Hello, Yes I am a newbie, please help me anyways. :)

DawnTreader

Hello All

First I must say, SketchUp is awesome. Thanks to Google for a great free program. I have been dabbling in drawing a "hutch" for my computer desk. I need to move a printer and stuff to a better position to keep it and other things away from my 1 year old son.

In my attempts at drawing something to create drawings to go by I have restarted my attempt once. The first drawing is basically a one piece model that I "extruded" from the original rectangle I drew. Basically I used the tools to "punch" holes to make it look like what I wanted. Then I realized that I would need to have paper drawings to walk through the creation of the pieces and that I would need to join the wood together.

So I started from scratch and created a bunch of parts that I worked out lengths and groove cuts for based on my original drawing. Needless to say my inexperience in woodworking and 3d drawing are catching up with me.

I found a bunch of sites that have helpful information, but like so many other things, I learn by doing and asking the occasional question from someone in the know. So I thought that I would see if someone here can answer a few questions.

First question is, why can I not get my components to line up? I have several pieces that I have made and I am trying to line them up so that the ends are all flush and everything looks like it would if it were built with real wood. I can get them close to matching, but it’s like there are specific finite placements that an object can be and they are different depending on which object I move.

For instance I have a top and side piece that I can get the front edge to come close to being on the same plane, but when I move one it jumps to a 16th or some other small increment to much in any one direction. It is frustrating to see what I want it to do and to not be able to get it there. I have looked for some kind of snapping that I can turn off, but I don’t see it.

The second question has to do with a site where I found 4 rules of SketchUp use. In one rule he mentions that you should draw on layer0 and that everything should get moved to another layer. HUH? Why? I found where the layer controls are, but I am unsure of how to get one of my components on a layer other than 0. Do I just copy and paste? What does a layer do? In After Effects a layer is used to put one object on top of another, I don’t quite see how that works in SketchUp.

If anyone can help me it would sure be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Gaieus

Hi DT and welcome to SCF!

And yes, this subforum here is definitely for newbies and to encourage them to ask the seemingly most silly (read: very basic) questions so here are my tips:

There are two kinds of snapping in SU: one that snaps to other geometry (this is also called as inference). You cannot turn this off.

The other is length(and angle) snapping that can be turned off in the Window > Model info > Units tab. Most probably you have it set to 1/16 there (I guess you are "footric" then). Turn this off (and make any settings that you like).

This change is only for your particular file however so if you wish,make other changes to an (empty) file and save it as a custom template inside your SU application folders under the Resource/en-US/Templates folder then go to Window> Preferences> Templates tab and choose it as your default template.

Anyway,if you still have problems with inferencing,you really need to practice more with it. Another tip: you can always lock a movement along a particular axis by pressing one of the arrow keys (left for the green,right for the red and up/down is for the blue axis).

As for layers - I don't think you should use them for such a simple model but here are some tips for the future:

always draw your basic (aka "primitive") geometry on layer 0
if you want to put different things on other layers,group the geometry first (or create components) and only put them on those layers.
layers in SU do not separate geometry (like they do in certain CAD programs) but only control visibility of it so if you put primitives on other layers, they will still interact with geometry on other layers and you may end up with a big mess in your model.

Sawduster

About the only thing I draw in SketchUp is furniture I plan on making in my shop. Since I do very detailed drawings including all of the joinery involved, things can get crowded and it can get difficult to work on something if everything is on the same layer. What I do is to put things by type of component. For instance, I'll put all of the panels for a frame and panel construction onto its own layer, framing on another layer, the top on another. That way I can shut off a layer to get to other parts I need to work on. Also helps when printing up working drawings to see internal details.

Something that can be confusing in Sketchup is moving components from one layer to another. if you click on the Window tab at the top of the screen and then click on Layers it will open a Layers tool box. That is where you add layers and select the active layer. But if you create something on the 0 layer and want to move it to another layer you can't do it from there. For that you must go to the tool bar. There should be a Layer box on the tool bar. If it is not there, click on "View", then "Toolbars" then on "Layers" and this box will appear in the tool bar. Select the component you want to move to another layer, the click the arrow in the layer box and a list of existing layers will drop down. Select the layer you want to move the component to and it is now on that layer.

DawnTreader

Yes!

Thanks for the help on where to find that length snap thing. turning it off worked wonders for my model. Now I can match up pieces and know whether my measurements are right. I still have a lot of fixing, but once i am done i will post a pic somewhere.

the other great thing about this is that maybe this weekend i can get the thing i am drawing built.

Here's hopin'