How to scale about center of geometry

Why is it impossible to Scale an object with precision?

you wrote quite a long and angry comment, instead of just learning how scale tool works. Seems strange :slight_smile:

Perhaps, this will help?

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One can enter absolute or relative coordinates.

• Square brackets indicate an absolute coordinate … [0,0,0]
• Angle brackets indicate a relative coordinate … <12,24,36>

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8 minute videos will never be my preference, i prefer actual focused documentation.

Over time, actual focused documentation and SketchUp have become mutually exclusive terms.

• See line item 6 of this help article.
https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/moving-entities-around

The attached PDF manual is for SketchUp version 6, but most of the instructions are still relevant today. See pages 105-110 for detailed information on the Move tool and pages 116-119 for info about the Scale tool.

ug_sketchup_win.pdf (3.0 MB)

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If you make the object a component (SketchUp can’t tell it’s an “object” otherwise) the scale tool will align to the axes of the component. Reset the axes to align how you think the object is aligned. Look at Fredoscale plugin for more options and better control. With Fredoscale you can use faces in the selection to align the orientation of scaling.

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Select the group, active the ScaleTool, Hold down the CTRL key (a red box at the center appears,) select one of the corner grips to get uniform scale about center tooltip, and (whilst holding CTRL) scale a little bit up or down doesn’t matter, let go of mouse and release CTRL. Then type 0.5 ENTER.

Your group is now 1/2 the scale it was before.


FYI, we do not delete topic threads. We leave them to be read by others who need the same answers.

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OK, let’s check official help.
https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/scaling-your-model-or-parts-your-model
It says:
Click to set your selection’s new scale. Or type the desired scale dimensions and press Enter.

Note: Technically, in Step 5, you can type a dimension, such as 2m or 3" , instead of a scale dimension. However, scaling based on a dimension with the Tape Measure is generally more intuitive.

So what’s wrong here? This is an official documentation.

Actually, first video is 49 seconds. Possibly shorter than it took you too type your angry post.

An why you deny short focused videos on official SketchUp channel as a form of documentation? At least there is a choice for people with different preferences.

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If you really must know the OP’s feelings see their previous rant against the forum and SketchUp help …

That kind of discussion can be added to that previous thread,
… and leave this one on the topic of scaling geometry.

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With Scale, native tool (as @pbacot wrote). Any grip point can be chosen for scaling.

With a plugin - FredoScale

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Yeah!