Is it possible in SketchUP to create a grid and align a set of objects to it? Now I’m trying to manually move objects along the axis, but this comes out very slowly, because I need to keep the same distance between objects.
In addition the objects still line up slightly non-linear due to the rounded edges of my objects and apparently SketchUP anchors the edges (or corners) of the objects to the axes, not the centers.
It would be nice if I could create a grid and align objects to it.
Thank you! But it would be useful if I didn’t have ready-made objects and started from scratch. I can still delete all but one of the objects and copy it, but all of my objects are different, not the same.
Firstly create your grid using construction lines. Let’s say you want 1.2m centres. Draw the first line on an axis line. Select it and copy it 1.2m away. Then hit xn where n is the number of copies. Do the same thing for the other axis. Now you have a grid with crossing points that are selectable.
If the objects you want to copy have rounded corners, make them into components before moving them into place. Then simply make further copies by using crossing points as source and destination points.
It is much faster to do as Steve suggested if you can, but it may be worth knowing the old school ways too.
There are a few free Grid extensions on the Extension Warehouse, if you really want to pursue that route. They generate a parameterised array of construction line gridlines spaced as you specify, collected into a component (or maybe group - it’s a good while since I used one and I can’t remember).
And always pick a clear point on your component (or group) when you start to place it - by default, a component takes the bottom left corner of object’s bounding box as its origin, and places it with that as the reference point when you drag one out of the Component Browser. For rounded or circular objects, it’s sometimes better or more useful to define the bottom centre, or even the 3D centroid, as the origin.
However, although you will by default place the component or group using its origin, you can always pick some other well defined place - a corner, say, or the midpoint of an edge in the object - as the point to place.
Note: IIRC in earlier versions of SU, if you dragged a component out of the browser a second time, its pick point repeated the position from which you last moved it. I seem to recollect that this changed in later versions, and it is now the origin.
Thanks everyone. I’ve seen these extensions as well as I knew how to do the grid manually. But the problem is not that I cannot build the grid, the problem is that I have a set of unordered elements and I would like them to snap into place with one click, instead of dragging each object manually to the intersections of the lines. I’ve seen an extension that would theoretically help me:
