Check out what's new in SketchUp for Schools!

SketchUp for Schools
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Today, we’re launching a few improvements to SketchUp for Web and SketchUp for Schools. Read on for all the details.

Tag Tool
The new Tag Tool enables you to visually apply tags by “painting” them on to entities. It’s grouped with the Tape Measure tool, and selecting it from the flyout menu will automatically open the Tags Panel. Select a tag (or create a new one and make sure it’s selected), then simply click on the entity you want to tag in the modeling window. See it in action:

Here’s a tip: toggle on the Color by Tag option from the Tags Panel for even more visual feedback as you tag entities. For new models created from templates, we’ve also changed the Untagged tag color to white so untagged entities appear uncolored when Color by Tag is enabled.

And another tip: if you already have the Tags Panel open, simply select a tag, and the Tag Tool will activate so you can easily apply that tag in the modeling window.

The Tag Tool has a few modifiers, including Sample tag which works like the Material Sample tool but for tags; Replace All to swap tags for all entities that share a tag; and Tag All Instances of a component. Check the status bar for the appropriate modifier keys for your browser.

Lasso
Lasso is a new selection tool that allows you to draw hand-drawn selection bounds. Activate it from the Select Tool flyout or use the new default shortcut: Shift + Spacebar.

Here’s how it works:

  • Click-drag and move the cursor clockwise to create a window bounding loop, where only entities entirely inside are selected.
  • Click-drag and move counterclockwise to make a crossing bounding loop, where partially contained entities are selected.

Lasso works with the same modifier patterns as Select. So, for example, you can hold Shift to add more entities to your selection.

Freehand Improvements
We’ve made an upgrade to the Freehand tool, so you can create smoother curves. These improved freehand curves generally contain more segments and will more closely mimic your freehand stroke. Immediately after drawing a curve, you can decrease/increase the segmentation of the curve incrementally by tapping Alt/Ctrl on Windows or Option/Command on Mac.

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There are even more updates in the release; check out the Changelog in the About section of SketchUp for Web and SketchUp for Schools for the complete rundown of each update. And as always, please leave us feedback about how these updates are working for you.

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Is there any reason why I can not see the Untagged on the Tag panel?
In this case I can not change the Untagged tag color (or dashes) to anything I like to.
Also, I can not apply Untagged with Tag tool, unless there is an Untagged drawingelement in the model that I can use for Sample…
Why?

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This change to the functionality of Untagged was actually released along with some other feature improvements earlier this year. You can find all of the details here, but I’ve also included the relevant portion below:

“Improving tag management also gave us the opportunity to reconsider some elements of the tags workflow that have been confusing to SketchUp for Web users in the past. One of the changes you’ll notice in the new interface for SketchUp Shop, Free and Schools is the absence of the “Untagged” tag (previously known as Layer 0) along with the notion of assigning an “active tag/layer”. All new geometry or objects you create will be “untagged” by default, until you decide to tag them. To see all Untagged objects, you can simply turn off the visibility of all tags and folders using the new “Master Visibility” toggle.”

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It would be nice to make it difficult for users to tag geometry as this tends to cause all sorts of problems.

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It’s also not immediately obvious how one Untags geometry.
If you explode a group that has been tagged the raw geometry retains that tag, how do you remove the tag from that geometry?

I know how to do it, but it isn’t obvious.

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