New to Sketchup

fiveohhh

I just found sketchup last night and I have a few questions. I've used Solidworks and ProCAD at work and I'm wondering if there is a way to use a feature like solidworks "smart dimension. By that I mean can I draw a box and than give it dimensions? It considers all dimensions as "loose" until you define all of it's parameters. For a circle you would need to define it's x-y location and radius(for 2d).

I've gotten used to this way and it's somewhat confusing if all I want to do is create a line 2" off centerline. Best way I have found to do this in SU is use tape measure to create a centerline, than use it again to create the line 2' off that , and than use the line tool to create it. In SW I could just draw the line than define it as being 2" off centerline. Any pointers or am I missing a valuable tool that would help me?
Thanks,

Gaieus

Hi Fiveohhh and welcome.

If you really insist on such things (although SU has a different logic that can be equally useful), try "Driving dimensions" plugin.

In fact, in SU you just start drawing the shape (line, circle etc.) then type the dimension and hit Enter. To me at least, this is the fastest possible way.

fiveohhh

Thanks Gaieus,
I tried that plugin and it is what I was looking for it didn't work all the time. Although I do like the "nothing is where it is until you explicitly say it's there" idea of solid works, it did cause plenty of headaches on complicated drawings when I couldn't find the undefined element to build my model. I think I will give SU a good run down after finals this week. See if I can get used to this.
thanks

pilou

@unknownuser said:

In fact, in SU you just start drawing the shape (line, circle etc.) then type the dimension and hit Enter.

You can also draw entirely any line(circle etc) in the good direction then type on the numeric key board your measure wanted
It's the "after effect"
Valuable for quasi all function!!!

fiveohhh

I've been working on this for a bit now, but I can't find a way.

I have some arbitrary group of lines all in the same plane and one line I want to place a distance of 'x' off of another line. Is the only way to do this is draw a line with the tape measure and than snap my desired line to that?

THanks

Gaieus

You could also Copy+Move the existing line there.
Could you upload a picture however? That would explain things much better (also I'm a bit sleepy already )

fiveohhh

In the picture attached; say I wanted to draw line B 5" off of line A and snap it's length to the vertical extension of line c. In solid works I could just draw a line and it would snap the correct length(if it didn't snap you could define that relation later), than just smart dimension the line to be 5" off of line A. If I ever needed to change that 5" I could just redefine it.

To do this in SU I need to extend line c up with a line or using the tape measure, than I use the tape measure to draw a line 5" off of line A. Than I can draw my line. I than need to erase my tape marks. if later on I need to change that 5" to 4" I just put the new dimension in where the old was was originally dimensioned to.

When working with whole numbers SU isn't too bad, but I want to make a line that is 1.1357" off of an element down to .9342" I don't want to do the math in my head nor do I always know what the original(in this case 1.1357") dimension is in my head. I'm assuming that I didn't relay my point very clearly... I think I confused myself trying to describe it, so let me know if this doesn't make sense.

Gaieus

So what I'd do here is:

Select line A
Select the Move tool and press Ctrl
start "Copy" moving line A upwards
type 5" and hit Enter.
OR
at where line A meets the vertical line,start a line on top of the verical one, type 5" and hit Enter.
as now you've established the starting point of line B,start a line from there towards the left and let it snap to the end of line A (to be equal length).
Indeed totally different logic, but when you are in 3D (and not just 2D like in this view), starting off things on existing geometry and then using other existing geometry for reference is what makes SU very easy and intuitive.

fiveohhh

Thanks again. Thats seems reasonably simple. My biggest gripe is changing dimensions after they are already there. In SW if I had one feature that had many other features dimensioned off it. It would hold those dimensions even if I moved the original feature. Ohh well guess it is something I will just have to get used to.
Thanks