SketchUp Basics for K-12 Education - 4 Video Lecture | Learn Google Sketchup from Scratch - Design

now that we've had our first taste of 3d
let's take a look at what makes Sketchup
work so well it is important to
understand the fundamentals of Sketchup
to eventually master this program in
this chapter we will explore the main
drawing tools available in Sketchup
first let's go to our System Preferences
dialog box under window preferences if
you're on a Mac this is gonna be under
Sketchup preferences go to your template
tab at the left-hand side and let's
scroll all the way down to the bottom
and choose the second one from the
bottom
beginning training template inches
highlight this and if you're on a PC
click on OK and if you're on a Mac you
can just close that window next in order
to see that template we need to start a
new document under file new and we don't
need to save any of these changes
necessarily now that we have our new
drawing open let's go to our rectangle
tool and let's draw a rectangle and
while we're in this new template and for
this upcoming exercise what's really
focus on not orbiting or doing any of
the 3d navigation that we've done in the
previous exercise we just want to focus
on some of the 2d basics of Sketchup and
understanding these drawing tools and we
will very quickly move back into 3d so
to start off let's use the rectangle
tool and let's click once on the origin
move our cursor towards the top right
corner and also take note that the
rectangle tool will snap to a perfect
square as well as the golden section so
we're just going to move our cursor
towards the top right corner of the
screen to suggest a direction let go of
the mouse and type 5 ' comma 5 ' enter
so now we have a perfect 5 foot by 5
foot square next using the line tool
let's take a look at how we can draw on
axis in Sketchup so it's very important
that anything that is intended to be
parallel perpendicular at a right angle
we need to draw on axis perfect every
time we can be very sketchy with our
dimensions and loose with those but we
don't want to be loose
about which axis were on so I'm gonna
click once on this bottom left corner
move my mouse down and notice that my
active line turns green when I'm
parallel with the green axis once I find
that green axis I'm gonna let go of the
mouse and type 5 ' enter now as I move
across to the right I want to draw
straight across on the red axis but only
as far as the edge of this top square so
we have this thing in Sketchup called
the inference engine so we can create
meaningful relationships between points
and edges and surfaces by hovering and
letting Sketchup know what we're
interested in so if I only want to move
as far over as this endpoint I'm gonna
hover on it and as soon as I get that
end point Q that means that Sketchup
realizes I'm interested in it so you can
see this inference line it's a dotted
green line projecting straight down from
that bottom right corner now if I let my
active line turn red when I'm on that
red axis and where it intersects with my
green dotted inference line I can click
there and now I'm drawing much quicker
than if I was trying to type in every
single dimension at this point we can
just move straight up on the green and
connect our dots now you notice that
when we connected these dots and filled
in that closed loop of coplanar edges we
created this surface again a closed loop
of coplanar edges is what we need to
have a surface exists so if we were to
use our eraser tool and break a closed
loop of coplanar edges it would also
delete our surface so keep in mind that
the hotspot of that eraser tool is on
that little square at the tip of the
eraser and we're just gonna click on
this edge and when I delete the edge I
delete the surface because we're
breaking the closed loop of coplanar
edges but not to worry we can always
reheat that surface at any time go back
to our line tool and make sure we go
from an endpoint click wants to start to
an endpoint
click again to finish and we can rehear
that surface now if we go back to our
eraser tool notice that when you click
on a surface it does nothing in order to
delete a surface we can right-click on
it and choose erase so now we still have
a closed loop of coplanar edges but we
don't have a surface in between those so
to reheat a surface we can simply
retrace any one of these edges so if I
just retrace this edge here it fills
that surface back in and keep in mind
that no matter how many times i retrace
an edge there's still only one edge
existing there so geometry does not
stack and sketch up so I'll just reheat
that surface now let's take a look at
what we've created here and to explore
what we've created let's use our
selection tool which is that little
black arrow on your large tool set and
click once on the surface on top click
again on this one notice that we have
these two separate surfaces we can weld
these surfaces together by deleting the
edge that separates them so if I select
that edge and press Delete I can delete
that edge and in turn I've joined or
welded these surfaces together alright
so now let's take a look at some of our
other drafting tools like the circle
tool click on the circle tool and again
with all of our drafting tools that
inference engine is always running in
the background so if I want to start my
circle from a meaningful starting point
I can hover on an end point and I can
hover on my end point and encourage an
inference line off of that so now I'm
starting my circle the center point in
line with the top of that rectangle so I
click once to start move my cursor away
and I'll just click again to finish
so that's how we can use our inference
engine with the circle tool and keep in
mind that is working with most all of
our drafting tools in Sketchup next
let's take a look at our polygon tool
the polygon tool is that brown triangle
up there on your large tool set activate
your polygon tool and notice that the
number of sides shows up down here in
our measurements dialog box we can
always change the number of sides by
typing say 8 enter and now we have an
octagon or we can type 5 enter and
change that to a Pentagon so we can
always change the number of sides by
activating the polygon tool and then
typing a number and enter so I'm gonna
switch over to six sides type six enter
and then we're just gonna click once to
start move the cursor away from the
starting point and click again to finish
let's now take a look at our art tool
and the arc tool is up there on the
large tool sets the half circle so
activate your arc tool and we're just
gonna draw a simple arc we've already
taken a look at how we can kind of snap
to a half circle this time we're gonna
give it an exact bulge so I'll click
once on this top left corner to start
click again at the origin or technically
the midpoint here click once there and
then I move my cursor to suggest a
direction I'm gonna give this an exact
bulge of 3 feet so 3 ' enter so we can
be very exact with any operation in
Sketchup next let's take a look at our
freehand tool the freehand tool is that
little pile of squiggly lines up there
on the large tool set the important
thing about the freehand tool is that we
start and finish on edge or at least at
an end point because we want to complete
a closed loop of coplanar edges also the
freehand tool is a click and drag tool
so I'm going to
her on edge make sure I get my on edge
inference here and I'll click and drag
so again this is a click and drag
operation and I can draw a more organic
freehand form and again I want to finish
on edge and release and now I've created
that shape now let's go back to our
eraser tool and so far we've only
deleted one piece at a time so you can
click on an edge click on an edge but we
can also click and drag with the eraser
tool so let's click and drag and then
scrub over everything in our model and
we can delete a bunch of edges and
surfaces with one click and drag so
we'll clean up our screen a bit