Well, here is the result:

and here it is in real life:

comments?

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'

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.