component. Now, use the Move tool to choose the first component and begin moving it around.

As you can see, moving one component has no effect on the other. That’s how it should be.

When you draw an object that’s the size and shape you want, make it a component before you do anything else with the model. This is about as close to an absolute rule as you’ll find in this book.

C

When you make shapes into components (left), you can overlap them or butt one against the other without interference (below).

D

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3

3

1st Rule: Always Work with Components

E

A dotted line box around a component tells you it’s open for editing. And when you make a change to one copy of a component, all other copies get the same change at the same time.

The Power of Components Making objects into components does more than prevent one shape from interfering with another. Using components allows you to create a model quickly and accurately. This exercise will show what I mean.

Choose the Move tool and use it to click once on the first board component you created earlier. Hold down the Option key (Ctrl on Windows) to make a copy of the component. Drag the copy away from the original.

Use the Select tool to double-click the original component so you can edit it.

Use the Tape Measure tool to place guidelines that cross at the center of the top face of the component. Choose the Circle tool and draw a circle on the face, centered where the guidelines intersect. Switch to the Push/ Pull tool and push the circle down to create a shallow hole (E).

Look at the copy of this component. It has the identical circle in the identical position.

That’s the greatest power of components: When you make a change to one component, all copies of that component get the same change at the same time. So, when you create side components for a bookcase and then make shelf dadoes in one component, the other component gets identical dadoes.

How to Reuse Components F

The Components window shows you every component you’ve made for a model. To save a component for reuse, begin by clicking the Details arrow and choosing Create a New Collection.

38 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

For centuries, cabinetmakers have relied on patterns and templates to duplicate frequently used parts. In SketchUp, you can store and retrieve frequently used components, such as molding profiles or a spindle shape, and reuse them in a new model. Here’s how: Go to the Window tab at the top of the screen and select Components. (Open the

1st Rule: Always Work with Components

Components tray on a Windows computer.)

Click on the arrow next to the thumbnail of a house to open another window listing locations of components; make sure there’s a checkmark next to In Model in the list.

In the space below the house thumbnail, you will see a thumbnail of the component you created earlier. Above the window of thumbnails, you’ll see an arrow pointing to the right. It’s the Details arrow. Click on it and choose Create a New Collection (F). This opens yet another window. Select the place where you want this collection to reside: your hard drive, the desktop, or some other space on your computer. Then click the New Folder button and give the folder a name. Click the New button.

Return to the Components window and click the tiny plus sign at the upper right-hand corner. This opens a second window for thumbnails below the first. Click on the arrow at the bottom of the window until you see the name of the new folder you created for storing components. In the top window, scroll to find the component you want to store. Click on the thumbnail and drag it to the lower window (G).

Open a new SketchUp file and open the Components window. You should see a thumbnail of the board you just created in the lower window. Click on the thumbnail and drag it into your model (H).

You can use this procedure to create as many collections as you need: One for knobs, for example, another for hinges, and a third for molding profiles.

Begin the new collection by selecting its location on your computer, then creating and naming a new folder for the components (above). To save a component into the new collection, open a window for your new collection (left) and drag the thumbnail for the component from the In Model window into the new collection’s window.

G

Out with the Old Here’s how to get rid of components you don’t want to use. Be sure you’ve selected the In Model library. Then click on the Detail arrow and choose Purge Unused from the lineup. This works for components you’ve created as well as that cartoon SketchUp person in the template.

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3

Moving On

CHAPTER

7

How to Add Dimensions and Print Plans

The smart way to get the output you need.

In SketchUp, tags control the visibility of objects. You always keep the geometry for the objects themselves on Untagged, but you can use the Entity Info box to assign each object to a different tag.

Here, the door and drawer have been assigned to different tags. All the tags are visible in the top illustration. At bottom, the door and drawer tags have been turned off, so those elements are now hidden.

S

ketchUp has two important features—tags and scenes—that help you generate detailed plans, including measured drawings, close-up views, patterns, and templates.

Here’s how to use those features to their best advantage.

Tags Control Visibility

A

B

66 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

You don’t always need to see every detail of your model all the time. And sometimes, you want to see an element of your model in more than one position. That’s where tags come in.

The geometry you produce to create a model is designated as Untagged by default.

You can assign a tag to any component or group that you want. You can create as many tags as you need and give them whatever names you want. Tagging parts of your model doesn’t actually move the geometry. Tagging only allows you to control the visibility of elements.

You don’t have to set up tags if you don’t want to. They’re usually not needed for simple, straightforward models. But when you create a complex model and want to get a lot of information from it, then you’ll probably want to use some tags. I’ll use the model of a nightstand shown on these pages to explain what to do.

Go to Window>Tags (Mac) or open Tags from the default tray (Windows) to get

How to Add Dimensions and Print Plans

started. If you’re using SketchUp Shop, click on the icon that looks like a price tag (groan).

Also open Entity Info.

