Guidelines & Tape Measure Tool

SketchUp for iPad
1

Is there a way to trim a guideline made with the tape measure tool??

I know that you can draw lines with the tool, but really no way to control its length.

Any advice?

2

There are a couple of plugins that may do what you want.

Convert to Construction Lines adds a R click context menu to convert a selected edge or edges into a guideline the same length as the original edge.

And there’s another that draws construction lines directly with or without optional guidepoints at its ends.

Have to wait to get access to my computer to find full name and source for these - on my phone at the moment, away from computer.

3

Guidelines are infinite in length. No option to trim them. You can place guidepoints although the dashed line trailing the point isn’t something you can infer from like you can with guidelines.

Except as I understand it SketchUp for iPad doesn’t have any facility to use extensions at this time.

4

Oops - Thanks, @DaveR i didn’t notice the category. Quite right - iPad, like Web version, can’t use plugins.

Maybe make a Feature Request to add finite guides to the iPad and Web toolset?

5

I suppose we could create a guide layer/tag and infer that to be a different line type and use that.

Perhaps we should have a new feature added in so that we could match properties of an entity such as a line with a line type of tag and we could create them that way too.

Any thoughts?

6

I was about to suggest that as a work around, grouping all those lines, of course, so they don’t get entangled with other geometry. I actually do this a fair amount even in desktop.

7

A few quick notes about the Tape Measure tool, in case it’s helpful…

When using the Tape Measure tool to create a guide, you can:

  1. Start by tapping/clicking on an endpoint (of either an edge, or other finite length guideline) to then create a guide with a finite, determined length. You can define the length via the measurements box, as you would any other line.
  2. Start by tapping/clicking on an edge to then create a guide of infinite length that is parallel to the edge you started on.
  3. Start by tapping/clicking elsewhere to then create a guide of infinite length whose vector is determined by the direction you draw in.

Option 1 sounds like it might be helpful for answering the original question.

8

Hi, I might be a little late, but have a question about this.

I can do (and frequently use) the above 2, and also the above 1 from the endpoint without any problem.

However, I would like to know how I can exactly execute the above 1 (finite guideline) from an edge.

The issue I was having was that, when I wanted create an infinite guideline parallel to an edge, sometimes it seemed to create finite guideline perpendicular to the edge. I would like to distinguish the two in the future work process to avoid confusion.

Thanks,

9

Sincere apologies for the confusion @sl59lee. I’ve corrected the typo in my earlier post above.
Instead of typing, “or either an edge…” I was instead trying to type “of either an edge…”

Creating a finite guideline by clicking on an edge is not possible. Creating a finite guideline by clicking the endpoint of an edge is possible.

10

I see

I guess I might have been working among many very long & narrow objects, and happened to snap from an endpoint instead of an edge (against my intention)

Thanks very much for your clarification