Crash Course on Google SketchUp

[Volkster]

Been using Google SketchUp for a few months now and I think I have it sussed :bounce: So I thought I’d try giving a quick Crash Course for those of you who would be interested in trying to use this for designing tank upgrades, etc.

You can download the free version here: http://sketchup.google.com/download.html

I initially found Google SketchUp frustrating and annoying as I couldn’t seem to get it to do what I wanted. The tool itself is easy once you understand what buttons do what…the trick was trying to make something, using the tools they give you. Even sketching up a simple square and trying to move it, drove me up the wall…I ended up with something looking nothing like a square as lines & sides where pulled here and there… ARG Some of you may already have experienced this and simply given up…. I did. It wasn’t until I saw Skippy’s sump and stand draft that I thought I’d give this another go and see how this tool really works, after all they are using this to model up buildings around the world and in detail might I add??

That said…maybe now you want to give it another go or maybe you would like to try it for the first time! Well hopefully this “Crash Course†can help you and save you some of the frustration that some of us went through.

Just a note that this is a basic guide, I will not go though every tool and all the features of the program. There is a Help and Learning Centre section in the program you can go through – good luck with it - I’ll try give you enough info on some of the programs tools to give you a kick-start, hopefully making it easier for you to explore more and start sketching up some real detailed drawings

Some may use the software slightly different, so as with many things there are different ways to do different things so this is NOT “THE†way

THE BASICS

Let’s first have a look at some of the commonly used tools:

Play around and draw some basic lines and shapes, use the push\pull tool on the shapes to create 3D objects, try rotating the shapes and using the Navigation tools to get a feel of the program. Also try moving your object from one place to another, see what happens; this is what a lot of us get frustrated at!!

Tip:

If you want more details with each tool you can also select “Instructor†from the “Window†drop-down list. Select a tool and you will see an animation with some instructions.

Tip:

When drawing your shapes, note the bottom right of the Google SketchUp window you will see a box with some writing to the left of it, depending what tool you have selected. This will help with your measurements. You can also enter in the measurement you want instead of using the mouse to get your exact measurement. Just enter in the value and hit the Enter key - vwala!

Tip:

You can also zoom in and out using your mouse wheel. If you press and hold your mouse wheel and move your mouse around you will see the view swivel. This can be very useful and can save you having to select these 2 navigation tools from the menu. I have sometimes have to use this while I’m actually trying to move and object from one place to another. So I have 3 buttons down at once – lol – which is better and quicker than having to switch back and forth between the tools, I can now do it in just about 1 movement

Here is a section from the Quick Reference from the Help menu:

If you can, print out the Quick Reference PDF Card, it will come in handy especially if you want to know the shortcuts to selecting the tools

Some basic shapes\things to draw:

Draw a Rectangle and use the Pull tool to create a box, using the Eraser tool - click on the top piece\pane (or use the Select tool and hit the delete key). Now using the Brush tool give the box a material type. Try different ones, especially the Translucent type.

Here’s an example:

Try drawing a sketch tank, or some PVC pipe. Don’t try moving any objects just yet view around and take note what happens when you use the Brush tool. Look at the other side of the piece\pane you have just brushed.

The above is mainly if you’re a first time users of the program, to familiarise you with the basics. For others who have the basics sorted but can’t quite get to the next step because you find the program annoying frustrating coz it just ain’t doing what you want it to do… here is where things may become easier

Next step we will do is “Groupingâ€. This is the secret that will solve a lot of your frustrations. When I realised this moving and putting drawings together became a piece of cake. I’ve used CAD and other similar programs in the past and there was always a tool that made it easy to move objects around.

Up until now when you use the move tool on an object it just moves the pane or line you have selected and your sketch ends up something link this:

All I tried to do here was moving it to the left here and right there… ARG “Where’s my hammer?!!!â€

ANSWER: You first need to Group the object you have just drawn and make it as one component, then you can use the Move tool.

To do this:

1 – Using the Select tool, click & drag a box around your whole object and let go the mouse button. Everything that is in the selected area should then be highlighted in blue:

2 – Right click the object and select “Make Group†from the dropdown menu. This will “lock†the object shape.

3 – Now you can move the object using the Move tool.

Tip:

When selecting the object to group, you may need to position your view in such a way that makes it easy to select the object you want to group as you could group another line or shape.

Tip:

When grouping an object, it gets seen as one component so if you use the Brush tool it will apply the change to the whole object - as long as you have not used the Brush tool on the object before.

Ungrouping (Explode):

You can also ungroup an object that has been grouped by right clicking on the object and selecting “Explode†from the drop down menu. You would do this if you need to edit the object in any way; as once the object has been grouped it is “lockedâ€, as I mentioned earlier

That’s pretty much it in terms of using some of the tools.

PUTTING TOGETHER THE PIECES

The art comes in when trying to use these basic tools to develop more detailed models. Doing this is where it can become quite a challenge.

