So i'm modeling our proposed kitchen in Sketchup- which is pretty cool, except for two problems:
A) I want to model shelves, to scale. The only way I can see to do this is draw individual planks. And that is a pain, because I can't work out any way to set dimensions manually- I have to draw guides with the measuring tool, in 3D, then draw rectangles on each of the 6 sides. Surely there is a better way?
B) I've added the Grid tool by adding a Ruby script to the app. However, there is no way to set the units: it wants to use feet and inches, despite the doc being set to metric. It also defaults to .8 feet square grid, and that in the ruby is coded as something like this:
Dx=.8.feet
I don't know Ruby, but surely that cannot be the way to cast a type?
I've only used it briefly, with a shitty Internet connection that made searching hard, but these two things have been bugging me.
There are dedicated plugin sets and materials list generators for sketchup for woodworkers.
Check this out. http://sketchupforwoodworkers.com/
Ok, will look. I was actually trying to do stuff at a bar with a very dodgy wifi, so much so that I couldn't search.
I did get a couple of pre-built models (fridge, oven) so I could see slighty complex models are possible- I just couldn't tell if they were easy, or the result of hours of dedicated nerdiness modelling a specific model of samsung dishwasher.
This may be a stupid question but:
Lets say I want to draw a rectangle, exactly 3m x 4m (I use a metric template)
I have read that it is possible to enter the precise measurements into the toolbar at bottom right.
In theory, I choose the rectangle tool, click once for the start, then move the mouse o edit the measurements.
However, I have tried and tried - and never do those measurements become editable. Is it a bug on my machine? Or is there a step I am missing?
either click, or start drawing the rectangle - then you don't need to click in the measurements box, just start typing
3m,4m(enter)
Ah...
Usability fail on my part - I'll give that a go when I get home. Thank you!
Its been a while since I did any 3d modelling but a lot of the complex shapes are done in another program and imported to sketchup. You can even do it in Illustrator and export it as a .dxf or .dwg file for import. Dont recall if you can import .eps but I imagine so especially now that sketchup has come a long ways.
To do shelves there are a few ways that come to my mind the easiest being to draw a rectangle and duplicate it into the layout to create a front view. So maybe 3 very thin rectangles would be a view looking into one cabinet with a single interior shelf.
Then duplicate that horizontally as many shelves as you need
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Then in sketchup if I remember right you can use an axo view and just select these rectangles (these should all be rectangles not lines) and extrude them along the appropriate direction. If you need to get more specific just extrude in a side view. You can even draw a single line at the extrusion length if it helps you.
Honestly I've never been a huge fan of Sketchup for all of its "ease" also has a lot of fundamental flaws in my experience with shapes getting inverted and missing sides. If you have the ability to get Rhino3 its significantly better in every way. Right now there's free beta testing of a Mac version though I haven't played with it much. I used it back on Windows all the time though when I was doing Architecture.
(I swear my text isn't inside the code command but still showing up like it is :( )
I done some work with Blender, but not Rhino, and I have no Illustrator experience. However, my girlfriend uses Illustrator all the time, so I will have her do some stuff.
I didn't realise that you could import - I'll do some research into that.
But it does seem like a cool tool: it is for sketching, rather than designing so the missing sides etc etc are not a big issue for me.
Rhino or AutoCAD would be much better than Blender for something like this. They're both very easy applications to use in my opinion. I actually wish Illustrator would implement a CAD style command line so I could just enter numbers in Illustrator for things like placement, length and offset.
The thing of Rhino and AutoCAD is that its architectural so you dont have to draw or guess. In AutoCAD especially you can command line everything. So if you're a programmer especially AutoCAD or Rhino would be more intuitive. For example in autocad you start with a blank page and the bottom left corner is thus (0,0) and you can work entirely off of the coordinate field
rect (0,0) (10,10) would make a 10' square by default but if you go to preferences you can change default unit to say meters and instead that would be a 10m square.
click on the rectangle and then type ext 20
(there's of course buttons and menu items for these as well)
that would extrude it into a solid unlike sketchup which extrudes the curves not the solid. Anotherwords in sketchup if you punch a hole into it the inside of your shape is hallow. In AutoCAD or Rhino it would be a solid block. In both Rhino and AutoCAD you can extrude hollow shapes (surfaces) but in general there's no point too as shapes aren't 2 dimensional so even a hallow shape each side would then be a solid not a flat surface.
SketchUp question - How do I persuade SketchUp to print my design on a single piece of paper.
I draw a 2D square at the origin. It is 4" square. I set the camera up without perspective, etc. etc. etc., but for some reason SketchUp insists on printing the thing out tiled over 2, 3 or 4 sheets of paper.
What am I missing?
It's your scale and how the print works. Check this guide out and you should be on track:
Step Three is required because there is a printing behavior that I consider a software bug when it comes to printing to scale. If you are going to print to any scale, including 1:1, first resize you drawing window so there is a minimum amount of unused drawing area on all sides of your drawing. Failing to do this will result in multiple pages being printed when you need only one and your scaled drawing will be spread across multiple pages.
Thanks. I've seen that guide. I seem to be doing everything right.
- Parallel Camera
- Standard Top View
- Zoom Extents (to minimize white space)
- Scale = 1:1
- Click model extents on and off a few times
It still insists on printing my 6" square across between 2 and 6 sheets of paper. :(