SketchUp For Dummies

Bill Fane is the author of AutoCAD For Dummies. He spent years as a product designer before becoming an educator focused on design tools. Mark Harrison is a product manager for Trimble, Inc., SketchUp's parent company. He studies learnability in 3D software. Josh Reilly is a training manager with Trimble and a longtime SketchUp instructor.

• Introduction 1About This Book 1Foolish Assumptions 2Icons Used in This Book 2Beyond the Book 3Where to Go from Here 4Part 1: Getting Started With Sketchup 5Chapter 1: The SketchUp Setup 7Picking a Version of SketchUp 7SketchUp for Schools 9SketchUp Pro 9SketchUp for Web 10Trimble Connect 12Navigating SketchUp 12Customizing settings to see better 13Getting to know your mouse 13Finding your Zen with click-release, click-to-finish 14Working faster with keyboard shortcuts 15Introducing Undo 16Taking the 10-Minute SketchUp Tour 17The SketchUp Frame of Mind 19Chapter 2: Getting a Running Start 21Making a Quick Model from Scratch 21Slapping On Some Paint 28Giving Your Model Some Style 31Switching On the Sun 33Sharing Your Masterpiece 35Chapter 3: Establishing the Modeling Mindset 37All about Edges and Faces 38Living on the edge 38Facing the facts about faces 39Understanding the relationship between edges and faces 41Drawing in 3D on a 2D Screen 43Giving instructions with the drawing axes 44Keeping an eye out for inferences 44Using inferences to help you model 47Warming Up Your SketchUp Muscles 49Getting the best view of what you’re doing 49Drawing and erasing edges with ease 52Injecting accuracy into your model 53Selecting what you mean to select 57Moving and copying like a champ 60Making and using guides 67Painting your faces with color and texture 70Part 2: MODELING IN SKETCHUP 73Chapter 4: Building Buildings 75Drawing Floors and Walls 76Starting out in 2D 77Coming up with a simple plan 82Doing an inside job 83Going from 2D to 3D 90Adding floors to your building 95Inserting doors and windows 104Staring Down Stairs 108The Subdivided Rectangles method 109The Copied Profile method 111Raising the Roof 113Building flat roofs with parapets 115Creating eaves for buildings with pitched roofs 116Constructing gabled roofs 117Making hip roofs 119Sticking your roof together with Intersect Faces 121Chapter 5: Falling in Love with Components 125SketchUp Groupies 126Working with Components 127What makes components so great? 128Exploring the Components panel 132Creating your own components 138Editing, exploding, and locking component instances 140Discovering Dynamic Components 142Poking around to see what happens 147Taking Advantage of Components to Build Better Models 148Modeling symmetrically: Good news for lazy people 148Modeling with repeated elements 155Chapter 6: Going beyond Buildings 159Extruding with Purpose: Follow Me 160Using Follow Me 160Making lathed forms 162Creating extruded shapes 164Subtracting from a model with Follow Me 169Modeling with the Scale Tool 174Getting the hang of Scale 174Scaling profiles to make organic forms 177Making and Modifying Terrain 183Creating a new terrain model 184Editing an existing terrain model 192Building a Solid Tools Foundation 199Understanding solids 200Checking out the Solid Tools 202Putting the Solid Tools to work 204Chapter 7: Keeping Your Model Organized 209Taking Stock of Your Tools 210Seeing the Big Picture: The Outliner 211Taking a good look at the Outliner 212Making good use of the Outliner 213Discovering the Ins and Outs of Tags 214What Tags are — and what they’re not 214Navigating the Tags panel 215Tag, you’re it! 216Staying out of trouble 217Putting It All Together 218Chapter 8: Modeling with Textures, Photographs, and CAD Files 223Painting Faces with Image Files 224Applying textures to flat faces 224Controlling color and transparency 232Applying textures to curved surfaces 233Modeling Directly from a Photo: Introducing Photo-Matching 238Choosing a Match Photo–friendly image 238Modeling by photo-matching   239Making your matched photo reappear (or disappear) 245Adding Geographic Data 246Working with Imported CAD files 249Importing a CAD file into SketchUp Pro 249Cleaning