I’ve seen similar posts about circles but…I want to draw a circle on an end point of a line with the face of the circle perpendicular to the axis of the line. The line could be anywhere in 3d space and there is not a surface to reference from. The down arrow key at first thought might be the solution but it does not operate to do the above.
Grateful for any assistance here.
Perpendicular Face Tools from the Extension Warehouse.
It also works if you just want a reference face.
Another option would be to use the Pie tool to draw the circle perpendicular to the edge segment. Click and hold at the end of the edge, drag the cursor along the edge to set it up for perpendicular, release and then draw the circle.
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Thank you. Yes native tools preferred. Works a treat. I’d never had found that option!!
You’re welcome. Good to keep the extension in your back pocket. Sometimes it’s the easier way.
huh. I rarely use it, didn’t know about the drag thing.
thanks for the tip ! (chances are, I’ll forget about it though.)
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Another possibility is:
1 - Select the Axes Tool.
2 - Place the tool on the line.
3 - Click the tool.
4 - Slide the tool along the line to orient the red axis.
5 - Click to set the red axis.
6 - Click again anywhere to set the green axis.
7 - Select the circle tool.
8 - Click on the required end of the line. Don’t move the mouse.
9 - Press and release the right arrow to set the circle perpendicular to the red axis.
10 - Move the mouse to draw the circle.
11 - Reset the axes when done.
Dave’s method is faster but, using it, I got a circle with 12 segments. I needed to increase this number to 24, for example. I could also have set the number of segments to 24 (or anything else) before starting the drawing with the Pie tool.
With the Pie tool, a good procedure is:
1 - Select the Pie tool.
2 - Type 24 then press and release the Enter key to ask for 24 segments. Use what you want.
3 - Click on the required end of the line.
4 - Type the radius then press and release the Enter key.
5 - Type 360 (for 360°) then press and release the Enter key to get a full circle.
or after, in the entity info panel 
Or just drag the pie shape full circle as I did.
I did consider that. Does changing the axis affect anything though?
Sometimes the dragging is tricky to complete. Typing 360…brilliant.
To what do you have Angle Snapping set?
Depending on how the model is orbited, dragging on 360° can be difficult.
By orbiting somewhat you can orient the model so that the dragging for the full circle becomes easy.
If the line is a line in your model, then, attach a perpendicular line to the end, and the begin the circle to it and size accordingly.
Love the Pie Tool method Dave 
I tried downloading the Perpendicular Face Tools from the Extension Warehouse, but it doesn’t seem to work with SketchUp 2025 unless I am missing something?
You must be missing something. My first GIF demonstrating it was done in SketchUp 2025.
What happens when you activate the tool? Select the middle but for the circle and pay attention to the Measurements window. What does it show? Before clicking on the end point to place the circle you can change the dimension. Maybe you need to make it smaller or larger?
I don’t have the toolbar Dave? Will check again later.
I am out now watching my local football team Bristol City playing our last game of the season. If all goes well today, and we win the playoffs we will be in the Premier League next year 
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Perpendicular Face Tools should show up in the list. Check in Extension Manager to see that it is enabled. In Extension manager you’ll probably find it listed as CLF Perpendicular Face Tools.
Enjoy watching football. Good luck to Bristol City.
All works now thanks 
I had to select the toolbar from the toolbar menu, but there was also something strange going which stopped the plugin working with my old template from 2024, but the one I created within 2025 works great.
I wonder what in your old template would prevent an extension from working.
It was bizarre Dave. I wish I saved the old template but I kept the same name for my new template and overwrote it. I just drew a 1000 x 1000 x 1000 cube on the old one and drew a line between the corners to get a diagonal to practice with the plugin you suggested, but even the cube looked strange. It was like it had tons of hidden geometry? I recently rebuilt my PC reinstalling windows and I didn’t keep my old template so I created one based on an existing model and deleted everything. Seems not to have been the best way to create a template but the new one works fine