Sketchup 2014 For Dummies

592 Pages·2014·11.16 MB·English

by  Aidan Chopra

SketchUp® 2014 For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ
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Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954223
ISBN 978-1-11882266-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-82264-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-
1-118-82276-0 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
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SketchUp 2014 For Dummies , IBM
Limited Edition
Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/sketchup2014 to
view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Started with SketchUp 2014
Chapter 1: Meeting SketchUp
Things You Ought to Know Right Away
Comparing SketchUp to Other 3D Modeling Programs
Jumping right in
Understanding the difference between paper and clay
What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Expect SketchUp to Do
Taking the Ten-Minute SketchUp Tour
Hanging out at the menu bar
Checking the status bar
Taking a peek at the dialog boxes
Chapter 2: Establishing the Modeling Mind-Set
All about Edges and Faces
Living on (with, actually) the edge
Facing the facts about faces
Understanding the relationship between edges and faces
Drawing in 3D on a 2D Screen
Giving instructions with the drawing axes
Keeping an eye out for inferences
Using inferences to help you model
Warming Up Your SketchUp Muscles
Getting the best view of what you’re doing
Drawing and erasing edges with ease
Injecting accuracy into your model
Selecting what you mean to select
Moving and copying like a champ
Rotating the right way
Making and using guides
Painting your faces with color and texture
Chapter 3: Getting a Running Start
Setting Things Up
Making a Quick Model
Slapping on Some Paint
Giving Your Model Some Style
Switching on the Sun
Sharing Your Masterpiece
Part II: Modeling in SketchUp
Chapter 4: Building Buildings
Drawing Floors and Walls
Starting out in 2D
Coming up with a simple plan
Going from 2D to 3D
Adding floors to your building
Inserting doors and windows
Staring Down Stairs
The Subdivided Rectangles method
The Copied Profile method
Raising the Roof
Building flat roofs with parapets
Creating eaves for buildings with pitched roofs
Constructing gabled roofs
Making hip roofs
Sticking your roof together
Chapter 5: Falling in Love with Components
Grouping Things Together
Working with Components
What makes components so great?
Exploring the Components dialog box
Creating your own components
Discovering Dynamic Components
Taking Advantage of Components to Build Better Models
Modeling symmetrically: Good news for lazy people
Modeling with repeated elements
Chapter 6: Going Beyond Buildings
Extruding with Purpose: Follow Me
Using Follow Me
Making lathed forms like spheres and bottles
Creating extruded shapes like gutters and handrails
Subtracting from a model with Follow Me
Modeling with the Scale tool
Getting the hang of Scale
Scaling profiles to make organic forms
Making and Modifying Terrain
Creating a new terrain model
Editing an existing terrain model
Building a Solid Tools Foundation
Understanding solids
Checking out the Solid Tools
Putting the Solid Tools to work
Chapter 7: Keeping Your Model Organized
Taking Stock of Your Organization Options
Seeing the Big Picture: The Outliner
Taking a good look at the Outliner
Making good use of the Outliner
Discovering the Ins and Outs of Layers
What layers are — and what they’re not
Using layers in SketchUp
Staying out of trouble
Putting It All Together
Chapter 8: Modeling with Photos and Other Resources
Painting Faces with Photos
Adding photos to flat faces
Editing your textures
Adding photo textures to curved surfaces
Modeling Directly from a Photo: Introducing Photo-Matching
Looking at all the pretty colors
Getting set up for photo-matching
Modeling by photo-matching
Modeling on Top of Photo Textures
Making a texture projected
Modeling with projected textures: A basic workflow
Adding Geographic Data from Google
Geo-locating your model
Viewing your model in Google Earth
Working with Imported CAD files
Importing a CAD file into SketchUp Pro
Cleaning up imported CAD data
Modeling on top of imported CAD data
Chapter 9: 3D Printing with SketchUp Models
Building Up a View of 3D Printing
Building a Model in Layers
Supporting layers from below
Designing to avoid support material
Bridging
Preparing a SketchUp Model for 3D Printing
The Section Plane tool, your secret cleanup weapon
Solid objects and 3D printing
Groups and components
Using Solid Tools to combine groups
CleanUp3 and Solid Inspector
Using the Intersect tool to combine groups
What about the normals?
Sizes Matter
Too small to print
Too big to print
Breaking Your Model into Parts
Where to cut
How to cut
Exporting Your SketchUp File
Knowing Your 3D Printers
Desktop 3D printers
Professional 3D printers
3D printing services
Using Your 3D Printer
Print early, print often
Inside your model
Going beyond Basic 3D Printing
Designing parts that connect
Testing your model’s moving parts
Designing Things That Move
Captive joints
Pins
Gears
Part III: Viewing Your Model in Different Ways
Chapter 10: Working with Styles and Shadows
Styling Your Model’s Appearance
Choosing how and where to apply styles
Applying styles to your models
Editing your styles
Creating a new style
Saving and sharing styles you make
Working with Shadows
Discovering the shadow settings
Adding depth and realism
Creating accurate shadow studies
Chapter 11: Presenting Your Model inside SketchUp
Exploring Your Creation on Foot
These tools were made for walking
Stopping to look around
Setting your field of view
Taking the Scenic Route
Creating scenes
Moving from scene to scene
Modifying scenes after you make ’em
Mastering the Sectional Approach
Cutting plans and sections
Creating section animations with scenes
Part IV: Sharing What You've Made
Chapter 12: Paper or Cloud? Printing and Uploading Your Work
Printing Your Work
Printing from a Windows Computer
Printing from a Mac
Printing to a Particular Scale
Working with the 3D Warehouse
Why Warehouse?
Getting to the 3D Warehouse
Uploading a model
Managing models online
Chapter 13: Exporting Images and Animations
Exporting 2D Images of Your Model
Exporting a raster image from SketchUp
Looking at SketchUp’s raster formats
Making sure you export enough pixels
Making Movies with Animation Export
Getting ready for prime time
Exporting a movie
Figuring out the Animation Export options settings
Chapter 14: Creating Presentations with LayOut
Getting Your Bearings
Some menu bar minutiae
Perusing LayOut’s panels
Building a Quick LayOut Document
Starting with a template
Inserting SketchUp model views
Adding images and other graphics
Annotating with text and dimensions
Getting Your Document Out the Door
Printing your work
Exporting a PDF
Exporting an image file
Exporting a DWG or DXF file
Going full-screen
Chapter 15: Diving Deeper into LayOut
Staying Organized with Layers and Pages
Using layers to maintain your sanity
Making layers and pages work together
Working with Inserted Model Views
Framing exactly the right view
Making your models look their best
Simplifying Your Life with Auto-Text
Using Auto-Text tags
Customizing Auto-Text tags