Hi Newbie here and an important Question
-
I use Sketchup Pro 8.
I am doing so many drawings now, almost every day.
They are not complex in a drawing sense, Simple Garden Office Studios.
Each Studio has variations in design, but basically they are the same. Only length and width change as well other structural engineering changes.
Such as wall heights, Panel widths, Beams and windows, Basically there is a Vast amount of repeated drawing, one example would be Tape, 45mm then 555mm over and over, same with the rest of the drawings, Its all Repetitive and takes time.
Can some one point me to a plugin or method that I can use for common tasks, I use all the time. Saving me a lot of time!
A ruler memory would be fantastic.Many thanks
KN -
Perhaps you could make a template file to start from each time. This would contain your base shell, so you don't have to keep redrawing it.
I also find ThomThom's Divide Face tool (set to a keyboard shortcut) to be much faster than pulling out construction lines and then drawing on top of them. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=24593
-
In addition to Adam's suggestion, you might find it faster to simply modify a model to create a new one instead of drawing a new one from scratch. If you create components of the parts, you can move them around and edit them as needed. For example if the existing model has 8' walls and the new one needs 10' walls, selected all of the components for the roof and move them up 2'. Then edit the wall panels and either use Push/Pull or Move as needed to increase the height of the walls 2'. Also, by making components, you can save them to reuse in other models avoiding redrawing them each time.
Here's an example of one model converted into something else. I started with the fern stand in the background and converted it to a bench. The time involved to do it was quite short.
-
Thanks for the help!
Drawing lines with out measuring would be a great help.
I have tried modifying an existing drawing, as is the case some times i have to change the drawing anyway, but some times i find it faster to redraw, I find a lot of bugs or behavior thats not expected in Sketchup.
How I normally draw, is start with a foot print in 2D, draw in the basics, Pull the walls up, work on the roof then snap it to the walls, What would be good would be a short cut that I can click, say 45mm, then 555mm then back to 45mm, as roof layouts require lots of work.I have not had time yet to look at tools available.
I have found the Google Youtube videos of little help.
All of the drawings are simple in shape.
I will upload some Images later, when i have resized them
Thanks guys. -
Are you making use of components and groups in your drawings? It doesn't sound like it from your description. That is a key thing when working in SketchUp.
I don't understand what you are distances are that you are referring to. There aren't any shortcuts for specific distances but tools like Push/Pull and Offset will repeat a distance after the first use. so if you Push/Pull a face some distance, you can double click on another face and get the same distance.
It would be helpful if you would post one of your models so we can see how it is constructed.
-
If you copy a SKP to change its contents into a something similar you can readily relocate its parts using Move etc, then edit affected sub-components using PushPull on existing faces to change their geometry as desired; or use a left-right fence to select several bits at once and then Move en mass - e.g. a top's end with notches would need all of the notch faces PushPulling in turn until they were are in the right locations, but a select of the affected parts with a single Move will do it in one go! It must be quicker than starting from scratch - you can always add new geometry etc too...
Advertisement