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 Component Window

Create Components

Use the 3D Warehouse

Use the Component Options Window

Use the Interact Tool

Script

Work With Components
 
The component window

1. As you build more and more complex objects in SketchUp, you may want to save those objects and use them over again. You may also want to share your object with others,or download other peoples' objects from the Internet. We can do all of this using components.So let's take a look at some of the basics of components. Now it all starts with the Components window. If you're on the Mac, you'll find that under Window and you'll see an option for Components. Or if you're on the PC, it should be in your Default Tray, and that's where I'm going to access this.
2. Now the Components window basically just shows a list of object that are available for you in the scene. Now if we want to take a look at the basics of this, you can see that we have three tabs. Select allows you to select a component, either from the scene or the internet. Edit allows you to edit existing components. And Statistics gives you information on the currently selected component. So let's go ahead and start off with Select.
3. Now in the Select window, you can see that we have some options here under these tabs. So the first one is just a View menu here so we can view this using Thumbnails, or we can have Details that include a thumbnail, or a List. I'm going to keep this on Details. Now we also have a Home button, and that just brings you to the components that are currently in the model.Now over here, we have a Navigation tab.
4. Now by default, this is on the In Model tab which basically just shows you components that are currently in the model. We can also go down to other types of components such as Favorites. We have a Components Sampler, which are all sorts of different components that SketchUp gives you. We have a thing called Dynamic Components Training, which again are just some additional objects. Then we also have some by categories. So if we go for example to Architecture, notice how it gives us a little bit of a load time here because these are getting loaded from the Internet, and these are loaded from what's called the 3D Warehouse, which is SketchUp's online repository.
5. Now if we take a look at these architectural objects, you can see it's everything from cabinetsto air conditions to shopping carts, and so on. And these also include a number of other types of things. So we have construction objects here so if we want to take a look at those, you can see that we have things such as foundations, connections, stairs, wood framing, and so on.Now let's go ahead and go back into our Components Sampler.
6. Now as you can see, we've got a number of different types of components, but in there somewhere you should be able to find one called Car Sedan, or some sort of vehicle. And let's go ahead and just left-click on this and then just drag into the scene. And as you can see, it brings in this car. Now if I left-click again, it actually places that object in the scene. And as you can see, this looks a lot like a group. And in fact, it works almost identically to a group.
7. So if I double-click on this, you can see that I can open this up and select additional parts,such as the tires or the doors of this object. And if I left-click off of that, that closes the component. Now this component acts just like a group. I can move it. So if I go to my Move tool here, I can move it anywhere I want in the scene. I can also rotate it. So if I wanted to I could say rotate this by 90 degrees, and then go back to my Move tool and place this in the driveway.
8. Now let's take a look at some other types. We can scroll down here, for example, I have a mailbox. So if I wanted to, I can left-click on that mailbox, drag it into the scene, and place it on the sidewalk. So as you can see, this is a great way to quickly populate your scenes in SketchUp, either with vehicles, people, foliage, whatever you want. So go ahead and take a look at what the components offer, and we'll go ahead and move on from there.
   

