The Interface

We will walk through the majority of steps necessary to complete our work within SketchUp together - however, much of the work will require creativity and imagination as well as trial and error in order to obtain the required design/shape. In order to help everyone throughout this process - I have posted some scripts and will post videos that will assist you in using SketchUp and it's many tools.

The Interface

Navigate in SketchUp

Walk around in SketchUp

Create Camera Views

Shade Faces and Edges

Create Shadows and Fog

Create Multiple Views using Scenes

Configure Toolbars and Trays

Script

Navigate in SketchUp

• Have to figure out how to navigate a 3D object in a 2D space.

 
Tools we use to do this are:

• Orbit (O)
• Pan: Looks like a hand (H)
• Zoom: can also use the middle mouse button (Z)  - left click and hold and move mouse up or down to ‘truck’ in or out.
• And then finally we also have Zoom to Window and Zoom Extents. So Zoom to Window allows you to just draw a box around anything in the viewport, and it will zoom to that.
• And then Zoom Extents basically puts everything in the scene on the screen. So as you can see, we have a number of tools to navigate our scene so we can get to the parts of the scene that we want to work on.

 
 
Walk Around in SketchUp

• In Camera Menu: Position Camera, Walk and Look around
• Position camera looks like little guy with an X – allows me to place my camera anywhere in the scene. Places my camera in the scene as if I was standing there. (Make note of measurements section in the bottom right.

 

• Look around looks like eyes, left click and drag and we can look around the scene, kind of like the orbit tool.

 

• Walk tool is left click and drag and you can ‘walk’ around your scene.

 
Create Camera Views

1. When we draw in SketchUp, there are many times when we'll need to be exactly aligned with an axis. And we can do that in SketchUp using what are called standard views. Now these align the camera exactly to the axis we want. Now we can find these in the camera menu. So if we go into camera, you'll see that we have standard views. So we have top, bottom, front, back, left, and right. So if I want to I can select for example the top view, and this will bring me directly above my scene, and as you can see I have a top view.
2. Now if I want I can also go into say a front view. Now this will give me a front view of my scene aligned along the green axis. Now if you really want this to be like a drafting view, you're going to have to change your perspective. Now as you can see this is just a standard perspective view so if I were to select the orbit tool I could orbit out of this and just move my camera back. So all this is doing is positioning the camera.
3. Now if I go back to the front view here, I can change my perspective. So right now I'm in perspective mode, but if I change it to a parallel projection mode what that does is it flattens out the perspective and it gives me what's called an orthographic viewport. Now I can navigate this using the pan tool, or the zoom tool, to zoom in. And as you can see, we have a very flat straight on view of our scene.
4. And this is great if I need to draw things along this axis. Now I can use my orbit tool to go out of this, but as you can see the perspective is a little off. And it looks a little bit more like an asymmetric view. Well we can change that by again changing the perspective. So right now we're on parallel projection but we can change it to a perspective view and that gives us more of a normal camera view.
5. Now if we want we can also change the view to another type of perspective and that's called two-point perspective. Now what this does is it gives you that standard drawing technique where you have a vanishing point on either horizon but you have straight lines for the verticals. And so this gives you that kind of standard drawing technique. And this can be great for certain types of presentation. And if we want to we can, again, just go back into perspective mode and that will give us a normal view.
6. So as you can see there are three different types of perspectives. We have parallel projection, perspective, and two-point perspective. And then we can use that in conjunction with standard views to get standard drafting views in our scene.

 
Shade faces and edges

1. Another way to change the way your scene looks is to change the way that SketchUp displays faces and edges. Now we can find these under the View menu, if we scroll down here you'll see we have Edge Style and Face Style. Now I'm going to go ahead and start with faces here and we have a number of options here. I'm going to start off with Wireframe. Now Wireframe basically shows you all the edges in the scene and it creates what's called a Wireframe view.
2. And as you can see we can see all of the objects in the scene without any shading or faces or textures. Now if we go into Hidden Line view what that does is it basically hides any line that you wouldn't normally be able to see. So it gives us a nice outline and kind of gives us a nice monochrome drawing effect of the scene. Now in addition to this we can also show what's called Shaded. Now what this will do is this will add in color.
3. So it'll add in the color of the objects, or the base color of an object that normally has a texture on it. Now if we go to the next option here we have Shaded With Textures. And notice how a lot of these textures now show up. So this is for photographic textures. And then finally we have a mode called Monochrome, which is very similar to Hidden Line mode, except it always renders in kind of black, white, and gray.
4. Now in addition to these modes we also have what's called X-ray and we can toggle that on or off for any mode. So if I leave it in Monochrome and toggle on X-ray notice what happens.We get subtle shading. It's almost like a Wireframe view with a little bit shading. So we get some subtle shading, so we can actually see the surfaces, but we also can see through it to actually see what's inside this building, for example.
5. Now with X-ray turned on I can turn it also on to a Shaded view, so I can see color, or I can also change it to Textures. So X-ray is basically a toggle that works with any one of these modes. So I'm going to go ahead and turn off X-ray mode. And let's go ahead and just put this back onto say a Hidden Line mode. So I'm going to go ahead and show you now what edges can do.
6. Now the reason I turned this onto Hidden Line mode was so we can see the edges a little bit more clearly. Now for Edge Style we can turn Edges on or off, so again, I can turn those on or off. We also have what are called Profiles, which are the external edges. So anything along the outside gets drawn, so if we turn all of that off we don't see anything. But if we were to change that to Shaded view you can see that we get the shading without the edge line. So I'm going to go ahead and turn back on Edges.
7. And as you can see, we now have edges. And again, I'm going to turn it to Hidden Line, so we can see the edges a little bit more clearly. Now we have Edges, we also have Profiles, which again, show the outline of this. So notice how they're a little bit darker. And then we also have what are called Back Edges. So if I want to I can turn on Back Edges and this is very similar to a Wireframe mode, except it's showing us the back-facing edges in dotted line mode.
8. So again, this is just another way to kind of see through your building or structure in SketchUp. Now I'm going to go ahead and turn off Back Edges. And then we have a couple of other styles here. We have what's called Depth Cue and Extension. So I'm going to go ahead and turn off Profiles, and as you can see the dark lines around the edges of these go off, but we can turn on what's called Depth Cue. And you can see this a little bit more clearly with those turned off, and you can see that the lines that are closer are a lot thicker than the lines that are further away.
9. So this gives you kind of a cue as to the depth of the scene. So closer lines are thicker, lines further away are thinner. I'm going to go ahead and turn that off. And then we have one other Edge Style and that's called Extension. Now when I toggle this on or off you may not see this,this is actually a pretty subtle effect. Let me go ahead and zoom in here. What Extensions do is they overdraw the line. So it basically allows the line to look as if it's drawn past the point.
10. So if I turn off Extensions you can see those little extensions go off. And this can be changed on the style of the object as well. So you can make those extensions longer or shorterdepending upon the style you choose for the scene. So again, I'm going to turn on Shaded With Textures here and you can see that we can get back to this view. Now as you can see, a lot of these are presentation-based, you can actually use these to present your drawing as you want, they can also help you with drawing the scene.
11. A lot of times textures may get in the way of what you're looking at, so you may want to turn it down to something like a Shaded or a Monochrome mode to be able to model something a little bit more efficiently.
    

Create shadows and fog

1. If you want to add a bit more realism to your scene, you can also add shadows and fog. These are located in the View menu, under Shadows and Fog. Let's go ahead and just turn those on. I'm going to go ahead and turn on Shadows, and, as you can see, the lighting in the scene changes as well as the shadows. We are actually adding shadows into the scene, and, if we go into the View menu again and add fog, you can see that we can get a foggy scene or, kind of, a depth cue to the scene.
2. These can be toggled on or off, and we can also modify these using a menu. On Windows, Shadows and Fog can be found in the tray, so we can turn Shadows and Fog on or off in the tray. On OSX, it's going to be a separate floating window, but, regardless, the windows are the same. Let's go ahead and find the Shadows window here, and, as you can see, we can change our timezone.
3. We can change the time of day. We can change the date or the month of the year, and we can also change the characteristics of this, so, if I want my light to be lighter and my dark to darker, I can do that, or I can adjust this. I can also turn on Use Sun for Shading and that will change it just a little bit. Now, do we want to display this on the ground or on faces? I can turn this off for faces, so it won't self-shadow, and then this area here, beyond the actual model, is called the ground, so do you want that to show on the actual ground of the scene? Fog is a little bit different, so I'm going to go ahead and turn off Shadows, and let's go ahead and turn on Fog and find the Fog window here.
4. We can turn Fog on or off here in the window, and then we have a minimum and a maximum distance, so, if I want, I can bring the thickest fog closer or push it back, and then I can alsobring the start of the fog closer. As you can see, if I bring these very close together, you can see that effect, so, if I want to, I can basically position the fog anywhere in the scene relative to the camera.
5. We can use the background color of the scene, or, if I turn this off, I can change it to any other color by using a color wheel, so if I wanted to make that green I could do that, or maybe something a little bit more appropriate would be a blue color. As you can see, Shadows and Fog are just one more way to change the way that your scene looks in Sketchup.
   

Create multiple views using scenes

1. When you work in 3D, or draw in 3D, there are many times when you'll need to have different views of your scene handy and available. Now we can do this, in SketchUp,using what are called Scenes. Now, on the Mac, you'll find it under the Window menu. You'll find an option here that says Scenes. On the PC, you want to make sure that Scenes is checked and then that will show up in your tray. Now however you find it, let's go ahead and open up the Scenes menu here.
2. And as you can see we have a plus sign here, and then we also have this option here which shows details. So let's make sure we have Details on. So what we can do is we can position our camera however we want. And then when we get the camera exactly the way that we want, we can hit Add Scene. And what this does is it remembers exactly where that camera was in addition to a bunch of other data. So, it will include camera location, if we want to, we can have hidden geometry layers, all sorts of different settings.
3. And we can also give our scene a name. So let's go ahead and call this one Perspective. Now if we move the camera away from that original location, all we have to do is just double click on this and it will return to that camera position. So this is a great way to remember whereyour camera was at. Now in addition to this, we can use this to aid with things such as drawings. So let's say we wanted a top view. All we have to do is change our standard view to Top.
4. Position our camera and then let's turn on Parallel Projection to get into Orthographic View.Now once I have that, all I have to do is go back into my Scenes window, and hit Add Scene.Then again, we can change the name of this to say Top. And now we have a Top View, and a Perspective View. So if I click on one it will go to that view. So this is a great way to change your view. Now, also notice how in the viewport we have these little tabs.
5. And these do the exact same function. It's probably an easier way to get from one to the other. Now we can also add another one, if we want. So let's go ahead and go to our Top View. And then, change our standard view to say, Front. Maybe position our camera a little bit.And then again, click on Add Scene. And we can change this to Front. So now we have a Front View. A Top View. And a Perspective.
6. Now notice how when I change this how it's animating between each one. Now we can change this by going into the View menu and under Animation we have a Settings option.Then under that Settings, all we have to do is go into See Transitions and just click off Enable Scene Transitions. And that will turn off Animation. So now, it's going very quickly from one view to another. And this will basically speed your productivity as much as you want.
7. And again, we can change our view to whatever we want. Go back to the original view, or go back to any one of those standard views. So as you can see, this is a great way to get the standard views that you would normally use in drawing. As well as remember specific camera angles for your presentations.
   

Configure Toolbars

1. SketchUp has a lot of different tools that we can use. And we can customize the interface to include those tools that we use the most. Now, the process for doing this is different between Windows and the Macintosh. So we're going to go through the Windows version first. And then in the next movie, we'll cover OS X. So, let's go ahead and take a look at Windows. Now, in Windows, we have this toolbar along the top. And this is basically the getting started tool set.
2. This is the bare minimum tools that you need to use SketchUp. Now, we're going to be diving into a lot more tools. And so, if we want to, we can reveal those tools to make them easy to get to. Now, we can do this by right-clicking over a blank spot on this toolbar. And you can see, that we have a whole bunch of different tool kits. Now, the one I like to use the most is called the large tool set. So, when I turn that on, notice how this comes up along the left hand side.
3. And, you can see that we have a lot of different tools. And these are generally, the tools that you'll need the most when working in SketchUp. But these are not the only tools you can use.Again, we can right-click above this. And there are a number of other ones here. So, for example, if I wanted to, I could turn on a shadows menu. And that can change the shadows. I can turn shadows on or off. I can change the time and date and so on. And I can right click again and turn that off.
4. If we want, we can turn on say 3D warehouse toolbar. Now again, these can come up in a number of different places but if we want to rearrange it, all we have to do is hover over this dotted line and we can move it around here. Or we can move it down to give us more space.And again, we can turn these on or off. Now, in addition to this, we also have what's called a tray on Windows. So, by default it's here on the tab. But I can pin it or I can turn on auto hide.
5. Now, I'm going to go ahead and pin this tray. And what's in this tray, can also be customized.So, we have all of these options here. We can check them on or off. So, if I don't want fog in this tray, I could turn it off. Or I can turn on layers. And again these can be toggled on or off.Now, if you want to go a little bit deeper, you can also manage trays and create your own custom trays. So right now, I only have the default tray.
6. And that's whatever I had turned on or off in that window. Now again, I can turn stuff on or off here. Or, I can create a new tray and just add those things I want into that. So, this is just one more way to manage the interface. So, as you can see there's a lot of different ways to organize your interface in SketchUp. Now, I'm going to stick to an arrangement that lookssomething like this. Where I will probably have the large tool kit over here on the left.
7. As well as my tray. So, go ahead and organize your interface the way that you want and we'll move on from there.