up imported CAD data 252Modeling on top of imported CAD data 256Chapter 9: 3D Printing with SketchUp Models 263Building Up a View of 3D Printing 264Knowing Your 3D Printers 265Fused deposition modeling (FDM) 265Stereolithography (SLA) 266Fused powder modeling (FPM) 266Designing for Successful 3D Printing 267Building a model in layers 267Designing to avoid support material 268Bridging 269Preparing a SketchUp Model for 3D Printing 270Peeking inside a model 270Knowing what makes a solid model 271Using Solid Tools to combine groups 272CleanUp3 and Solid Inspector2 273Combining groups with Intersect Faces 275Checking a model’s normals 277Size matters! 278Breaking your model into arts 279Exporting Your SketchUp File 2843D printing services 284Using Your 3D Printer 285Print early, print often 285Inside your model 286Going beyond Basic 3D Printing 287Designing Parts that connect 287Testing your model’s moving Parts 291Designing Things That Move 292Captive joints 292Pins 293Gears 293Assemblies 294Part 3: Viewing Your Model In Different Ways 295Chapter 10: Working with Styles and Shadows 297Styling Your Model’s Appearance 298Choosing how and where to apply styles 298Applying styles to your models 299Editing your styles 301Creating a new style 318Saving and sharing styles you make (Desktop only) 319Working with Shadows 322Discovering the shadow settings   322Adding depth and realism 324Creating accurate shadow studies (Desktop only) 328Chapter 11: Preparing Models for Presentation 333Exploring Your Creation on Foot 334These tools were made for walking 334Stopping to look around 337Setting your field of view 337Taking the Scenic Route 339Creating scenes 340Moving from scene to scene 342Modifying scenes after you make ’em 344Mastering the Sectional Approach 352Cutting plans and sections 353Animating sections with scenes 361Part 4: Sharing What You’ve Made 363Chapter 12: Creating Images, Presentations, and Documents in LayOut 365Building a LayOut Document 366Customizing a document’s pages and layers 368Adding and editing text 370Inserting SketchUp model views 372Adding photos and other graphics 379Drawing with LayOut’s vector tools 380Create clipping masks to emphasize details 384Annotating with labels 385Displaying dimensions 387Creating tables 392Creating Your Own Templates 394Putting Together Your Own Scrapbooks 395Getting Your Document out the Door 396Printing your work 396Exporting a PDF or image files 396Exporting a DWG or DXF file 398Going full-screen 399Chapter 13: Other Ways to Share Your Work 401Exporting Images from SketchUp for Web 402Making Sure You Export Enough Pixels 405Exporting Enough Pixels for a Digital Presentation 407Printing from SketchUp for Web 407Printing to Scale in SketchUp for Web 408Making Movies with Animation Export 410Getting ready for prime time 410Exporting a movie 411Figuring out the Animation Export Options settings 413Exporting a CAD File 415Preparing your file 415Exporting a 2D DWG file 416Exporting a 3D DWG file 417Working with the 3D Warehouse 418Why use 3D Warehouse? 418Getting to the 3D Warehouse 419Find, preview, and download models 420Uploading a model 420Managing models online 421Part 5: The Part of Tens 425Chapter 14: Ten SketchUp Traps and Their Workarounds 427SketchUp Won’t Create a Face Where You Want It To 427Your Faces Are Two Different Colors 429Edges on a Face Won’t Sink In 430SketchUp Crashed, and You Lost Your Model 431SketchUp is Sooooo Slooooooooow 432You Can’t Get a Good View of the Inside of Your Model 434A Face Flashes When You Orbit 435You Can’t Move Your Component the Way You Want 435Bad Stuff Happens Almost Every Time You Use the Eraser 436All Your Edges and Faces Have Different Tags 437Chapter 15: Ten SketchUp Quick Wins 439Setting Your Click Style to Click-Move-Click 439Customizing Shortcuts 440Using the Inference Locking Force 442Transporting Yourself across Space and Time 444Rounding Off Edges with the Arc Tool 445Using the Scale Tool to Set Length for Simple Objects 446Ten Extensions for Dummies 447Getting SketchUp on Your Smartphone 450Turning Off Your Profiles 453Connecting with the SketchUp Community 453Index 455