Create Components

1. Now let's take a look at how to create our own components. The process is really very straightforward and it's almost as easy as grouping objects, but with a few extra details.So let's start off by making a few propane tanks for this trailer. So I'm going to start off with my Circle tool, so the hotkey for that is C, and I'm just going to go ahead and drag out a small circle, maybe somewhere around that size here, and then use my Push/Pull tool to pull that up.
2. I'm just going to go ahead and pull that up just a little bit here, and then hit Control, and then pull it up again, then hit Control one more time, and pull it up. So what I've done is I've createdkind of a cylinder, but with two rings here. So now I'm going to make this look a little bit morelike a propane tank, so I'm going to go ahead and just select this face here, and use my Scale tool to diagonally scale it this way just a little bit, as well as this way.
3. Actually I'm getting a little bit here, so I'm going to go ahead and shrink that down, and there we go. So that looks reasonably like a propane tank. So if I want to make this into a component all I have to do is select the appropriate geometry and then we can do this in a couple of places. We could do Edit, Make Component, use the hotkey G, or we can right-click above it and do Make Component. Regardless of how you do it, you're going to get this menu here. And this allows us to create the component.
4. So we can give this a name, for example, I can give it a name of Propane Tank, a Description if we want, we also have some options for Alignment. If you want to Glue this to Any surface,to Horizontal surfaces only, Vertical, or Sloped surfaces. And then we can also Set the Component Axes, which are how the red, green, and blue axes align with the object itself.Now I have additional options, some are grayed out.
5. One is to do a Cut opening, we'll take a look at that in just a bit. We can always have this face the camera, which is great for things where you have a flat that you want to place into the scene and have that always face the camera. And then if it always faces the camera do you want the shadows to always face the sun? And then the final option here is do we want to Replace the selection with the component? And yes, we do want to do that, so let's go ahead and hit Create. And when we do that it creates a component, and we can now select this component, and we can use our Move tool to move it wherever we want.
6. So if I wanted to move it up here on the front I can, and then just use my arrow keys to align this however I want. Now once I've created that component it will show up in the scene, so if I go into Components see how I have my Propane Tank. So all I have to do is left-click on this,drag it, and now I have a second one in the scene, and again, I can place that in the scenehowever I want.
7. So as you can see, it's very easy to create components that can be brought into the scene.Now let's do something a little bit more complex. And we're going to go ahead and create a window for this trailer that actually cuts an opening. So let's go ahead and create it over here on the left side of the trailer. So I'm going to go ahead and zoom in here, and again, let's use the Circle tool, and I'm going to position this somewhere around the center here, and just drag it out so it's somewhere around the width of that stripe, maybe just a little bit less.
8. Once we've done that I'm going to create an offset to create a window frame. And again, I'm just estimating distances here, we're not going to do anything really specific. And so that looks kind of like a window with a window frame, but the window frame is going to project a little bit from the surface there, so again, we can use Push/Pull and pull that out maybe about an inch or so. So now that I have this you can see I have something that resembles a window,and if I want to I can select this inner face here and just hit Delete.
9. And what that does it is it actually creates a little hole there. And so now I have an object herethat actually creates a hole. So now let's go ahead and turn this into a component. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to marquee select just this window. Now notice how I've accidentally selected part of this, so I'm going to go ahead and Shift deselect this, and I want to make sure that I don't select anything on that opposite wall. So I'm going to deselect these edges, as well as these faces.
10. And all I want selected is just that window. So now that I have that selected, again, I can make it into a component. So I can either select it from the menu, hit G, or right-click, Make Component, and we can give this a name. So let's give it a Porthole Window. The Description.We can Glue it to Any type of surface, and in this case we want to Cut the opening, and that's the opening that we just created.
11. And let's go ahead and do Create. And when I do it creates that object as a component. And now I can use my Move tool to move that around if I want to, and it will move the hole as well.Now if I want to add a second window all I have to do is select that Porthole Window, and then drag it into the scene, and left-click again. Now notice what happens when I left-click, it actually cuts that hole. So it's actually cutting a second hole here.
12. So let me go ahead and adjust this up a little bit. There we go. So now I have two windowsand they're both cutting a hole. So this component is actually affecting the geometry underneath it. Now if we want we can select this Porthole Window and select Edit, and you can see that we have the option to Cut the opening and I'm going to go ahead and switch that off, and notice how it gets rid of that opening in both components. So I can actually do this after the fact.
13. So those are some of the basics about how to create your own components in SketchUp.

 
Use the 3D warehouse

1. One of the nice things about SketchUp is that it has a really good community of users, and these users like to share their work. Now, they share their work through an internet site called 3D Warehouse. Now, you can find it in a number of ways. Probably the easiest way is to go into File, 3D Warehouse, Get Models, and that will bring you to the 3D Warehouse.Now, it's also at 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com. Now, when you go there, you'll see an interface like this.
2. And this interface gives you all sorts of different categories and types of objects to select. And if you want to, you can search the warehouse however you want. Now, another way to get to the 3D Warehouse is through the Components window. If you go here into Components, or pull it down from the Window menu on the map, you'll see that we have a tab here that says 3D Warehouse, and we can type in whatever type of object we want. So, if we wanted to take a look at say, stoves, you can search the warehouse, and it will bring up a list of stoves that you can use in your projects.
3. Now, we can also do this from the 3D Warehouse browser, so if we go into 3D Warehouse, Get Models, we can type in really whatever we want. So if wanted to say, type in Eiffel Tower, and hit search, this will bring up dozens of Eiffel Towers that we can actually drag into our scene. Now actually let's do something that's a little bit more practical. Now, I'm working on a pool house, so let's go ahead and pull in a barbecue set for that.
4. So I'm just going to type in the letters BBQ for barbecue and again, do a search. And as you can see, this brings up all sorts of different types of barbecues. But if we want, we can also search by other criteria, such as manufacturers. Now, most of the major manufacturers provide their models to SketchUp so you'll have accurate models of all the different types of appliances. So, if you type in the name of an appliance manufacturer, such as Kitchen Aid, and hit Search, you'll see that we get all sorts of different Kitchen Aid appliances.
5. Now, if you scroll down, you'll probably find an outdoor barbecue. So I found this one here, so I'm going to go ahead and left-click on that. And that looks pretty good. Now, you can also see other information about this, like how many polygons it has, when it was last modified, who created it, and so on. So I'm just going to go ahead and select Download. Now, this will ask me if I want to download this directly into my SketchUp model. I'm going to select Yes,and now that window goes away and here comes my barbecue.
6. So I can go ahead and set that on the patio. I can move it wherever I want, and in this case it's facing the wrong way, so I'm going to select my rotate tool and just go ahead and rotate that 180 degrees. And now once I have that in the scene, I can position it however I want. Now that I have the barbecue in there, I also need something else, maybe a patio set. So let's go ahead and bring in a patio set.
7. So instead of going to the 3D Warehouse this way, let's go into the Components window and let's just type in patio set into the search box. And this goes out to the internet to 3D Warehouse, and it finds all sorts of patio sets. Now, this list may be a little bit different depending upon what assets are available. So let's go ahead and select a patio set, left-click and drag, and bring that in.
8. Now, once I bring this in, it is a component that is available to my model and I can now bring it in wherever I want. So as you can see, the 3D Warehouse is a very powerful way to get assets for your SketchUp scene. There are literally hundreds of thousands of objects available, and you can bring all of those into your SketchUp scenes.

 
 
Use the Component Options

1. In SketchUp, components don't just have to be objects. They can also have intelligence. Now, these are called dynamic components. And let's go ahead and take a lookat how some of these work. Now, I have my Components window open here in my default tray. If you're on the Mac, go ahead and open it under the Window pull down menu. Now, in this, we can actually find dynamic components under Dynamic Components Training and we have a number of these here but I've already loaded some into this basic scene.
2. So if we go to In Model, you'll see we have a couple of components already here. So I'm going to scroll down and select Fence. So this is the first one we'll take a look at. So I'm going to go ahead and left click this, drag it into scene and let go. So now, this is just a basic picket fence but it is a dynamic component so if we scale this, watch what happens. So I'm going to go ahead and select this and scale it along the red axis and when I do, look what happens.
3. The pickets actually fill in the gaps so the scale of this is actually informing the component how many pickets we need. So if I were to scale this back, again, it will fill in the number of pickets and this is a great way to use dynamic components. You can have one simple fence component that can be expanded to whatever size you need. Now, in addition to this, we can look at options for each component.
4. All I have to do is select this and right click over this. We can go Dynamic Components, Component Options and when I do, you can see that this has some options for it and in this case, the only option is the spacing of the pickets. So right now, this is five inches but if I wanted to, I could say type in eight inches and the pickets would be further apart. And again, this will work regardless of how you scale it. So if I were to scale this up again, these will fill in at eight inches apart.
5. So I'm going to go ahead and select this component and delete it out of the scene and let's go ahead and take a look at the next one. So I'm going to scroll up and here we have a Basic Shelving Unit so again, I'm going to left click on this and bring it into the scene. Now, the Basic Shelving Unit works a little bit differently. Now, if I want to scale this, you'll see that actually I can't. It's restricted from scaling and that's one feature of dynamic components is that you can restrict people from manipulating your objects by scaling or whatever but again, if we right click over this and go into Dynamic Components, we can see we have a lot more component options.
6. So I have a pull down menu here so I can actually change the color of this. Now, notice when I change this, the little Apply button shows up. So I do have to hit that. So when I hit Apply, it changes the color to red or I can change the color to say cherry wood and again, it will change the material applied to the object. Now, we have a couple of options here that we can actually type in. So I can type in a new depth so instead of 12 inches, let's do 16 inches and it'll make it a little bit deeper and let's go ahead and make this taller.
7. Let's make it say 96 inches. Now, watch what happens when I increase the height. It actually fills in the gaps with shelves. So again, this is very similar to what happened with the picket fence is that as this gets bigger, it will go ahead and fill in the space with objects. And then of course, we can also change the width if we want to. Now, another thing we can do is we can change the thickness of the material so if I wanted to say change this to four centimeters, I can apply that and again, it will make those boards thicker.
8. So this is just another way of working with a dynamic component. Now, if I select this again and delete it, I can go onto the next one which is this one called Cafe Table and again, I'm just going to left click and drag it into the scene. Now, again, I'm going to select this, right click over it, go to Dynamic Components, Component Options. Now, this again gives me a little bit of instructions about this but also it gives me some more interesting options here.
9. So I can change the type of base, I can change the color of this as well as the style so I can make it a square yellow base and again, I have to hit Apply. So now, we have a square yellow base and the tabletop size I can change as well. So I wanted to make the tabletop a different size. And notice how these actually have different dollar amounts. So a smaller table will be a little bit less expensive and then we can also change the type of shape of this and again, we can apply this.
10. Now, notice how this is actually calculating a manufacturer's suggested retail price. It's also changing the part number depending upon what options I choose. So if you're a manufacturer, you can use dynamic components in conjunction with SketchUp Pro to create your own custom object. So as you can see, components are not just static options. They can be dynamic and they can change according to however you set their options.

 
Use the Interact Tool 
Now let's take a look at the Interact tool. Now, interaction is just another feature that you can have on dynamic components. So if you set up a dynamic component in SketchUp Pro, one of the things you can do is add interactivity. Now, the interact tool is really very, very simple. So, under Tools we have the Interact tool. And it looks just like, basically, a little hand. And if you hover over something, it'll come up as either I can't interact with this, which is basically the no sign there.
Or if I can, it won't change. So, here I can say click to activate. So I can actually open these cabinet doors. And this is great for if you are designing something, such as a kitchen, where you want to make sure that the refrigerator doesn't bump in to the stove when you open it and that sort of thing. So I can, for example, open or close the dishwasher. I can also open and close the drawers. And that's basically all you get to do with the Interact tool, but, as you can see, it can be a very handy tool to use in conjunction with SketchUp Pro to make your models interactive.