Hello all!
I am a proficient/experienced SolidWorks user (used professionally as an engineer for 12+ years), and I am really new to sketchup. I have watched a few youtube videos, and did some basic simple layout work as well for my house. I am in the process of designing some storage cabinets for my garage, as well as planning to do some more carpentry / woodworking and general room layout tasks.
One major hurdle I am having a hard time wrapping my head around is how to control dimensions on features or sketches. In SolidWorks - each unique feature has a dimension that is controlled until that sketch or feature is fully defined. I can click on any edge, and change that dimension and the solid model changes. In sketchup, this doesnt seems possible.
Here is an example. I make a rectangle in SU that is 2" x 5", then I realize I want to make it 1" less wide. Normally in SW I would just click the 5" dimension, and then type 4". In SU it seems I have to click on the entire edge, then move it back 1" to the right to yield a 4" width.
This seems like a really backwards way to model to me; instead of controlling the dimension you WANT, you have to continuously offset some known feature.
Is there a way around this that I am not aware of? Any tool that I can apply dimensions to the SU model and use that to drive the feature?