Furniture Design - Problems Dimensioning
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Hi all,
Ok, so I downloaded sketch up and am amazed at how easy it is to create a pretty detailed object. I plan to use the program to duplicate the floorplan of my house as well as make some fairly detailed drawings of some furniture I want to build.
I've watched a few tutorials, but I'm hung up on trying to get an object to a specific size. I know that when I first make, say a square, I can simply type in 10", 10" and it will make my square 10"... but then after that, it seems if I am trying to change the size, it's going by a relative change and not an absolute change. So if I use push/pull and make it 10" high, then the next time I grab it and stretch it out, then do it again and type in 10", it will make it 10" LONGER rather than an absolute 10"
I hope that makes sense? I'm just curious as to whether or not there's a simple way to re-size a 3-d chunk to make it a specific size once I've already drawn it up? Short of setting up a ton of guides, of course, that would take forever for what I'm wanting to do.
Thanks for any advice!
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Download the FredoScale plugin
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=17948&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=Fredo -
You can do it using native SU tools. Select the object (group/component), then select the scale tool. Then use global scale by scaling about the centre (using a corner grip with the control key pressed). Then type in the required dimensions in the value control box, but in the format X,Y,X. The important thing to remember is to put the dimension after each value, viz. 200mm,200mm,200mm, otherwise the object will be scaled up by those factors.
Putting in the dimension after each value will ensure that the object is scaled to those exact values.
Regards,
Bob -
There really isn't a way to just draw a 2d box that's say 10" x 10" and then re-size it to 8" x 8" without having to use a plugin or guides? That seems ridiculous
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Watkins explained it without plugins.
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I guess I didn't understand how to get the scale thing to work... because trying it, I'm only to change a 10" surface in terms of scale, not absolute distance. I downloaded and tried driving dimensions and this is doing exactly what I was after... now it looks like I can use FredoScale for lengthening my objects along a specific axis. So far so good, at least I know there's a good way to re-size objects to exact dimensions... just seems crazy that this wasn't something that was included in the program - how did google expect people to make "plans" without such basic functionality. Ok, rant over... hopefully problem solved!
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But it is included; that's what Bob was saying.
To scale relative, you enter the scale factors (scalar values without units.) To scale to absolute values, enter the lengths and the units.
Welcome to the forum, by the way.
We have a woodworking group also, but you need to subscribe in order to post. Look in the User Control Panel under the UserGroups tab. -
if you scale and type "2", it will make your object 2x the size; but if you scale and type "2' or 2cm..." it will make it 2ft. or 2 cm respectively.
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So there is a little "trick" that I left out. The steps to scale to absolute lengths would be:
- Select everything you want to scale
- Select the scale Tool
- Scale the selection from one corner - don't worry about the size at this time. The Measurements box will not become available until you do this.
- After scaling, type in the dimensions including the units - 10",10",6" - and press Enter
Because inches uses the " as the suffix,you need to use the Shift key, but the Shift key resets the Measurements box. This is why you need to go ahead and scale to an arbitrary size first, and enter the absolute lengths afterward.
If you were using mm, then you could grab one corner, begin to scale, and before completing the scale operation, you could enter the lengths: 3mm,3mm,3mm (for example.)
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