Many of us draw what we see in our minds as a whole. This is easy on paper but using computer software it’s a little more difficult. The trick is to break everything down to simple shapes before we start “drawing the pictureâ€. Easier said than done, I know!!

So how is this done? Let’s take a look at a 140cm (L) x 50cm (W) x 50cm tank (H) with a corner overflow and some bracing using 10mm glass. What do we need to build the tank? For a start we need 5 pieces of glass (front, back, left, right and bottom pieces), then we have some smaller pieces of glass for the bracing and then some for the overflow. So in total we need roughly 12 pieces of glass.

Then we break each piece down to a basic shape. In this case it’s pretty simple as they will all be rectangular.

Then using the tools in Google SketchUp we construct each piece separately and once each piece is made, we stick them together. So really what we are doing is “virtually†(in the sense of the virtual world) building a tank as if you where the tank maker. Step by step, piece by piece.

To make this easier to visualise and understand I’ll explain by “building†the tank mentioned above.

For this example, each piece should be drawn separately.

Bottom Glass -

1. Draw a 50cm x 140cm rectangle

2. Pull the rectangle up 1cm

3. Select the entire piece and group it

4. Brush it with the “Translucent_Glass_Blue†material

Back Glass -

5. Draw a 1cm x 140cm rectangle

6. Pull that up 48cm (Note: The total hight is 50cm that includes the bottom glass and the bracing which are 1cm thick)

7. Select that piece and group it

8. Brush it

Side Glass -

9. Draw a 48cm x 1cm rectangle (Note: The total width is 50cm that includes the Back and front glass pieces which are 1cm thick)

10. Pull that up 48cm

11. Select that piece and group it

12. Brush it

Overflow Glass -

13. Draw a 1cm x 15cm rectangle

14. Pull that up 45cm

15. Select that piece and group it

16. Brush it

17. Using the Move tool, select the piece and hit the Ctrl key – Doing this will create another copy of the object you selected – very handy =)

18. Using the Rotate tool, select the top of the copied piece and rotate it 90 degrees

19. Using the Move tool, join them together. Make sure they are aligned correctly

Note: Google SketchUp should auto alight the object to the “Endpoint in Groupâ€

20. Select the 2 pieces and group them

Assembling the Glass -

“Assembling†each piece can be tedious. This is where all the navigation tools come in handy and the mouse. You man need to zoom, pan and swivel around to get the perfect view to move and assemble the objects.

You should have something similar looking to this; the arrows are where each piece is going to be moved to.

1. Using the Move tool, click on the left, outer corner side of the back glass and move it towards the left, back upper corner of the bottom glass piece - like so:

2. Using the Move tool, click on the left, outer corner side of the side glass and move it towards the edge corner where the back and bottom glass - like so:

Note: I’ve rotated the view around to get a easier view to move the object.

3. Using the Tape Measure tool, measure 15cm from right, bottom back corner to the left – line in red is the direction measured and the circle is where the Tape Measure tool should make a mark.

Note: Make sure you have “Guides†selected in the View menu or you will not be able to view your guide lines/marks.

4. Now using the Move tool, click on the bottom outer corner of the overflow piece and move\join it to the mark you made above – like so:

5. Now using the Move tool, click on the left, front, bottom corner of the back glass, hit the Ctrl key to make a copy of it and move new piece to the front of the bottom glass – like so:

6. Now copy and join the side glass to complete the tank – see if you can do this with out the details

You should see this:

Bracing –

Try creating the bracing yourself, this will be a good test to see if you have got a good grasp of the basics. See if you end with something similar to this:

Tip: As you can now understand, it can take hours to create something simple. If you think someone else may have already created something or something similar use the “Get Models†tool to search for drawings other people may already have created. This is also handy if you are trying to create something but are not too sure what to do. You can break down and back track someone else’s model to get an idea of the steps they took, etc.

Here are some people’s models I imported:

Complete detailed tank setup

Someone’s detailed sump setup

Here is a picture of my lounge, it's not layed out this way yet – it’s an old sketch so the tank I have now (drawn elswhere) will replace the one I have drawn up here. The good thing about this program is that if you create you drawings in true scale, you can see how it may look before it’s actually in. Helps with positioning and gives a much better vision on how it will end up looking.

The Sony TV, DVD player, plants and macro algae are all imported - everything else I created. The person who created the TV must have spent hours…it’s an exact replica of my model TV. Also my current wall colour is white… I was playing around with wall colours handy hey!

Well I hope that you will find this basic guide useful. Should at least get you going, soon you will be able to do much more complex drawings and hopefully will help you with your tank upgrades… at least for those of us who are upgrading

Happy drawing and good luck!

Wayne

[OscarBoy]

i use this program at school 4 graphics its a really good program if u know how to use it :lol: we spent like a week learning how to use it

[Wok]

wicked free program

I use it at work for drawings.

easy to use and FREE.

[OscarBoy]

its prety good ae wok? and especially because its free