Anyone else stumped by Sketchup?

[dlminehart]

OK, I'll admit to not having done the entire tutorial, and to having done that partial tutorial a couple months ago. But I still find the Sketchup application way too difficult for someone who's not planning on living and breathing it for weeks on end. Just doing simple things, like making a rectangular solid out of three cubes (e.g., a cabinet base that'll have 3 compartments), and then putting a 2"x2" rectangle on the top back edge of that (e.g., a fence to serve as the back of my CMS setup), turns into a 15 minute project that never succeeds.

How to get the 2x2 the same length as the cabinet? I first made a rectangle in top down view, visually aligned with the cabinet below it. Couldn't extrude the 2" rectangle 2" vertically, as I kept selecting the cabinet below it. When I moved the small rectangle out of the way, I inadvertently selected part of the cabinet as well, thereby breaking up the sides and back of some of the cabinet components. Tried to extrude opposing sides to reconstitute the cubes, but instead of extruding, the sides "collapsed" down so the open-sided cube was now smaller.

Contrast this with Design Intuition, which may lack the clever curvilinearities of Sketchup (which I can actually do without), but which takes all of about 15 minutes to master. Guess one gets what one pays for . . .

[pierhogunn]

when using the extruder tool, did you mouse over to the face of the solid that you wanted to match the length on?

or when you created the cabinet, did you use the keyboard to specify the dimensions, and then use the keyboard to specify the dimensions for the new piece that you were trying to create?

finish the tutorials, time well spent, or if not, ask as many Q's as you like, I'm sure some of the other sketchers round here will dog-pile with glee

[Tequila]

1) Make a rectangle the size of the top of the cabinet.
2) Extrude it to the height of the cabinet
3) Draw a rectangle on the front of the cabinet that's the size of the first compartment.
4) Extrude that rectangle most of the depth of the cabinet.
5) Repeat steps 3 & 4 two more times for the other compartments.
6) Select all, Right click, pick "Make Component"

7) Draw a 2x2 square.
8) Extrude it to the same size as the cabinet. You can start to extrude it in the direction you want, then just type in the length and hit enter.
9) Select all except the cabinet, Right click, pick "Make Component"

10) Move the fence to where you want it on the cabinet.

All of this is covered pretty well in the tutorial. I STRONGLY recommend that you go back and complete it.

[cgallery]

I learned SketchUp using this video tutorial:

http://www.garymkatz.com/Video/BookcaseTutorial3.wmv

The link seems touchy as I post this, but it is normally pretty solid.

More good SketchUp info at the www.garykatz.com site.

[downtheroad]

Gary Katz has 2 excellent instructional videos on his website.....
Sketchup Tutorial: Drawing a Bookcase Using Groups & Components
Sketchup Tutorial: Using Layers to Create Animation
http://www.garymkatz.com/recent_articles.html

He also has other files there that were done using Sketchup, ...lots of good info.

[JR]

I'm with you, Dave. It doesn't act like anything else I've used, so the learning curve is exceptionally steep.

I gave up.

JR

[radhak]

I agree - Sketchup is not easy. I like using software to make my life easier, and SU seems to be the ideal tool for WW-ing; am tired of my own paper scribbles. But I can't say I am confident with SU yet, despite quite a bit of effort. If I had to do something in a hurry, paper-and-pencil is the way to go for me (as yet).

Have gone thru a ton of the video help and etc, and have felt empowered after each, but when it comes to my own thing, i seem to be all thumbs (and i consider myself good on the computer). many a times simple things like keeping a new surface on the same plane as an earlier one messes me up. and have not yet conquered the 'rotation' tool. never seems to rotate around the axis i want...

for all that, i am hoping it's just a matter of practice, and shall persevere. after all, so many others can't be wrong. and of course, i dare not invest in any other tool for fear they might fare the same, and me having paid for them to boot !

[mschrank]

One of the big breakthroughs for me with SU was learning to make "groups" or "components" (the main difference is that "components" can be saved and used in other SU projects), as mentioned above.

Group things logically...I usually start at a pretty base level. Each board, panel etc gets made into a group. Then as these are assembled, I'll "group the groups" until I have the whole thing complete. Then I might make it into a "component"

Easy way to make groups: Double-click on a 2D drawing or triple-click on a 3D drawing to select all the connected faces and edges. Right click and select "Make group"

[John Hunter]

I have been very happy with sketchup, the tutorials were a big help. Has anyone else used the 3D Warehouse? http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ When I was doing a layout of my shop it was great to download all the woodworking equipment from there.

[mschrank]

I have been very happy with sketchup, the tutorials were a big help. Has anyone else used the 3D Warehouse? http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ When I was doing a layout of my shop it was great to download all the woodworking equipment from there.

Thanks for the link, John. I'd visited that site in the past but there's been a whole lot more added since then.

FOI-Enter "woodworking" in the search box

[gad5264]

I was away for a few days and got this email link while I was gone. I have not checked it out to much but thought I would post it.

http://www.aidanchopra.com/

[dlminehart]

Thanks to the tips here, I'm making some progress. Main thing is that, unlike other software I've used, SketchUp's primitive objects are not automatically grouped. I.e., in Illustrator, if I make a rectangle, that rectangle is automatically grouped, so I can move it. With SketchUp, one has to make everything into groups immediately upon creation, or the various sides will stick to other stuff in the vicinity.