Click on the plus sign in the Tags window to create a new tag. Give it whatever name you want. In the example (A), I’ve added tags named Door and Drawer. Now, when I click once on the door, I can use Entity Info to assign the visibility of the door component to that tag. I’ll do the same for the drawer.

The eye symbol next to a tag name indicates that the tag is visible. If I uncheck an eye, the tag will not be visible. To show the interior of the nightstand, all I have to do is uncheck the Door and Drawer tags (B), which hides those elements.

It’s important to remember that the actual geometry for a model must remain Untagged, and that Untagged must always be the active part of the model, as shown by the little pencil icon.

Multiple exposure. You can use tags to present multiple views of a model without having to redraw anything. As you can see (C), I’ve copied the door and rotated it slightly ajar, and I’ve pulled the drawer open. I’ve also added two tags—Door open and Drawer open—and assigned the copied elements to them.

Now, by changing which tags are visible, I can show the nightstand with its door and drawer slightly open (D), or with everything closed up.

C

You can copy elements and assign the copies to their own tags. That's what I've done for the door and drawer (above).

By hiding selected tags, I can show the drawer open and the drawer ajar without having to redraw either of those elements (right).

D

Create Scenes Tags work in conjunction with the Scenes function. Scenes are just that: Unique views of the model. One scene can show a fully SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

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7

How to Add Dimensions and Print Plans

Scenes present unique views of a model. Here, the scenes present the closed-up nightstand (right), the carcase (below), and the nightstand with the door and drawer ajar (below right). Turning off the visibility of some tags determines what elements are shown in each scene.

E

assembled piece, while another can be an exploded view. Here, I’ll use the tags for the nightstand to show three distinct scenes.

After opening the Scenes window (Window>Scenes on Mac, Scenes from the default tray on Windows) I click on the plus sign three times to create three scenes.

For Scene 1, I turn on visibility for the Door and Drawer tags and turn off the Door open and Drawer open tags. Untagged should always be visible (E).

This shows the fully assembled nightstand.

I’ll click the two arrows chasing each other to update the scene, then move on to scene 2.

This time, I’ll uncheck the visibility for all the tags except Untagged to show the interior of the nightstand (F).

For scene 3, I turn on the Door open and Drawer open tags and turn off the others (G).

Every time you create a new scene, a new button appears at the top of the drawing space. You can click on the buttons in turn to toggle through the scenes. Or, you can go to View>Animation>Play to move through the scenes GIF-style.

Add Dimensions The first step in creating a set of measured drawings for your model is to create the scenes you need. The images on the facing page show a model of the small square side table from Chapter 6. I’ve made one scene for the assembled view. Do the same with a simple model that you have created.

Next, copy the entire model and move it away from the original along the red axis.

Working on the copy, delete duplicate components. For the table, that means deleting three

F

G

68 SketchUp Success for Woodworkers

How to Add Dimensions and Print Plans

legs and three stretchers. Rotate each component so the side you want to see faces front.

For the table top, I rotate it 90° so the top face comes into view. I rotate a leg so that I can see one of the mortises. And I rotate the stretcher so I can see the tenons on the ends (H).

With that done, Go to Camera>Standard views>Front. Go back to the Camera tab and choose Parallel Projection. This has the effect of flattening the view so it looks 2-D. Move the components as needed so all are visible, with plenty of empty space between them for the dimensions.

Make this view of the model a new scene.

After you have done that, create a new tag named Dimensions.

Before you begin placing dimensions, set up a style you like for the endpoints and the numerals. Go to Window>Model Info (Mac) or open the Model Info tray in Windows. Choose Dimensions from the list on the left of the window (I).

The default typeface is called Tahoma, which is a good, clear face. However, you can use any typeface you have on your computer.

Set the type size for 9 or 10 point, which is readable but not too large. Set the endpoints for a slash or for none; the other choices are too big and cumbersome, in my book.

(LayOut, the program that comes with the Pro version of SketchUp, has many more ways to refine the look of dimensions. See the sidebar on page 73.)

Now you’re ready to place dimensions on your model. Go to the parallel-projection scene. Choose the Dimension tool; click the cursor on one corner of a component, then on the opposite corner, and drag the cursor away from the edge of the component. The

H

Copy a model and move the copies along an axis so you can create different scenes. Here, I’ve used one copy for an exploded view and another for a dimensioned drawing. It’s also a good idea to move an exploded view back along the green axis, to keep it out of the way of other views.

I

Go to Window>Model Info>Dimensions to set the style for endpoints on the dimension lines as well as the size and style of type used for the numbers. I think the slash or no endpoint at all are the best options. For the sake of clarity, assign the dimensions to a new tag.

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7

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A simple and affordable 3-D design program, SketchUp® can be used to draft anything your mind can imagine—from quick and simple drawings to elaborate woodworking project plans. Once mastered, SketchUp has the power and versatility to transform your design and woodworking process.

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