Drawing Trick?

You know what it’s like to zoom in and use X-ray and orbit and hide components, etc etc, in order to lock in to the exact first registration point with the line tool or tape measure. And then you’ll zoom and use X-ray, etc, etc, to find the second point, only to discover that you missed it or registered it to the wrong thing. At that point, one has to start again. Is there any way, that if a person is absolutely certain of the first registration point, to lock the pencil or tape measure on to it, so that different end points can be tested for alignment without having to go back and lock in the first point every time??

On a slightly related matter… I have recently set up a keyboard shortcut, ‘SHIFT X’, to hide or unhide everything in the model that is not being edited. I grabbed that little trick from a YouTube video. I think it was a What a fantastic short-cut this has turned out to be. It has made my modelling so much easier. Never again will I find myself zoomed or orbited on the wrong side of a wall and have to hit ‘SHIFT Z’ to go to zoom extents to get re-oriented.

I’m not entirely sure what you are up to.
But you can set up a first scene with the first endpoint in closeup saved.
And certain other points in other scenes if necessary.
Note that you can switch between scenes (say from first to second, back to first, then to third etc. while keeping the ‘Line’ tool active).
Also set the transition time between scenes low, even down to zero seconds. It won’t “hurt” the tool that is curently active while drawing, etc.

You can start your edge and then leave the second end in space, if you think you are in the wrong place. zoom out and use the move tool to move the endpoint to the right intersection. Can’t do the same with a guide however. If your first drop is in an accessible space in spot you can try multiple second intersections and undo between tries.

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Well, you can absolutely lock in a specific axis while you go about orbiting and toggling x ray. But as far as I know, if you finish the line, that’s that. Going back to the place where the first point is placed already isn’t gonna happen without doing it over. And now that you mention it, this would be helpful. In Adobe illustrator you can do a simple undo and it will go right back to the active line with original anchor.

It works the way I suggested, no? You decide you don’t have the second point. Click in space or on a face. Use move tool to try again. You can try other points and undo to go back to undetermined point.

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Thank you!! I can’t believe I’ve been using SketchUp for 7 months and didn’t think to use the ‘move’ tool to adjust a line end location. This is exactly the tip I’ve been looking for.

And using ‘scenes’ as a way to get around this little problem is also a great tip. I haven’t played around a whole lot with setting up different scenes for anything other than a quick way to show different perspectives. On reflection, I think John McLenahan mentioned something about this tip to me awhile ago, but I’d forgotten.

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It doesn’t have to be a saved scene, per se. In the large toolset, there is a Zoom Previous that would take you to the Previous camera position automatically. There is also a Zoom Next command, available in the Mac user interface:
Schermafbeelding 2021-06-01 om 15.37.32
Schermafbeelding 2021-06-01 om 15.36.28
Not sure if Zoom next is available in Windows toolbars

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I am using a Mac, with the M1 processor. ‘Zoom previous’ and ‘zoom next’ are new to me. I’m thinking that this answers another confounding question. When I’m going backwards a number of steps with ‘CTRL Z’, the model will inextricably zoom out. I had mistakenly thought that ‘Zoom’ was not an edit step that could be redone or undone. Thanks for the valuable tip Mike. It might be worth setting up a keyboard short-cut to ‘zoom previous’.

It’s not an ‘editing’ step, it’s a camera thing. (btw. Ctrl Z does nothing, unless you have set up a short cut. Cmd z simply undoes the editing step)
You can drag the icons while customizing the toolbar or set up a shortcut:
start typing the functio in [menu] SketchUp > Preferences > Shortcuts

The number is limited, though ( I believe 5 camera positions)

Yes, of course. ‘Ctrl Z’ would have been a vestige of my years using Windows.

I had just set up that Camera/Previous short cut and anticipate it being a very useful tool.

Thanks much!!

No need to apologize. Everyone knows exactly what you meant originally, and there was no confusion on the matter. It is cool that you can actually use control as a shortcut though :slight_smile: