Displaying selected item dimensions

After I have created a model I want to be able to click on an element in the model and have its dimensions displayed in the status bar (either length, width and height or RGB axis lengths). All the entity info shows is volume which is useless. How do i do this? It seems to me there is no way other than using a cutlist extension to export everything to a file and then go and look at it.

Look for Jim Foltz’s Get Dimension. It will pop up a message box with the dimensions of the selected component or group.I have a keyboard shortcut set so I can quickly display the dimensions of the component.

Superb Dave. Very quick response and I even made the shortcut. Easy stuff and works a treat.

I don’t suppose you would know why Sketchup doesn’t do this automatically
as I would have thought a lot of users would want to know the
dimensions of what they are drawing without having to use the tape
measure every time?

Many thanks for your help.
Jeff

I think most users actually don’t care that much about the exact dimensions of what they are drawing. Remember, SketchUp is still primarily an architectural tool.

I mostly use Get Dimensions for quick spot checks and when helping others troubleshoot their models. I find CutList very useful for examining models for bad dimensions though, because I can look through the columns of numbers and quickly see them.

You don’t have to use the tape. Entity info shows things relevant to the selection, but it isn’t smart enough to know what you want, so select an edge and it shows the length, a number of edges and it will give overall length and the number of edges in the selection, select a face and it gives you area and so on and so forth.
And yes I agree it would be nice to have h.w.d of a group natively.

I understand your point. I’m doing a couple of projects at the moment. One is a bed and wanted a quick check to see I was using standard lumber sizes without odd fractions and the other is an outdoor diner where i have to give a list to the lumber supplier. I do use the cutlist extension but sometimes a quick sanity check comes in handy to avoid a long list of odd sized lumber rather than a small list of standard sizes. Just lazy i guess and wanted to save a little time. I know that someone who is a sketchup pro would probably do their modelling a bit different but i get there in my own way.

Thanks

Well, hopefully Jim’s plugin will do what you need. Keep in mind it’s only as good as your set up. If you are using a rather coarse precision setting, you won’t necessarily get good dimensions either from the plugin or from the CutList extension.

If you are making use a components and working precisely, you shouldn’t have problems with dimensions and your list of parts shouldn’t be all that long.

Dave…Get Dimensions’ isn’t showing up in the SketchUcation PlugIn store. Is it still available
?