Precision moves -- arrow key

Marlise

Newbie in trouble again. Read the post with using the arrow keys, but am faced with cranial chaos.

In the Hacienda model, I want to move the vigas (wood beams) to the top of the wall before I intersect with the model. (Would also be nice to distribute them better.) Any advice in words of one syllable, please?

Can you UN-intersect without using Undo? (In case I need to do so on another day.)

I built the adobe roof as a separate group because I still need to construct parapets on new outer walls (using Follow Me for the walls) and frou-frou before I set it down on the base house. Will doubtless need precision moving to do that.

Notice that an extra loo is adjacent to the office again. SU is going slowly, but reading the various messages has helped a lot. I think my method of push/pulling walls after I furnish the rooms might be a lot of extra work, but it does make it easier than hiding things.

--Marlise

Hacienda in progress

sorgesu

Your left most beam is 1' 5" from the left edge of the wall.
I am presuming by saying you want to distribut them better that you want the right most bean on same wall to be 1' 5" from the right edge of the wall?
Pull out a constrction line parallel to the right edge to a distance of 1' 5".
With the right beam either pre-selected, or using the move tool to actively select it, find the "intersection" inference point where the edge of the beam hits the wall. It is a black square dot inference and the label says "intersection". Click on this intersection point and move the beam along the axis till you hit the construction line and you have a label that says "on line" and click to place the beam.

You can do the same with the other beam on the other side.
Once all of your beams are distributed as you want them, select them all so that you can move them all at once.

To move them you can click either on a spot where the upper edge of the beam intersects with the wall or from a front corner point on the upper surface of the beam. In either case, lock the movement in the z axis direction using the up or down arrow key.
Now that the movement is locked in the blue axis direction you can use your cursor to touch an inference that is at the height that you want to move your beams to and click on that point. Generally end points and midpoints are the easiest inferences to click on but an "on-edge" infernce will do. By locking the movement of your selcted items and then clickinng on height inference that you want , you will move the beam exactly where you want to.

Marlise

Thanks, Susan. Will certainly try your advice. Since the beams aren't aligned at the top now, I'm interested in how SU will "know" how to get them all aligned to the top of the wall once they are distributed horizontally and selected.

Wish me luck.

--Marlise

sorgesu

I didn't notice they weren't aligned with each other. SketchUp won't do that if they aren't. YOu'll have to do them one at time then.

good luck!! I'm sure you won't need it, you'll do just fine.

Marlise

Sorgesu, thanks again.

There went my Sunday morning, but I learned a couple of newbie things:

If you select an endpoint (or corner) on an entity you want to move with the Move Tool and pull it to the correct endpoint on the model, it snaps beautifully.
If you select a midpoint in an entity, you can snap it to a midpoint on the model.

This is so much better than trying to wrestle it into place. However, I still have to practice your arrow key sequence more. It's nice to be getting real questions in my head instead of chaos. It's like the VCB, which I couldn't figure out for the life of me until I read somewhere on the forum that you type the variables into thin air.

Must also play with your advice on stacking things in another post, which would also have worked for putting the roof on the house midpoint to midpoint. More than one way to skin an alligator, eh?

--Marlise

sorgesu

Glad to be of service. You can snap enpoints to midpoints and midpoints to end points too.